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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

33:42

EI Weekly Listen — Iuliia Osmolovska on how Russia...

The EI Podcast ·

2025/04/04

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

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20:09

EI Weekly Listen — Juliet Samuel on liberty under attack

The EI Podcast ·

2025/03/28

Just as generations did before us, we are learning that a belief in liberty is not self-evident and its expansion is not inevitable. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg 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 Stock Photo

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50:39

EI Talks... the uses of comedy

The EI Podcast ·

2025/03/27

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. 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: Eduard von Grützner's Falstaff, 1873. Credit: INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo

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17:38

EI Weekly Listen — Roel Sterckx on gazing back to see...

The EI Podcast ·

2025/03/21

We must study the centuries-long history that has forged the DNA of Chinese political thinking and make it part of our conversations about China today. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: The Great Wall of China. Credit: nagelestock.com / Alamy Stock Photo

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22:27

EI Weekly Listen — Alexander Lee on the myth of Venice

The EI Podcast ·

2025/03/14

Liberty was central to the idea of Venice, but was remarkably fragile. The republic had to guard it fiercely and expound it as a tangible way of living for flawed human beings. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg 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

en

19:40

EI Weekly Listen — Richard Miles on Spartacus,...

The EI Podcast ·

2025/03/07

Spartacus is a figure who floats between history and allegory. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg 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 Stock Photo

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20:43

EI Weekly Listen — Mary Elise Sarotte on how a Second...

The EI Podcast ·

2025/02/28

The choice to enlarge NATO was a justifiable response to the geopolitics of the 1990s. The problem was how it happened. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: The 'You are leaving The American Sector' sign at the Checkpoint Charlie crossing point, Berlin Wall. Credit: Greg Balfour Evans / Alamy Stock Photo

en

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

en

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

en

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

en

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

en

145 results

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