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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

36:41

EI Talks... women of the ancient world with Daisy Dunn

The EI Podcast ·

2024/06/13

The leading classicist Daisy Dunn joins EI's Paul Lay to discuss her new book, The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It.Image: Nikolaos Gyzis, a 19th Century painter, depicts Sappho playing the lyre. Credit: Photo 12 / Alamy Stock Photo

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18:29

EI Weekly Listen — Maurizio Viroli on how we can...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/06/07

We cannot afford not to rediscover the fine art, nowadays almost forgotten, of learning from history. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: 16th Century engraving by Theodoor Galle, titled The Printing of Books. Credit: The Granger Collection / Alamy Stock Photo

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34:00

EI Weekly Listen — Philip Bobbitt on the decay and...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/05/31

A new constitutional order is coming. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: The Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. Credit: Lane Erickson / Alamy Stock Photo

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55:43

EI Talks... the history of democracy with Erica Benner

The EI Podcast ·

2024/05/30

Erica Benner applies ancient wisdom to modern problems in her new book Adventures in Democracy: The Turbulent World of People Power. She shares her insights with EI's Deputy Editor, Alastair Benn.Image: Gathering of the Areopagus, a deliberative court that met in the open air in ancient Athens. Credit: North Wind Picture Archives / Alamy Stock Photo

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34:50

EI Weekly Listen — Lars Trägårdh on the origins of...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/05/24

‘Democracy’ is in Sweden built on a basis fundamentally different from the one associated with the development of liberal democracy in the West. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: Midsummer Dance by Swedish artist Anders Zorn (1860-1920) painted in 1897. A classic of Swedish art history showing traditional folk dancing in the Dalarna countryside in the extended summer evening light. Credit: Universal Art Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

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14:47

EI Portraits — Jesse Ventura: the wrestling governor...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/05/23

Dominic Sandbrook profiles Jesse Ventura, the former Navy SEAL and WWE champion who won Minnesota’s governorship in 1999 on an anti-elite ticket. His transition from showbiz to politics was a precursor of the age of Trump – but ’the Body’ was no ordinary populist. Read by Sebastian Brown. Image: Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura yells to the crowd at his People's Inauguration in Minneapolis. Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo

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17:51

EI Weekly Listen — Josef Joffe on the future of the...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/05/17

What is the future of the European Union? The EU is sui generis. It certainly cannot be a nation state. Nor is it destined to turn into a Staatsnation or willed nation. Then what? Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: European Union flags. Credit: Brian Lawrence / Alamy Stock Photo

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45:13

EI Talks... the age of upheaval

The EI Podcast ·

2024/05/17

EI's Paul Lay and Alastair Benn ask: do we really live in an age of upheaval? Image: Turner's Vesuvius in Eruption. Credit: Artefact / Alamy Stock Photo

en

22:58

EI Weekly Listen — Simon Mayall on the history of the...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/05/10

The current violence and turmoil in the Middle East is expressive of a conflict between rival ideas, between the modern nation state and an old, historical concept of an Islamic caliphate. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Abdel Nasser at a rally after the rupture of relations with Syria. Credit: colaimages / Alamy Stock Photo

en

10:09

EI Portraits — Heinrich Biber: composer of rapture...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/05/09

James Hardie on the violinist-composer who mixed the sacred and profane in his fantastical music, a lost genius of the 17th century. Read by Sebastian Brown. Image: A print of Heinrich Biber. Credit: The Picture Art Collection / Alamy Stock Photo

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33:43

EI Weekly Listen — Lawrence James on the invention of...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/05/03

Jingoism was a natural offshoot of late Victorian imperialism. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: Poster for a British imperial railway company. Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

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36:35

EI Talks... Caravaggio

The EI Podcast ·

2024/05/02

A small but riveting exhibition at London's National Gallery tells the dramatic story of the troubled Renaissance master's 'last' painting. Image: The Martyrdom of St Ursula, 1610. Credit: incamerastock / Alamy Stock Photo

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22:15

EI Weekly Listen — Steven Grosby on the persistence...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/04/26

What is a nation, what is its significance, and to what problems of life is its persistence a response? Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Lucas Cranach's The Crossing of the Red Sea, 1530. Credit: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

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13:09

EI Portraits — Nehemiah Wallington: Puritan...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/04/25

Vanessa Harding on the God-fearing diarist Nehemiah Wallington whose personality was far removed from the cosmopolitanism of Samuel Pepys, his fast-living contemporary. Read by Sebastian Brown. Image: An excerpt from Nehemiah Wallington's diary, dated 1654. Credit: Folger Shakespeare Library.

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36:13

EI Talks... the Entente Cordiale

The EI Podcast ·

2024/04/18

Self-interest, imperial competition and new threats in Europe - T.G. Otte examines the complex 120-year long history of the Entente Cordiale with EI's senior editor, Paul Lay.Image: First prize winner at the Covent Garden fancy dress ball in 1905, a lady dressed in an elaborate costume as the Entente Cordiale. Credit: Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo

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13:30

EI Weekly Listen — Mariano Sigman on how language has...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/04/12

How did our ancestors think? Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: A play is performed in an ancient Greek theatre. Credit: Classic Image / Alamy Stock Photo

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13:08

EI Portraits — Anna Komnene: the princess who...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/04/12

Peter Frankopan on the Byzantine princess Anna Komnene who, banished to a convent for her political ambition, devoted her gifts of observation to charting the fortunes of her father's empire – etching her legacy as Europe's first female historian. Read by Sebastian Brown. Image: Anna Komnene, a Byzantine princess and scholar. Credit: history_docu_photo / Alamy Stock Photo

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20:04

EI Weekly Listen — Nathan Shachar on ideology in science

The EI Podcast ·

2024/04/05

There is no linear, moral progress in knowledge and science. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: Triple-microscope made by the optician Camille Sebastien Nachet in Paris. Credit: gameover / Alamy Stock Photo

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37:18

EI Talks... terrorism

The EI Podcast ·

2024/04/05

EI's Deputy Editor Alastair Benn speaks to Suzanne Raine, visiting professor in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, about the evolution of the terrorist threat and its long history. Image: Anarchist outrage at the Liceo theatre in Barcelona, 1893. Credit: Photo 12 / Alamy Stock Photo

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16:30

EI Weekly Listen — Gregory Feifer on the mirage of...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/03/29

The mistake many Western countries make is to take Russia largely at face value. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: Nesting Russian dolls showing former leaders. Credit: Mr Standfast / Alamy Stock Photo

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146 results

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