The EI Podcast
The EI Podcast features weekly conversations and audio essays from leading writers, thinkers and historians. Hosted by Alastair Benn and Paul Lay, it covers a range of intellectual and historical topics. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other platforms.
Episodes
Why Armenia’s elections matter
Thomas de Waal joins EI’s Jack Dickens to discuss how the recent elections in Armenia could reshape geopolitics in the Caucasus and beyond.Image: Armenian flag with Mount Ararat in background. Credit: Alamy
Len Deighton’s spycraft
The late Len Deighton produced novels that were packed with excitement and suspense but also infused with moral complexity and psychological insight. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/len-deightons-spycraft/.Image: Michael Caine in The Ipcress File. Credit: Allstar Picture Library Ltd
China's bid for economic supremacy
George Magnus speaks to EI’s Jack Dickens about the geopolitical logic behind China’s economic strategy.Image: A container ship from China. Credit: Rudmer Zwerver
A Jewish-American dream
The largest Jewish community in the world is defined by its deep integration into America's national story, its liberal traditions and scepticism towards Israeli governments. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/a-jewish-american-dream/Image: A member of the American Jewish Congress participating in the 1965 Montgomery March, advocating for civil rights.
Muslims and Jews' shared inheritance
Marc David Baer speaks to EI’s Paul Lay about his new book 'Children of Abraham: The Story of Jewish-Muslim Relations', and the deep historical connection between two faiths, bound by common roots.Image: Tiles at Ali Ben Youssef Medersa in Marrakech, Morocco. Credit: Stelios Michael.
Finding Turkey in Narnia
Re-reading CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, Hannah Lucinda Smith discovers glimmers of the culture and history of the Turkic peoples in the author's work. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/finding-turkey-in-narnia/Image: Puffin paperback editions of the Narnia tales by author CS Lewis. Credit: NearTheCoast.com / Alamy Stock Photo
The life and legacy of Steve Schapiro
Filmmaker Maura Smith discusses Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere, her documentary on the photographer who captured modern America.Image: Steve Schapiro in the 1960s. Credit: Steve Schapiro
Agent Zo, the spy who saved Poland
Elżbieta Zawacka, who played a key role in the Home Army’s resistance efforts, was one of the most highly decorated women in Polish history. Clare Mulley assesses her legacy. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/portraits/agent-zo-the-spy-who-saved-poland/. Image: Monument to Agent Zo. Credit: Alamy
Lewis and Clark’s American Odyssey
Craig Fehrman speaks to EI’s Max Mitchell about his new book ‘This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark’, shedding light on one of America’s founding myths.Image: ‘America in the Making: Lewis and Clark’ by Newell Convers Wyeth (1938). Credit: Alamy
Why powerful individuals are dominating politics
From Xi Jinping in China to Narendra Modi in India and Donald Trump in the US, Nicholas Wright explores how powerful leaders are reshaping the rules of the global great game. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/why-powerful-individuals-are-dominating-politics/.Image: Caspar David Friedrich’s ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’. Credit: incamerastock
Weimar’s descent into darkness
How did Weimar, the town of Goethe and Schiller, become the crucible of Germany's moral collapse? Katja Hoyer, author of Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe, speaks to EI's Alastair Benn about the town's role in the rise of the Third Reich.Image: Adolf Hitler at the ‘Haus Elephant’ in Weimar, 1936. Credit: Alamy
The civilising wonders of wine
Amid the rise of individualistic technologies and weight-loss drugs, there has been a steady decline in alcohol consumption in Western societies. Yet, Henry Jeffreys argues that this is no good thing. Instead, it suggests a gradual weakening of a shared civilisational inheritance. This audio essay is read by Leighton Pugh.Read it here: https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the-civilising-wonders-o
Can Europe thrive in a multipolar world?
Mark Leonard, co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, speaks to EI’s Jack Dickens about Europe’s place in a changing world order.Image: The EU flag in Siracusa, Sicily. Credit: Alamy
The long shadow of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials
In the courtrooms of Nuremberg and Tokyo, the victorious Allies declared that civilisation must not merely win wars but also judge them, leaving a legal and moral legacy that persists to this day. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: The defendants at the Nuremberg Trial in 1946. Credit: PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive.
Universities are at crisis point
Daisy Christodoulou and Nicholas Wright join EI’s Paul Lay to discuss the crisis in British universities and how to fix it.Image: Sightseers outside the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Credit: Alamy
The anatomy of the spy novel
From the gung-ho glamour of Ian Fleming’s James Bond to the decline and disorder of Mick Herron’s Slow Horses, postwar spy novels have captured the shifting myths, legends and caricatures surrounding the secret world. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-anatomy-of-the-spy-novel/.Image: Sean Connery as James Bond in Dr No (1962). Credit: Alamy
The roots of the West’s identity crisis
Marie Kawthar Daouda, author of Not Your Victim: How our Obsession with Race Entraps and Divides Us, speaks to EI’s Alastair Benn about the historical illiteracy of attempts to ‘decolonise’ Western culture. Instead, she argues that the moral complexities of history must be accepted in order to develop a genuine appreciation of the Western tradition. Image: ‘Ruins with an Obelisk in the distance’
Iran’s strange Scottish obsession
From placard-waving crowds in Yazd to troll farms on social media, the Islamic Republic has long tried to wield Scottish nationalism as a weapon against the UK. This audio essay is read by Leighton Pugh.Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/irans-strange-scottish-obsession/.Image: Royal Scots Guards military pipers. Credit: Alamy
Washington’s return to Latin America
Following the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, President Donald Trump has warned that Cuba is ‘next’. What exactly does he mean by that? Joseph Ledford, Fellow at the Hoover Institution, speaks to EI’s Jack Dickens about a new age of US interventionism in Latin America. Image: Protesters outside the White House following the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, January 2026. Credit:
The Houthis’ forever war
Elisabeth Kendall speaks to EI’s Jack Dickens about what motivates the Houthis. Following the outbreak of the war in Iran, the Yemeni militant group now has an outsized ability to disrupt global trade and threaten regional stability in the Middle East. But who are they and what do they really want?Image: A protester at a pro-Palestine demonstration in Sanaa, Yemen. Credit: Alamy
Can epic poetry revive History?
When combined, as the ancients knew, history and poetry offer an incomparable insight into the human condition. Michael Auslin laments the demise of poetry as a form for exploring great moments in history. Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/can-epic-poetry-revive-history/.Image: Hector taking leave of Andromache. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo
The need for muscular liberalism
Adrian Wooldridge speaks to EI’s Paul Lay about his new book, Centrists of the World Unite! The Lost Genius of Liberalism. He believes that the West can only overcome its current malaise by rediscovering and reviving the liberal tradition.Image: Engraving of the frontispiece from Thomas Hobbes’s ‘Leviathan’ (1651). Credit: Alamy
The first butterfly collectors
The Society of Aurelians brought butterflies out of their undeserved obscurity. Nigel Andrew’s audio essay sheds new light on Britain’s first entomological society. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the-first-butterfly-collectors/. Image: Detail from ‘The Aurelian; a Natural History of English Moths and Butterflies’, published by Henry Bohn,
Trump’s imperial worldview
What is driving Donald Trump’s increasingly volatile foreign policy? Brendan Simms examines the US President and his ideological roots with EI’s Jack Dickens.Image: Donald Trump at the White House, July 2025. Credit: Alamy
The strange death of private life
In the early 1970s, the idea of a private life – that citizens ought to be left alone by the state – began to disappear. In this audio essay, Tiffany Jenkins argues that we should mourn its absence. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-strange-death-of-private-life/.Image: 1930s poster for the London Underground. Credit: Alamy
The Gulf’s Iran dilemma
Shiraz Maher examines how the fallout from the US-Iran conflict is reshaping the Gulf States and the wider Middle East, with EI’s Jack Dickens.Image: Close-up vintage map of the Middle East. Credit: Alamy
The rise of the mega-influencer
Mega-influencers shape the public imagination. Phillip Dolitsky and Luke Moon explore a world where narrative matters more than fact. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: Still from a film version of George Orwell's 1984. Credit: Allstar Picture Library Limited
Putin, the once and future Chekist
Gordon Corera contends that to truly understand Vladimir Putin, you have to understand the phenomenon of Chekism. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/putin-the-once-and-future-chekist/. Image: Vladimir Putin's East German Stasi identification card issued while he worked as a KGB agent in Dresden in 1985. Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd
When Edo became Tokyo
Christopher Harding on the birth of Tokyo. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/when-edo-became-tokyo/. Image: A woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige. From One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 1856. Credit: incamerastock / Alamy Stock Photo
Hamlet unravelled
Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford University, explores Hamlet and its rich critical history with EI’s Alastair Benn and Paul Lay.Image: Laurence Olivier plays Hamlet in 1948. Credit: Masheter Movie Archive
The making of Xi Jinping's worldview
Rana Mitter explores Xi Jinping’s personal and ideological mindset in conversation with EI’s Jack Dickens.Image: Then Vice President Xi Jinping makes an address in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. Credit: Imago
Nietzsche’s manifesto for reading
Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri on reading as an antidote to the restless spirit of the industrial age. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/nietzsches-manifesto-for-reading/.Image: Edvard Munch's painting of Friedrich Nietzsche. Credit: Darling Archive / Alamy Stock Photo
Inside the world of medieval espionage
Jonathan Sumption surveys the last generation of spies before the creation of Europe's professional intelligence services. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/inside-the-world-of-medieval-espionage/.Image: King Charles VI of France prepares for war. Credit: Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo
The Monroe Doctrine: The United States’ hemispheric strategy explained
EI's Jack Dickens is joined by Charlie Laderman, associate professor at the University of Florida’s Hamilton Center, to discuss how the United States’ hemispheric ambitions emerged from great-power competition – and why the Monroe Doctrine still matters.Image: A satirical cartoon lampooning the expansion of the Monroe Doctrine. Credit: Photo 12
The strange case of Robert Louis Stevenson
Alastair Benn is joined by Leo Damrosch, author of Storyteller: The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, to explore the life and legacy of the celebrated Scottish writer, including one of his most enduring literary achievements, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.Image: 'Robert Louis Stevenson' by John Singer Sargent, 1885. Credit: IanDagnall Computing
The instability of a multipolar era
EI's Paul Lay is joined by Helen Thompson to discuss US–China rivalry, the growing importance of the Western Hemisphere in geopolitics, and the inherent instability of a multipolar world.Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Victory Parade marking the 70th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Credit: Associated Press
Why the brain is the ultimate weapon of war
EI's Paul Lay is joined by neuroscientist Nicholas Wright to discuss how the brain shapes war, and how war shapes the brain.Image: The brain as a weapon of war. Credit: fStop Images GmbH
The end of Pax Britannica
Graeme Thompson on the fall of a liberal world order. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-end-of-pax-britannica/.Image: 'Taming the British Lion'. Puck magazine, 1888. Credit: Historical Images Archive
The classical key to the AI revolution
John Tasioulas examines how a classical conception of democracy – distinct from liberal democracy – may offer the resources needed to meet the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-classical-key-to-the-ai-revolution/.Image: Rudolph Müller, View of the Acropolis from the Pynx (1863). Credit: Eraza Col
The Risorgimento myth
Gerald Warner on the origins of a 'black legend' designed to discredit the once-flourishing Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-risorgimento-myth/. Image: A painting displaying the splendour of the Neapolitan fleet. Credit: The Picture Art Collection
China's quest to engineer the future
EI's Paul Lay is joined by technology analyst Dan Wang to discuss how China has engineered its way to global power status. Image: New high-rise buildings in China. Credit: ton koene
The double agent who introduced Japan to the West
Bill Emmott profiles Lafcadio Hearn, the Anglo-Irish-Greek foreign correspondent who made Japan his home. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-double-agent-who-introduced-japan-to-the-west/.Image: Lafcadio Hearn photographed with his wife, Setsuko Koizumi, and their son. Credit: GRANGER - Historical Picture Archive / Alamy Stock Photo
Lessons from the Wall Street Crash
Bestselling author Andrew Ross Sorkin discusses his new book, 1929: The Inside Story of The Greatest Crash in Wall Street History, with EI's Iain Martin.Image: The Wall Street financial crash of 1929, with a city businessman speculator trying to sell his car for $100 cash, having lost all on the stock market. Credit: Alamy/ Shawshots.
1821 and the invention of world order
Historian Damian Valdez on international order's 19th-century origins. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/1821-and-the-invention-of-world-order/.Image: Mexican general Agustín de Iturbide rides through a ceremonial arch to welcoming officials in Mexico City on September 27, 1821, after decisively winning independence for Mexico. Credit: Album /
The growing-pains of Graham Greene
Critic Malcolm Forbes investigates Graham Greene's troubled childhood. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-growing-pains-of-graham-greene/.Image: Graham Greene in 1940. Credit: Everett Collection Historical / Alamy Stock Photo
The Slavic War according to Stalin
Historian Luka Ivan Jukic explores how Stalin hijacked the Slavic cause to forge the Soviet Empire. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-slavic-war-according-to-stalin/.Image: A poster celebrating Stalin at the Russian State Library, Moscow. Credit: Album / Alamy Stock Photo
A warning to the young: just say no to AI
Aaron MacLean, host of the School of War podcast, on AI's threat to the life of the mind. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/a-warning-to-the-young-just-say-no-to-ai/.Image: The Library Hall of the Upper Lusatian Library of Sciences. Credit: Petr Svarc / Alamy Stock Photo
The Slow Horses are Britain’s perfect spies
Alastair Benn on the magic of Mick Herron’s Slough House series.Image: Still from Apple TV's Slow Horses. Credit: LANDMARK MEDIA / Alamy Stock Photo
Stephen Kotkin on a new age of warfare
EI's Paul Lay discusses a world order in flux with Stephen Kotkin, historian and biographer of Stalin.Image: A Canadian soldier during a NATO-led operation. Credit: Associated Press
The Great French Songbook
Why do people the world over enjoy listening to songs sung in French? Critic Muriel Zagha illuminates the living tradition of French chanson. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-great-french-songbook/. Image: Juliette Gréco, the French actress and singer. Credit: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo
Our attention dilemma is age-old
Alastair Benn explores an attention dilemma that has haunted western thought for centuries. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/our-attention-dilemma-is-age-old/.Image: Detail from Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse, 1903. Credit: SuperStock / Alamy Stock Photo
How the state can do more for less
Historian David Cowan explains how radical reform can reshape the state. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/how-the-state-can-do-more-for-less/. Image: A political caricature, 'Political Dreams, Visions of Peace, Perspective Horrors', by James Gillray of Pitt the Younger. Credit: INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo
The espionage revolution
David Omand, ex-head of GCHQ, the British government's world-renowned cyber agency, explores how intelligence officers exploit the latest technological advances.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-espionage-revolution/. Image: Digital espionage is on the rise. Credit: Stu Gray / Alamy Stock Photo
Graham Greene's Vietnam
EI's Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by Jonathan Esty, of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, to discuss Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, published 70 years ago, a gripping novel that captures the passing of the baton from the old colonial powers to the new masters in South-East Asia.Image: French paratroops at the beginning of the First Indochina War. Credit: Keystone
How the Nazis weaponised Charlemagne
Samuel Rubinstein explores how Nazi historiographers sought to present Adolf Hitler as the heir to Charlemagne. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/how-the-nazis-weaponised-charlemagne/.Image: A large Sèvres presentation plate celebrating Nazism's alleged debt to Charlemagne. Credit: INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo
Why do we get the wrong leaders?
James Vitali reflects on the profound importance of political judgement. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/why-do-we-get-the-wrong-leaders/. Image: The front door of Number 10 Downing street. Credit: GreatBritishStock.com / Alamy Stock Photo
Why liberal democracies win total wars
Journalist Duncan Weldon reveals how liberal capitalist economies adapt to total war. Read by Leighton Pugh.Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/why-liberal-democracies-win-total-wars/. Image: Second World War-era British propaganda. Credit: Venimages / Alamy Stock Photo
No more Napoleons: British grand strategy in the 19th century
EI’s Paul Lay joins historian Andrew Lambert to discuss his book ‘No More Napoleons: How Britain Managed Europe from Waterloo to World War One', Lambert's provocative new study of how Britain maximised its naval and diplomatic prestige to maintain a stable, post-Napoleonic Europe.Image: 'A squadron of the Royal Navy running down the Channel' by Samuel Atkins (c. 1760-1810). Credit: Pictorial Press
The rift that doomed the Confederacy
Historian Katherine Bayford exposes the fractures and contradictions that doomed the Confederacy from within. Read by Leighton Pugh.FURTHER READING:The rift that doomed the Confederacy | Katherine BayfordImage: A statue of Alexander Stephens in the US Congress. Credit: Sipa US / Alamy Stock Photo
The Trial at 100: revisiting Kafka’s prophetic masterpiece
This year marks the centenary of the publication of Franz Kafka’s novel, The Trial - a seminal work that continues to captivate and unsettle its readers. EI’s Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by Karolina Watroba, author of Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka, to discuss Josef K’s tragic entanglement with a suffocating bureaucracy.Image: Portrait of Franz Kafka. Credit: history_docu_photo
How the Knights Templars conquered Christendom
Historian Nicholas Morton explores how a miracle of marketing brought the Knights Templars to prominence. Read by Leighton Pugh.FURTHER READING:The Knights Templars and the pursuit of Christendom | Nicholas MortonImage: A Victorian illustration of the Knights Templars. Credit: Glasshouse Images / Alamy Stock Photo
The lost art of chorography
The writer Josh Mcloughlin reflects on the art of chorography, one of English literature’s most eccentric and mercurial forms. Read by Leighton Pugh.FURTHER READING:The lost art of chorography | Josh McloughlinImage: Renaissance map of Europe showing England. Credit: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Phot
1975, the year that made the modern world
Historian Damian Valdez reflects on the meaning of 1975, a fateful year for the international order. Read by Leighton Pugh.FURTHER READING:1975, the year that made the modern world | Damian ValdezImage: A helicopter is pushed off the overcrowded deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hancock (CV-19) off the coast of South Vietnam during the fall of Saigon. Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo
How Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin fought Hitler – and each other
EI’s Paul Lay joins historian Tim Bouverie to discuss ‘Allies at War’, his gripping new book on how Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin’s uneasy alliance led to the end of the Second World War – and reshaped the global order in ways that are still felt today.Image: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta. Credit: Niday Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo
What happened to the politician’s moustache?
Writer Luka Ivan Jukic laments the all-but-total disappearance of facial hair from politics. Read by Leighton Pugh.FURTHER READING:What happened to the politician’s moustache? | Luka Ivan JukicImage: A double portrait of Mozaffar al-Din Shah, the fifth Qajar shah of Iran. Credit: Penta Springs Limited / Alamy Stock Photo
The strange death of squalor
Journalist and author Jenny McCartney celebrates the magic of squalor, and explores how generations of artists have seen the sublime in slime. Read by Leighton Pugh.FURTHER READING:On squalor | Jenny McCartneyImage: Walter Sickert's Easter Monday. Credit: Logic Images / Alamy Stock Photo
Why Finns joined the fight
Geopolitical analyst Charly Salonius-Pasternak examines Finland's long journey to full membership of the Western alliance, and explores how the Nordic nation could play a leading role in its future.FURTHER READING:Why Finns joined the fight | Charly Salonius-PasternakImage: During the Soviet-Finnish war (1939-1940) skiers of the Finnish army in white camouflage made lightning and effective attacks
The West’s lust for liberty
The late Christopher Coker, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics for almost 40 years, explains why, although the love of liberty is not unique to the West, the lust for liberty is. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING: The West’s lust for liberty | Christopher CokerImage: Leonidas at Thermopylae, by Jacques-Louis David, 1814. Credit: Peter Horree / Alamy Stock Phot
Christianity and the creation of England
In this episode of The EI Podcast, the historian Bijan Omrani is joined by EI's Paul Lay to explore the indelible mark Christianity has left on England’s identity and culture.FURTHER READING:The tragic decline of Christian rituals | Bijan OmraniImage: South View of Salisbury Cathedral, JMW Turner. Credit: Penta Springs Limited / Alamy Stock Photo
How the liberation of France shaped the modern world
Agnès Poirier, journalist and broadcaster, examines how the liberation of France in 1944 opened the way for Paris to become a laboratory of ideas. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:The liberation of France made the modern world | Agnès PoirierEngelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image: Parisians gather around the Arc de Triomphe as All
China vs the WTO: The Inside Story
EI's Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by Michael Sheridan, author of two books on China and a foreign correspondent for 40 years, to discuss China’s rise, its subsequent entry into the international trading system, and its contemporary status as the problem child of our globalised world.FURTHER READING:China and America, the great decoupling | Michael SheridanEngelsberg Ideas is funded by the
Madame Bovary and the problem of desire
Marie Daouda, lecturer in French language and literature at the University of Oxford, shows how the pursuit of apparently 'real' desires comes at the expense of collective truth. The consequences can be disastrous. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:The truth shall set us free | Marie DaoudaEngelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image: Is
The German key to European liberty
Brendan Simms, founder and Director of the Centre for Geopolitics at the University of Cambridge, illustrates why contemporary Germany struggles to muster a serious military response to the Russian challenge. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:The German key to European liberty | Brendan SimmsEngelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image:
The making of Trump's worldview
What are the deep roots of Trump's worldview? Can we learn to read Trump’s behaviour? And are there opportunities to be had for those who can?EI's Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by Charlie Laderman, Senior Lecturer in International History at King's College London, to discuss how to interpret the Trump White House.This episode was recorded on 7th April.FURTHER READING:How Iran’s Tanker War
How Russia negotiates
Iuliia Osmolovska, head of the GLOBSEC Kyiv Office, argues that Ukrainians are better placed than their Western partners to decode the Russian negotiating style. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image: Street art in Tbilisi of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin playing chess. Credit: Georg Berg / Alamy Stock Photo
Liberty under attack
Juliet Samuel, columnist for The Times newspaper, highlights that a belief in liberty is not self-evident and its expansion is not inevitable. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:Liberty under attack from enemies within | Juliet SamuelEngelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image: Second world war propaganda poster. Credit: Photo 12 / Alamy
The uses of comedy
What makes us laugh? And why should it matter?EI's Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by the critic Mathew Lyons to discuss the uses of comedy.FURTHER READING:The subtle art of English comedy | Alastair BennEngelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. EI Talks... is hosted by Paul Lay and Alastair Benn, and produced by Caitlin Brown. The soun
Gazing back to see China’s future
Roel Sterckx, the Joseph Needham Professor of Chinese History, Science, and Civilization at Cambridge University, makes the case for studying China's centuries-long history. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:Gazing back to see China’s future | Roel SterckxEngelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image: The Great Wall of China. Credit: nage
The myth of Venice
Alexander Lee, author of Machiavelli: His Life and Times, argues that liberty was central to the idea of Venice. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:Liberty and the myth of Venice | Alexander LeeEngelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image: Procession in Piazza San Marco by Gentile Bellini, 1496. Credit: Peter Barritt / Alamy Stock Photo
Spartacus, history’s nowhere man
Richard Miles, historian and archaeologist, profiles Spartacus, a figure who floats between history and allegory. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:Spartacus, history’s nowhere man | Richard MilesEngelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image: Promotional poster for the film, Spartacus. 1960. Credit: Allstar Picture Library Ltd / Alamy Sto
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