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PODCAST

The EI Podcast

Engelsberg Ideas

The EI Podcast brings you weekly conversations and audio essays from leading writers, thinkers and historians. Hosted by Alastair Benn and Paul Lay. Find the EI Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or search The EI Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

history books

All Episodes

18:51

EI Weekly Listen — Ali Ansari on the secret to Cyrus...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/08/16

Few ancient monarchs have enjoyed such a consistent positive reputation as Cyrus the Great. Perhaps it’s time to become reacquainted. Read by Helen Lloyd.Image: The Tomb of Cyrus, Iran. Photograph taken in 1898. Credit: Penta Springs Limited / Alamy Stock Photo

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13:00

EI Portraits — Andrew Wilton on Amanda McKittrick...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/08/15

Andrew Wilton profiles Amanda McKittrick Ros, a late Victorian novelist admired in her day but now largely forgotten. Read by Sebastian Brown.Image: A typical late Victorian scene. Credit: Dave Rheaume / Alamy Stock Photo

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18:12

EI Weekly Listen — Lucy Ward on the invention of...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/08/09

Catherine II’s inoculation against smallpox was an extraordinary act of political self-creation. Read by Helen Lloyd.Image: A portrait of Catherine the Great (1729-1796) by Alexey Antropov. Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

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54:47

EI Talks... the atomic human with Neil D. Lawrence

The EI Podcast ·

2024/08/08

Neil D. Lawrence, inaugural DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge and author of The Atomic Human: Understanding Ourselves in the Age of AI, joins the EI team to challenge received wisdom on our AI future.Engelsberg 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. The sound engineer is Gareth Jones. Image: An illustration of artificial intelligence. Credit: lorenzo rossi /

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21:23

EI Weekly Listen — Alexander Lee on why Machiavelli...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/08/02

If we want to understand the ‘meaning’ of The Prince, we should start with Machiavelli himself. Read by Helen Lloyd.Image: A statue of Niccolo Machiavelli in Florence, Italy. Credit: Goran Bogicevic / Alamy Stock Photo

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14:21

EI Portraits — Rana Mitter on Tsiang Tingfu,...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/08/01

Rana Mitter profiles Tsiang Tingfu, the American-educated diplomat and historian, who sought Chinese national revival on cosmopolitan lines. Read by Sebastian Brown.Image: Tsiang Tingfu raises his arm to veto a proposal introduced by the Soviet Union to the UN. Credit: SuperStock / Alamy Stock Photo

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16:06

EI Weekly Listen — Francis J. Gavin on the terrible...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/07/26

Nuclear weapons are likely to be around for a long time to come – and the predicaments they create for world leaders are unlikely to be easily solved. Read by Helen Lloyd.Image: President John F. Kennedy with Robert McNamara during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Credit: RBM Vintage Images / Alamy Stock Photo

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24:08

EI Talks... Paris in the Belle Époque with Marie...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/07/25

Marie Kawthar Daouda, author and a lecturer in French language and literature at the University of Oxford, joins EI's Alastair Benn to discuss how Belle Époque-era Paris continues to fascinate, with its burgeoning commercial culture, everyday beauty and glittering department stores.Image: Jean Béraud's painting 'Paris, rue du Havre', c. 1882. Credit: IanDagnall Computing / Alamy Stock Photo

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15:08

EI Weekly Listen — James Marriott on why human art...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/07/19

A world of machine art would be an eerie one. Art connects us to one another. We cannot, and we should not, replace that connection with an uncanny simulacrum of it. Read by Helen Lloyd.Image: The Tribuna of the Uffizi by John Zoffany. Credit: PAINTING / Alamy Stock Photo

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13:53

EI Portraits — Lawrence Freedman on John McDonald,...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/07/19

Lawrence Freedman profiles the Fortune journalist and best-selling author who played a key role in shaping mid-20th century perceptions of strategy and the role of the corporation. Read by Sebastian Brown. Image: From left to right: Dorothy McDonald (wife of John, née Eisner), Leon Trotsky and John McDonald in Coyoacan, Mexico, in the 1930s. McDonald was recruited to help defend Trotsky from charges made at Stalin's show trials. Credit: General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript

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31:16

EI Talks... bringing history to the public with Alice...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/07/18

The historian and broadcaster Alice Loxton joins the EI team to discuss her forthcoming book, Eighteen: A History of Britain in 18 Young Lives, and her fight to bring serious history to a wider public.Image: A jigsaw puzzle from the early nineteenth century, bearing representations of the Kings and Queens of England from William I to George IV. Credit: Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo

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19:54

EI Weekly Listen — Katja Hoyer on East Germany's...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/07/12

East Germany’s quest to catch up with the technological innovations of the West prompted some remarkable successes, but also expanded the oppression of its mass surveillance apparatus. Read by Helen Lloyd.Image: The Trabant car being manufactured at the East German Sachsenring car plant. Credit: Classic Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo

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17:43

EI Talks... how advertising consumed the...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/07/11

EI's Alastair Benn sits down with Ian Leslie, author of Conflicted: Why Arguments Are Tearing Us Apart and How They Can Bring Us Together, to discuss how the counterculture went mainstream.Image: An advert on the Nike store at Oxford Circus. Credit: Matthew Chattle / Alamy Stock Photo

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21:36

EI Weekly Listen — Gudrun Persson on Russia’s forever...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/07/05

An often-overlooked fact about the current Russo-Ukrainian War is that over the centuries Russia has waged several wars to try to conquer Crimea and the Donbas area. Read by Helen Lloyd.Image: Ukrania quae et Terra Cosaccorum cum vicinis Walachiae, Moldoviae, by Johann Baptiste Homann (1664–1724), 1720. Credit: history_docu_photo / Alamy Stock Photo

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12:56

EI Portraits — Catherine Ostler on Maria Antonia of...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/07/04

Catherine Ostler profiles Maria Antonia, Electress of Saxony, an artistic polymath who helped re-shape elite culture in the Enlightenment age. Read by Sebastian Brown.Image: An 18th-century portrait of Maria Antonia of Bavaria, Electress of Saxony, by Peter Jacob Horemans. Credit: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

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32:19

EI Talks... Ronald Reagan's grand strategy with...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/07/04

EI's Angus Reilly discusses how Ronald Reagan put economic openness at the heart of the battle for ideas against Soviet Communism with William Inboden, author of The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink.Image: Ronald Reagan at the Durenberger Republican convention Rally, 1982. Credit: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

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22:53

EI Weekly Listen — Iskander Rehman on early modern...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/06/28

The sense of being overwhelmed and constantly distracted is nothing new. Historians and policymakers should look to the 17th century for guidance on how to grapple with information overload. Read by Helen Lloyd.Image: Rembrandt's 'Portrait of a Scholar', 1631. Credit: PRISMA ARCHIVO / Alamy Stock Photo

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17:52

EI Weekly Listen — Julian Jackson on De Gaulle’s...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/06/21

Part statesman, part prophet, Charles de Gaulle knew instinctively that political success and failure are inevitably interlinked, and that history would be the ultimate judge of both. Read by Helen Lloyd.Image: The President of France Charles de Gaulle marches through the streets under the Arc de Triomphe in 1944. Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo

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28:10

EI Talks... John Law and financial crises with Kwasi...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/06/20

EI's Iain Martin is joined by Kwasi Kwarteng, historian and former Chancellor of the United Kingdom, to discuss the turbulent life of the 18th century financial speculator John Law, whose innovative ideas were credited with bringing Ancien Régime France to the brink of ruin. There are echoes of what happened when the Truss government tried its own financial experiment, he acknowledges.Image: A cartoon of John Law (1671–1729), the Scottish economist who was appointed Controller General of Finances

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23:19

EI Weekly Listen — Josef Joffe on Germany, the engine...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/06/14

Celebrated as predestined shepherd in the glory days of Angela Merkel, Germany in the 2020s is an uncertain giant who has defied expectations, good or bad. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: The top of the Reichstag Building. Credit: Artur Bogacki / Alamy Stock Photo

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146 results

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