Shows / The EI Podcast
The EI Podcast
The EI Podcast brings you weekly conversations with leading writers, thinkers and historians. Hosted by Alastair Benn, Jack Dickens and Paul Lay. Produced by Max Mitchell.
Episodes
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI PodcastWhy 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…
The EI PodcastThe end of Pax Britannica
Graeme Thompson on the fall of a liberal world order. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here…
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI PodcastThe 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 EI PodcastChina'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…
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI PodcastLessons 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…
The EI Podcast1821 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…
The EI PodcastThe growing-pains of Graham Greene
Critic Malcolm Forbes investigates Graham Greene's troubled childhood. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here…
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI PodcastA 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…
The EI PodcastThe 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
The EI PodcastStephen 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…
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI PodcastOur 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…
The EI PodcastHow 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…
The EI PodcastThe espionage revolution
David Omand, ex-head of GCHQ, the British government's world-renowned cyber agency, explores how intelligence officers exploit the latest technological…
The EI PodcastGraham 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…
The EI PodcastHow 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…
The EI PodcastWhy 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…
The EI PodcastWhy 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…
The EI PodcastNo 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…
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI PodcastHow 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…
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI Podcast1975, 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…
The EI PodcastHow 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 EI PodcastWhat 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…
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI PodcastWhy 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…
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI PodcastChristianity 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…
The EI PodcastHow 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…
The EI PodcastChina 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…
The EI PodcastMadame 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…
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI PodcastHow 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…
The EI PodcastLiberty 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…
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI PodcastGazing 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…
The EI PodcastThe 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…
The EI PodcastSpartacus, 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…
The EI PodcastHow a Second Cold War could have been averted
Mary Elise Sarotte, Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Distinguished Professor of Historical Studies at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, reflects…
The EI PodcastThe case for Classical music
What makes Classical music special among the arts? And where did it come from? To reckon with the inexhaustible complexity of the western musical tradition…
The EI PodcastUkraine's rich history of resistance
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was slowed down because of determined, courageous resistance. That success also owed much to Western intelligence on the…
The EI PodcastThe global threat to liberty
Non-western elites are redefining freedom on their own terms, as sovereignty, state security and stability. But the world becoming a lot less free should…
The EI PodcastThe myth and magic of spy fiction
Are we living through a golden age of espionage drama? And what do spy stories tell us about the true nature of the secret world? EI's Alastair Benn is joined…
The EI PodcastHow the GDR fell in love with the West
Citizens of the GDR were exposed to an idealised version of western freedoms made up of luxury shopping, blue jeans and cowboy flicks. Read by Helen Lloyd…
The EI PodcastPittacus, the good tyrant
After unpromising beginnings and innumerable controversies, Pittacus, seventh-century ruler of Mytilene on Lesbos, should be remembered as one of the great…
The EI PodcastThe power of shareholder democracy
The limited liability company remains the best vehicle for capitalistic endeavour. Read by Helen Lloyd. Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret…
The EI PodcastThe dawn of the post-literate society
Is the era of mass literacy over? And what might a post-literate society look like? EI's Alastair Benn is joined by Times columnist James Marriott and Senior…
The EI PodcastSergey Radchenko on what drives Vladimir Putin
Putin’s justifications for invading Ukraine uncannily reflect the motivations of one of Russian literature’s most famous antiheroes, Dostoevsky's Rodion…
The EI PodcastTim Marshall on Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, rocket man
The Russian recluse, a scientific self-starter who left school at 14, developed pioneering theories of space travel that anticipated the great feats of the…
The EI PodcastLiberty in the shadow of Bonaparte
Benjamin Constant’s considered response not only to the mass murder inflicted by the French Revolution, but to the attempt to reduce the whole French…
The EI PodcastThe case for Classics
Is the study of Latin in peril? And what does the future hold for the ancient inheritance? EI's Alastair Benn is joined by Daisy Dunn, classicist and author…
The EI PodcastHow 1970s California created the modern world
What happened in California in the 1970s played an outsized role in creating the world we live in today – both in the United States and in large parts of the…