Beloved radio presenter Richard Fidler and bestselling author and Oxford professor Peter Frankopan share the stage to discuss their richly rendered works of historical non-fiction. Richard is the author of Ghost Empire, The Golden Maze and, most recently, The Book of Roads & Kingdoms, the story of Arab and Persian travellers in medieval China, India and Byzantium. Peter is author of The Silk Roads: A New History of the World and The Earth Transformed: An Untold History, a fascinating account of climate change across human history. Richard and Peter appear in conversation with historian Clare Wright.
Peter Frankopan appears thanks to the support of Tearaway Press.
This event is open captioned.
Richard Fidler (Australian)
Writer-broadcaster Richard Fidler is the author of several books that blend history with travel memoir and mythology: Ghost Empire, a history of Constantinople; Saga Land (with Kári Gíslason), a journey into the sagas of Iceland; and The Golden Maze, the story of the city of Prague. His most recent book, The Book of Roads & Kingdoms, is a collection of accounts written by merchants, diplomats and sailors who travelled from medieval Baghdad to the furthest reaches of the known world.
Peter Frankopan (International)
Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at the University of Oxford, where he has been Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College since 2000. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Geographic Society, he is also President of the Royal Society of Asian Affairs. His books include The New Silk Roads: the Present and Future of the World, which won the Carical Prize for Social Sciences; and The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, that was a Sunday Times Book of the Decade, The New York Times Bestseller, #1 in China, India, UK and beyond, and named one of the 25 most important books translated into Chinese alongside Pride and Prejudice and The Great Gatsby. It was described by the Berliner Zeitung as 'not only the most important history book in years, but the most important in decades.' One of World's 50 Top Thinkers (Prospect), he has been described as "the rockstar historian du jour" (Sunday Times) and the "first great historian of the 21st century" by Brazil's DCM magazine.
Clare Wright (Australian)
Clare Wright is an historian, author, broadcaster, podcaster and public commentator. She is the author of four works of history, including the Stella Award–winning The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka. Her latest book is You Daughters of Freedom, the second instalment of her Democracy Trilogy. Clare co-hosts the Archive Fever podcast and has written and presented history documentaries for ABC Television and Radio National. She is currently a Professor of History at La Trobe University.
