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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.

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All Episodes

56:41

EI Talks... the case for Classical music

The EI Podcast ·

2025/02/27

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, its long history and the roots of its contemporary crises, EI's Alastair Benn is joined by Richard Bratby, the chief classical music critic of The Spectator magazine, and Alexandra Wilson, musicologist and cultural historian. Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. EI Talks... is

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31:31

EI Weekly Listen — Rob Johnson on Ukraine's rich...

The EI Podcast ·

2025/02/21

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 nature of the Russian attack. External support will remain crucial to the success of the Ukrainian war effort. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Credit: The Motherland Monument in Kyiv. Credit: Ruslan Lytvyn / Alamy Stock Photo

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19:11

EI Weekly Listen — Peter Frankopan on the global...

The EI Podcast ·

2025/02/14

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 concern us all. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: Eugène Delacroix's 'Painting of Liberty Leading the People'. Credit: Exotica.im 20 / Alamy Stock Photo

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55:49

EI Talks... the myth and magic of spy fiction

The EI Podcast ·

2025/02/13

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 by David Omand, ex-head of GCHQ, the British government’s world-renowned cyber agency, and author of How Spies Think, Pauline Blistène, an expert on intelligence affairs and spy fiction, and Senior Editor Paul Lay to discuss the enduring popularity and legacy of the spy in fiction. Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son

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18:54

EI Weekly Listen — Katja Hoyer on how the GDR fell in...

The EI Podcast ·

2025/02/07

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.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: Intershop in Friedrichstrasse in East Berlin. Credit: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo / Alamy Stock Photo

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11:52

EI Portraits — Daisy Dunn on Pittacus, the good tyrant

The EI Podcast ·

2025/02/06

After unpromising beginnings and innumerable controversies, Pittacus, seventh-century ruler of Mytilene on Lesbos, should be remembered as one of the great leaders of his age. Read by Sebastian Brown.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: An illustration of Pittacus. Credit: Historical image collection by Bildagentur-online / Alamy Stock Photo

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16:37

EI Weekly Listen — Merryn Somerset Webb on the power...

The EI Podcast ·

2025/01/31

The limited liability company remains the best vehicle for capitalistic endeavour. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: Lloyd's coffee house in the City of London. Credit: CPA Media Pte Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

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46:32

EI Talks... the dawn of the post-literate society

The EI Podcast ·

2025/01/30

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 Editor Paul Lay to discuss the promise and peril of a culture defined by the audiovisual. 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, and produced by Caitlin Brown. The sound engineer is Gareth Jones. Image: Painting of a woman reading

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17:38

EI Weekly Listen — Sergey Radchenko on what drives...

The EI Podcast ·

2025/01/24

Putin’s justifications for invading Ukraine uncannily reflect the motivations of one of Russian literature’s most famous antiheroes, Dostoevsky's Rodion Raskolnikov. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: Vladimir Putin at an EU-Russia summit in Brussels. Credit: Peter Cavanagh / Alamy Stock Photo

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13:50

EI Portraits — Tim Marshall on Konstantin...

The EI Podcast ·

2025/01/23

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 Space Race fifty years later. Read by Sebastian Brown.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: Soviet poster featuring a portrait of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). Credit: Alexeyev Filippov / Alamy Stock Photo

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18:48

EI Weekly Listen — Jeremy Jennings on liberty in the...

The EI Podcast ·

2025/01/17

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 population to the condition of willing slaves under Bonaparte’s First Empire, provides a diagnosis of the character of many subsequent totalitarian regimes. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife Josephine were crowned Emperor and

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42:48

EI Talks... the case for Classics

The EI Podcast ·

2025/01/16

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, Armand D’Angour, Professor of Classics at Oxford University, and Paul Lay, EI’s Senior Editor, to discuss the value of ancient languages.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. EI Talks... is produced by Alastair Benn. The sound engineer is Gareth Jones. Image: Giovanni Paolo Panini's

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21:44

EI Weekly Listen — Francis J. Gavin on how 1970s...

The EI Podcast ·

2025/01/10

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 globe – for better or worse. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: 1970s commercial airline advert. Credit: ClassicStock / Alamy Stock Photo

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18:18

EI Portraits — Alexander Lee on Guittone d’Arezzo,...

The EI Podcast ·

2025/01/09

At a time of moral and political crisis, the medieval poet pioneered a daring and emotive vernacular style which inspired generations of Italian literature. Read by Sebastian Brown. Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: A sketch of Guittone d'Arezzo from the nineteenth century. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

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17:46

EI Weekly Listen — Alexander McCall Smith on the...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/12/20

While we may think we have moved beyond the censorship of the past, writers' artistic freedoms are still constrained. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence was the subject of a watershed obscenity trial. Credit: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo.

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31:48

EI Talks... the Vietnam War with Fredrik Logevall

The EI Podcast ·

2024/12/19

EI's Angus Reilly discusses the history and legacy of the Vietnam War with Fredrik Logevall, author of Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. EI Talks... is produced by Alastair Benn. The sound engineer is Gareth Jones. Image: Photograph of American troops running towards a chopper during the Vietnam War. Credit: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

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17:33

EI Weekly Listen — Kori Schake on the price of freedom

The EI Podcast ·

2024/12/13

The arc of history only bends towards justice when people of goodwill grab hold of it and wrench it in the direction of justice. Read by Helen Lloyd.Image: The Freedom is Our Religion banner in Maidan Square, Kyiv. Credit: Ali Kerem Yucel / Alamy Stock Photo

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12:58

EI Portraits — Paul Lay on Thomas Gage, a man of...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/12/12

His intense faith led Thomas Gage to switch his religious allegiance during the tumultuous 17th century - he went on to have an enormous impact on Britain's colonial future. Read by Sebastian Brown.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: Title Page from Thomas Gage's The English-American his travail by sea and land: or, A new survey of the West-India's (London 1648)

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21:39

EI Weekly Listen — David Butterfield on Epicurus,...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/12/06

Myths frame and tailor the past in a way that can ground and stabilise a community, however large or small. By situating them within the fabric of history, myths provide a sense of tradition and belonging to rally around. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: A statue of Romulus and Remus on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. Credit: Russell Kord / Alamy Stock Photo

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49:07

EI Talks... the problem with VAR with Daisy...

The EI Podcast ·

2024/12/05

EI's Alastair Benn discusses how technology is transforming the world of sport with Daisy Christodoulou, education expert and author of I Can't Stop Thinking About VAR, an eloquent examination of the use of the video assistant referee (VAR) system in football.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: Crystal Palace Fans hold up a banner to protest

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138 results

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