Episode Details

It opens in one of Stalin's prisons: a condemned man writing to the very dictator about to have him shot, still pleading to be trusted. From that chilling scene, historian Geoffrey Hosking sets out to explain one of history's strangest achievements: how we ever learned to trust far beyond the people we know. In Trust: A History, he traces that story across the centuries - through religion, money, and the nation - then carries it right up to now: Russia and Ukraine, an America that no longer looks like the anchor it once was, social media, and the risk of an AI bubble. A wide-ranging, quietly urgent conversation about the invisible force that holds a society together, and how easily it can fall apart.