Welcome listeners to the debut episode of Season 2 of Dawn of an Era of Well-Being: The Podcast.
On September 8 of 2022, Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms, passed away peacefully at her residence of Balmoral Castle, thus concluding the longest reign of any British Monarch, and one of the most elongated terms of any leader known to history. The funeral was a tremendous spectacle as British subjects poured to the streets while an estimated 4.1 billion people around the world tuned in to the televised ceremony, an astounding number by any stretch pf the imagination. The French President Emmanuel Macron summed it up in his statement to the people of Britain, “To you, she was your Queen. To us, she was The Queen.” Queen to the World, the death of Queen Elizabeth was very much a global event.
In today’s episode of Dawn of an Era of Well-Being our special guests, Anne Baring and Jude Currivan, share their reflections on Elizabeth’s legacy in a candid and at times quite emotional discussion. We understand of course that the history of the British Empire is deeply problematic in many respects, but our focus here is on the single figure of Elizabeth and her contribution to a tradition that has found significance at a time when the Empire’s twilight has already passed. We will primarily discuss Elizabeth as the embodiment of an archetype, a highly performative role that she used to unify and inspire people across the world with a sense of duty and service to a higher purpose. It was a performance that lasted over seventy years and witnessed the arrivals and departures of fifteen Prime Ministers, and it is not one that will be repeated any time soon, if ever.
