Linda Colley looks at how nations invent and bring together constitutions which make clear the rights and responsibilities of the state and citizens.

Constitutional issues are high on the UK agenda with the implications of Brexit and possible independence for Scotland. Britain has an uncodified constitution; other nations have written constitutions.

Colley discusses the history of constitutions, how they evolve in tandem with warfare, how they have functioned to advance empire as well as promote nations, and how they exclude as well as liberate.

She looks at the Corsican constitution of 1755, the first modern Islamic constitution, Japan’s 1889 constitution and the significance of the first constitution to enfranchise all adult women on Pitcairn Island in the Pacific in 1838, among many others. In doing so she explains not only how constitutions have been made in the past but what we need to do to create better ones today.

She is in conversation with writer Margaret Heffernan.

Linda Colley’s The Gun, the Ship and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World is published by Profile Books. Buy a copy from Waterstones, our bookselling partners.

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Festival of Ideas: Linda Colley, How Are Constitutions Created and How Do They Work?