Luke Harding in conversation
Monday 19 October, 7pm at the Poly
As the post-war international order fractures, Luke Harding comes to Falmouth to discuss Betrayal: Trump, Putin and the New Age of Conquest, his gripping account of a world increasingly shaped by force, fear and imperial ambition.
For 80 years, the international system rested on the principle that borders could not be redrawn by violence. Today, that consensus is collapsing. Vladimir Putin continues his brutal campaign to seize Ukraine, Donald Trump threatens allies and embraces territorial expansion, while China watches Taiwan and a new generation of authoritarian leaders tests the limits of international law.
Drawing on reporting from war-torn Ukraine and divided Korea, as well as encounters with Volodymyr Zelensky and other political leaders, Betrayal asks how the rules established after 1945 were allowed to unravel. What replaces them if the strong can simply take what they want? And can democratic nations defend the international order without betraying the values on which it was built?
'Betrayal is as dark and compelling as a Le Carre spy thriller. It tells the story of how imperialism came back and lays bare Russian attempts to subvert British politics, through bribery and espionage. Brilliant'. – Bill Browder
'A fascinating and fast-paced account from a master chronicler of Putin's wars'. – Charlie English
'Harding knows how to weave reportage into a book that captivates the reader like a good novel and helps them to see events they know from news flashes as coherent entities'. – Sofi Oksanen
About Luke Harding
Author of Betrayal: Trump, Putin and the New Age of Conquest
Luke Harding is an award-winning journalist and The Guardian’s senior international correspondent. He has reported from Delhi, Berlin and Moscow and covered wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.
Between 2007 and 2011 he was the newspaper’s Moscow bureau chief, before becoming the first Western reporter to be deported from Russia since the Cold War. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, he has reported extensively from Ukraine, including from the front line, covering the human consequences of the war and the rapidly changing technologies reshaping it. His bestselling books include Mafia State, Collusion, The Snowden Files, Shadow State and Invasion, several of which have been adapted for film and television.
