Jon Yates is the author of "Fractured: Why our societies are coming apart and how to put them back together again". He's uniquely well placed to explore these issues, having both served as a government adviser and co-founded a series of charities that are designed to bring people together.
For years, our societies have been becoming more disconnected, so that most of us spend less and less time with people who are different - whether in terms of age, race, class, earning power, or education.
In "Fractured", Jon Yates argues that the more time we spend with people unlike ourselves, the more understanding and tolerant we become. We now need to forge a new "Common Life": a set of shared practices and institutions that can strengthen the glue that bonds our societies, in all their diversity.