Rethinking our Roman peace with Boudica and Manda Scott

A journey into ancient history guides the modern spirit

B. Lorraine Smith
66 min readMar 13

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Pictured here are three of the four Boudica books, which author Manda Scott and I explore during a rich conversation about living our histories to better dream our futures into being. Below are the links to the video, audio, and written transcript of that conversation. (Note to self: get the fourth book!)

Interviewing Manda Scott the other day was literally a dream come true. For the last few weeks, each night before I go to bed, I have been taken on a wild journey by way of her Boudica series. As I drift off to sleep my mind is flooded with vivid new understanding of our shared past, and my dreamscapes are shaped anew. And in my waking world, I am filled with a new sense of the importance of understanding history to more fairly serve our present and the futures we are gesturing towards.

By humbly following the instructions of a hazel tree and staying true to the path from there, she unlocks a whole new plain of reality within the human story.

In this recorded conversation, we’re not just rehashing Roman battle scenes. And we’re definitely not talking about Utopia. Manda shares how she was led to write about one of the greatest warriors of all time — a young woman who came to be known as Boudica.

Below is a link to the video and audio of our conversation, as well as a full transcript with links to mentioned references.

PS I forgot to ask Manda what her next novel is about. I wrote her afterwards to ask and she replied:

It’s a Thrutopian novel, set a couple of heartbeats down the timeline from now and it works out the early stages of the political shift we need to make and how we get there. It needs loads of work, but none of it unimaginable.

You’ll learn more about Thrutopia in the converastion below. I can’t wait to see what this next book does to our collective dreamscapes.

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B. Lorraine Smith

Recovering ESG "expert"; yarn spinner; distance runner; magical realist. Sensing a path to an economy serving life. also at https://blorrainesmith.substack.com/