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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

61:19

The instability of a multipolar era

The EI Podcast ·

2025/12/29

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 instability of a multipolar world.Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Victory Parade marking the 70th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Credit: Associated Press

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61:20

Nicholas Wright on why the brain is the ultimate...

The EI Podcast ·

2025/12/18

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 war. Credit: fStop Images GmbH

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29:32

The end of Pax Britannica

The EI Podcast ·

2025/12/11

Graeme Thompson on the fall of a liberal world order. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: 'Taming the British Lion'. Puck magazine, 1888. Credit: Historical Images Archive

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21:43

The classical key to the AI revolution

The EI Podcast ·

2025/12/04

John Tasioulas examines how a classical conception of democracy – distinct from liberal democracy – may offer the resources needed to meet the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: Rudolph Müller, View of the Acropolis from the Pynx (1863). Credit: Eraza Collection

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22:40

The Risorgimento myth

The EI Podcast ·

2025/11/27

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.Image: A painting displaying the splendour of the Neapolitan fleet. Credit: The Picture Art Collection

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43:51

Dan Wang on China's quest to engineer the future

The EI Podcast ·

2025/11/20

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 China. Credit: ton koene

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19:35

The double agent who introduced Japan to the West

The EI Podcast ·

2025/11/13

Bill Emmott profiles Lafcadio Hearn, the Anglo-Irish-Greek foreign correspondent who made Japan his home. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: Lafcadio Hearn photographed with his wife, Setsuko Koizumi, and their son. Credit: GRANGER - Historical Picture Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

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32:16

Andrew Ross Sorkin on lessons from the Wall Street Crash

The EI Podcast ·

2025/11/05

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.Image: The Wall Street financial crash of 1929, with a city businessman speculator trying to sell his car for $100 cash, having lost all on the stock market. Credit: Alamy/ Shawshots.

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20:23

1821 and the invention of world order

The EI Podcast ·

2025/10/30

Historian Damian Valdez on international order's 19th-century origins. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: Mexican general Agustín de Iturbide rides through a ceremonial arch to welcoming officials in Mexico City on September 27, 1821, after decisively winning independence for Mexico. Credit: Album / Alamy Stock Photo

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22:39

The growing-pains of Graham Greene

The EI Podcast ·

2025/10/23

Critic Malcolm Forbes investigates Graham Greene's troubled childhood. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: Graham Greene in 1940. Credit: Everett Collection Historical / Alamy Stock Photo

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26:29

The Slavic War according to Stalin

The EI Podcast ·

2025/10/16

Historian Luka Ivan Jukic explores how Stalin hijacked the Slavic cause to forge the Soviet Empire. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: A poster celebrating Stalin at the Russian State Library, Moscow. Credit: Album / Alamy Stock Photo

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13:53

A warning to the young: just say no to AI

The EI Podcast ·

2025/10/09

Aaron MacLean, host of the School of War podcast, on AI's threat to the life of the mind. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: The Library Hall of the Upper Lusatian Library of Sciences. Credit: Petr Svarc / Alamy Stock Photo

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14:33

The Slow Horses are Britain’s perfect spies

The EI Podcast ·

2025/10/02

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

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68:19

Stephen Kotkin on a new age of warfare

The EI Podcast ·

2025/09/25

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. Credit: Associated Press

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16:19

The Great French Songbook

The EI Podcast ·

2025/09/18

Why do people the world over enjoy listening to songs sung in French? Critic Muriel Zagha illuminates the living tradition of French chanson. Image: Juliette Gréco, the French actress and singer. Credit: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

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14:00

Our attention dilemma is age-old

The EI Podcast ·

2025/09/11

Alastair Benn explores an attention dilemma that has haunted western thought for centuries. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: Detail from Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse, 1903. Credit: SuperStock / Alamy Stock Photo

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15:36

How the state can do more for less

The EI Podcast ·

2025/09/04

Historian David Cowan explains how radical reform can reshape the state. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: A political caricature, 'Political Dreams, Visions of Peace, Perspective Horrors', by James Gillray of Pitt the Younger. Credit: INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo

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16:23

The espionage revolution

The EI Podcast ·

2025/08/28

David Omand, ex-head of GCHQ, the British government's world-renowned cyber agency, explores how intelligence officers exploit the latest technological advances.Image: Digital espionage is on the rise. Credit: Stu Gray / Alamy Stock Photo

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59:30

Graham Greene's Vietnam

The EI Podcast ·

2025/08/21

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 American, published 70 years ago, a gripping novel that captures the passing of the baton from the old colonial powers to the new masters in South-East Asia.Image: French paratroops at the beginning of the First Indochina War. Credit: Keystone Press

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16:11

How the Nazis weaponised Charlemagne

The EI Podcast ·

2025/08/14

Samuel Rubinstein explores how Nazi historiographers sought to present Adolf Hitler as the heir to Charlemagne. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: A large Sèvres presentation plate celebrating Nazism's alleged debt to Charlemagne. Credit: INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo

en

144 results

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