Podcasts · Global Roaming with Geraldine Doogue and Hamish Macdonald

Why Richard Flanagan says Elon Musk's X is the new Spanish inquisition

· 29 min

Episode Why Richard Flanagan says Elon Musk's X is the new Spanish inquisition

0:00 29:08

Australian author Richard Flanagan joins Global Roaming to talk about his new essay collection Heresies. He tells Hamish Macdonald and Waleed Aly why he thinks Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter echoes the public punishment of heretics in the Spanish Inquisition, why he believes Australia is a uniquely conformist nation unable to reckon with its colonial history, and the extraordinary story of a plan to build a Jewish homeland in the wilderness of southwest Tasmania.

Plus: why Flanagan says hope, not despair, is the truly heretical position in 2026.Guest: Richard Flanagan, author of HeresiesVote in Radio National's Top 100 Australian books here

Get in touch:

We'd love to hear from you! Email us at global.roaming@abc.net.au

Find all the episodes of Global Roaming now via the ABC Listen App or wherever you get your podcasts.

The episode on the publisher’s site (opens in a new tab)

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them. Explicit shows are for adult profiles only, and children’s profiles hear only children’s shows. More about this list.