Sarah Irving-Stonebraker: re-enchanting the ahistorical age

In our age of self-invention, we are profoundly disconnected from the history that once gave us identity.

Nick Jones

Nick is the senior editor of Seen & Unseen.

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Sarah Irving-Stonebraker is an Australian historian whose new book Priests of History: stewarding the past in an ahistoric age, says that, in our age of self-invention, modern people are profoundly disconnected from the stories, practises and history that once gave them their identity.

Justin and Belle talk to Sarah about re-enchanting an ahistorical age and about her own journey from atheism to Christianity as a young academic at Cambridge and Oxford in the early 2000s.

Visit Sarah Irving-Stonebraker's web site. https://www.stonebraker.com.au/

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Seen & Unseen Aloud

2 June 2025

1 min read

Semi-colons; Race Across the World, and the Book

New episode: pause for some grammar, enjoy that race, and a good book.

Natalie Garrett

Natalie produces and narrates The Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast. She's an Anglican minister and a trained actor.

A man sits on a pier intently reading a book on his lap.

Ben White on Unsplash.

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About the episode

In this week's mix we mourn the demise of the semi colon (and all it represents) with Paul Bradbury; Lauren Westwood gets lost in the drama of BBC's Race Across the World and Belle Tindall asks why a book has changed the world (and her).

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