Bodley Head showcase dinner returns with Miliband after two-year gap

Ed Miliband was among the authors speaking at the annual Bodley Head showcase dinner, which returned after a two-year absence during the pandemic. 

Around 40 guests from the media and events world attended the event at Balthazar in London’s Covent Garden, hosted by publishing director Stuart Williams, on 28th October. 

Miliband, author of this year’s Go Big, urged all present to recognise that we are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation moment to remake society. The book was the subject of a swift pre-empt in 2019 and explores topics from his podcast series, “Reasons to be Cheerful”, which he presents alongside radio host Geoff Lloyd. 

Economist Oded Galor presented The Journey of Humanity, billed by the publisher as “a grand unifying theory of human flourishing and inequality”, to be published in 28 languages worldwide. He is the founding thinker behind Unified Growth Theory, which attempts to expose the fundamental causes of development, prosperity and inequality throughout history. 

Pulitzer Prize-winner and Harvard University professor Caroline Elkins presented The Legacy of Violence, the culmination of a decade of research into the British Empire’s use of violence, scheduled for March 2022. 

Journalist and activist Brett Scott unveiled what is at stake in the cashless future in Cloudmoney, acquired in a five-way auction days before the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair, netting dozens of international deals overall.  

Additionally, historian Jessie Childs discussed how she re-created Civil War-era England in The Siege of Loyalty House – due in May next year — while Orwell Prize-winning author Gideon Rachman outlined the new nationalism in The Age of The Strongman, in which he attempts to "find chaos of the new nationalism, leadership cults and hostility to liberal democracy".