How does a Siberian peasant mystic end up controlling the most powerful empire in Europe? Could the rumours that destroyed a dynasty have been entirely false — and did they matter anyway? And, without Rasputin, would there have been no Lenin — and would the 20th century have looked completely different? Peter sits down with Sir Antony Beevor — bestselling author of Stalingrad, Berlin, and D-Day — to dig into his new book on one of history's most mythologised figures: Grigori Rasputin, the Siberian wanderer who charmed the Tsarina, antagonised everyone else, and whose murder was so catastrophically bungled it reads like black farce.

0:00 From Siberia to the Imperial court — how a peasant mystic reached the centre of power

5:30 Holy fools, wandering pilgrims, and why Russia was always fertile ground for figures like Rasputin

10:00 The voice, the eyes, and the seduction: how Rasputin actually worked on people

13:00 The Tsarina's obsession — and why Antony Beevor is certain the rumours were fake news

17:30 How Rasputin's ministerial choices set the railways on fire and sparked a revolution

24:00 Rasputin was right about the war — and then made everything worse anyway

27:30 The assassination: poisoned cakes, Yankee Doodle, and a murder plot of spectacular incompetence

32:00 Putin, Nicholas II, and why historians should be wary of historical parallels

36:00 Without Rasputin, no Lenin? The counterfactuals Antony loves but won't fully follow

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What did it take for human beings to start controlling what they ate — and why did "health" so quickly become a cover

story for something else? How did a Venetian nobleman's wine-heavy calorie restriction become a blueprint for the

modern diet industry? And, when tobacco companies, Hollywood, and the beauty industry all decided women's body

anxiety was a market opportunity — who, exactly, was the diet really for?

Peter and Afua trace the history of the human body as a commercial battleground: from the first diet books in 1558,

through the birth of the calorie and the explosion of Weight Watchers, to the heroin chic 90s and the disordered eating

it left behind.

0:00 The Venetian nobleman who invented calorie restriction — and still drank 14oz of wine a day

7:30 George Cheyne: 32 stone, no meat, no alcohol, and a bestselling book in 1740

14:00 Empire, refrigeration, and why cheap food created the first diet industry

21:30 The discovery of the calorie — the invention Afua still resents

25:30 Freud's nephew, cigarettes, and the moment thinness became a product to sell

31:00 Weight Watchers, zero-fat yoghurt, and the 80s: cottage cheese as cultural trauma

36:30 The 90s: heroin chic, cellulite alerts, and the era that hospitalised a generation

40:00 Keto, Atkins, and the diet that keeps reinventing itself

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What did Vogue actually recommend women eat in 1977 — and why did it make one food writer cry in the

bathroom? How did the Greeks turn a six-pack into a moral argument? And, has the human obsession with

controlling what we eat ever really been about health at all?

Peter and Afua trace the long, strange history of dieting — from ancient Greek athletics and Roman

feast-and-purge excess, to medieval starvation saints who turned self-denial into a radical act of female agency.

0:00 Vogue’s 1977 Wine and Egg Diet — and what happened when someone actually tried it

6:30 The diet industry’s dirty secret: it was never about nutrition

9:00 Peter on fasting, cranky emails, and what not eating teaches you about your relationship with food

14:30 Ancient Greece: when abs were a moral statement, not just an aesthetic one

19:30 The manosphere’s Spartan fantasy — and what the Greeks would actually make of it

23:00 Rome: the inventors of binge and purge culture

24:30 When Christianity enters the chat — and fasting becomes holy

26:00 Catherine of Siena: the medieval starvation saint who used hunger as protest

30:00 Anorexia mirabilis — holy anorexia, and why Peter is wary of projecting modern diagnoses onto the past

32:00 Why medieval peasants weren’t dieting — they were just trying to stay alive

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Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:

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Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com

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