WHATEVER HAPPENED TO TRADITION? HISTORY, BELONGING AND THE FUTURE OF THE WEST – TIM STANLEY IN CONVERSATION WITH SAVILIAN DAVID OLDROYD-BOLT

Tim Stanley will talk about his new book, which argues that tradition is not just beautiful but useful – that it helps us navigate great change.

The problem with the modern West, he suggests, is that it has a tradition of being anti-tradition, that liberalism and capitalism are eroding the very foundations that make us who we are. We are miserable because we’ve forgotten what used to make us happy: culture, family, faith and kinship.

In search of alternatives, he travels from ancient Egypt to 19th century Japan, from the Yazidi people of Iraq, who have preserved their identity through their music, to a community in Indonesia who keep in touch with their past by inviting their deceased relatives to tea.

Tim demonstrates that a successful tradition does not remain pickled in aspic but develops to stay relevant, all the while retaining the values that make it distinctive. Apparently dead traditions can be resurrected, even invented, from the tea ceremony to the Samurai code.

Tim Stanley is a columnist and leader writer for the Daily Telegraph. He is a regular on Thought for the Day and the Moral Maze, and has published three books on American history.