The EI Podcast

Historian Katherine Bayford exposes the fractures and contradictions that doomed the Confederacy from within. Read by Leighton Pugh.FURTHER READING:The rift that doomed the Confederacy | Katherine BayfordImage: A statue of Alexander Stephens in the US Congress. Credit: Sipa US / Alamy Stock Photo

This year marks the centenary of the publication of Franz Kafka’s novel, The Trial - a seminal work that continues to captivate and unsettle its readers. EI’s Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by Karolina Watroba, author of Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka, to discuss Josef K’s tragic entanglement with a suffocating bureaucracy.Image: Portrait of Franz Kafka. Credit: history_docu_photo / Alamy Stock Photo

Historian Nicholas Morton explores how a miracle of marketing brought the Knights Templars to prominence. Read by Leighton Pugh.FURTHER READING:The Knights Templars and the pursuit of Christendom | Nicholas MortonImage: A Victorian illustration of the Knights Templars. Credit: Glasshouse Images / Alamy Stock Photo

The writer Josh Mcloughlin reflects on the art of chorography, one of English literature’s most eccentric and mercurial forms. Read by Leighton Pugh.FURTHER READING:The lost art of chorography | Josh McloughlinImage: Renaissance map of Europe showing England. Credit: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Phot

Historian Damian Valdez reflects on the meaning of 1975, a fateful year for the international order. Read by Leighton Pugh.FURTHER READING:1975, the year that made the modern world | Damian ValdezImage: A helicopter is pushed off the overcrowded deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hancock (CV-19) off the coast of South Vietnam during the fall of Saigon. Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo

EI’s Paul Lay joins historian Tim Bouverie to discuss ‘Allies at War’, his gripping new book on how Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin’s uneasy alliance led to the end of the Second World War – and reshaped the global order in ways that are still felt today.Image: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta. Credit: Niday Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo

Writer Luka Ivan Jukic laments the all-but-total disappearance of facial hair from politics. Read by Leighton Pugh.FURTHER READING:What happened to the politician’s moustache? | Luka Ivan JukicImage: A double portrait of Mozaffar al-Din Shah, the fifth Qajar shah of Iran. Credit: Penta Springs Limited / Alamy Stock Photo

Journalist and author Jenny McCartney celebrates the magic of squalor, and explores how generations of artists have seen the sublime in slime. Read by Leighton Pugh.FURTHER READING:On squalor | Jenny McCartneyImage: Walter Sickert's Easter Monday. Credit: Logic Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Geopolitical analyst Charly Salonius-Pasternak examines Finland's long journey to full membership of the Western alliance, and explores how the Nordic nation could play a leading role in its future.FURTHER READING:Why Finns joined the fight | Charly Salonius-PasternakImage: During the Soviet-Finnish war (1939-1940) skiers of the Finnish army in white camouflage made lightning and effective attacks on units of the Red Army. Credit: World of Triss / Alamy Stock Photo

The late Christopher Coker, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics for almost 40 years, explains why, although the love of liberty is not unique to the West, the lust for liberty is. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING: The West’s lust for liberty | Christopher CokerImage: Leonidas at Thermopylae, by Jacques-Louis David, 1814. Credit: Peter Horree / Alamy Stock Photo

In this episode of The EI Podcast, the historian Bijan Omrani is joined by EI's Paul Lay to explore the indelible mark Christianity has left on England’s identity and culture.FURTHER READING:The tragic decline of Christian rituals | Bijan OmraniImage: South View of Salisbury Cathedral, JMW Turner. Credit: Penta Springs Limited / Alamy Stock Photo

Agnès Poirier, journalist and broadcaster, examines how the liberation of France in 1944 opened the way for Paris to become a laboratory of ideas. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:The liberation of France made the modern world | Agnès PoirierEngelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image: Parisians gather around the Arc de Triomphe as Allied forces liberate the city. Credit: RBM Vintage Images / Alamy Stock Photo.

EI's Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by Michael Sheridan, author of two books on China and a foreign correspondent for 40 years, to discuss China’s rise, its subsequent entry into the international trading system, and its contemporary status as the problem child of our globalised world.FURTHER READING:China and America, the great decoupling | Michael SheridanEngelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. This episode of The EI Podcast was hosted by Paul Lay and Alastair Benn, and produced by Caitlin Brown. The sound engineer was Gareth Jones.Image: An electronics recycling facility in Shanghai, China. Credit: Cavan Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Marie Daouda, lecturer in French language and literature at the University of Oxford, shows how the pursuit of apparently 'real' desires comes at the expense of collective truth. The consequences can be disastrous. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:The truth shall set us free | Marie DaoudaEngelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image: Isabelle Huppert, Madame Bovary 1991. Credit: Collection Christophel / Alamy Stock Photo

Brendan Simms, founder and Director of the Centre for Geopolitics at the University of Cambridge, illustrates why contemporary Germany struggles to muster a serious military response to the Russian challenge. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:The German key to European liberty | Brendan SimmsEngelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image: The Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). Napoleon watching the Tsar, the Emperor of Austria and King of Prussia dividing up Europe. Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy

What are the deep roots of Trump's worldview? Can we learn to read Trump’s behaviour? And are there opportunities to be had for those who can?EI's Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by Charlie Laderman, Senior Lecturer in International History at King's College London, to discuss how to interpret the Trump White House.This episode was recorded on 7th April.FURTHER READING:How Iran’s Tanker War shaped Trump’s worldview | Charlie LadermanEngelsberg 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: Donald Trump poses for photos above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange after taking his Trump Plaza Casino public in New York on June 7, 1995. Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo

Iuliia Osmolovska, head of the GLOBSEC Kyiv Office, argues that 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

Juliet Samuel, columnist for The Times newspaper, highlights that a belief in liberty is not self-evident and its expansion is not inevitable. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:Liberty under attack from enemies within | Juliet SamuelEngelsberg 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

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.FURTHER READING:The subtle art of English comedy | Alastair BennEngelsberg 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

Roel Sterckx, the Joseph Needham Professor of Chinese History, Science, and Civilization at Cambridge University, makes the case for studying China's centuries-long history. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:Gazing back to see China’s future | Roel SterckxEngelsberg 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

Alexander Lee, author of Machiavelli: His Life and Times, argues that liberty was central to the idea of Venice. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:Liberty and the myth of Venice | Alexander LeeEngelsberg 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

Richard Miles, historian and archaeologist, profiles Spartacus, a figure who floats between history and allegory. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:Spartacus, history’s nowhere man | Richard MilesEngelsberg 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

Mary Elise Sarotte, Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Distinguished Professor of Historical Studies at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, reflects that the choice to enlarge NATO was a justifiable response to the geopolitics of the 1990s. The problems came later. Read by Helen Lloyd.FURTHER READING:How a Second Cold War could have been averted | Mary Elise SarotteEngelsberg 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

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 hosted by Paul Lay and Alastair Benn, and produced by Caitlin Brown. The sound engineer is Gareth Jones.Image: A string quartet. Credit: nsf / Alamy Stock Photo

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

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

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 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: Gary Oldman in the 2011 film version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Year, based on the novel of John le Carré. Credit: Photo 12 / Alamy Stock Photo

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

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

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

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 by Carl Vilhelm Holsøe. Credit: Vidimages / Alamy Stock Photo

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

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

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 Empress of France on 2 December 1804. Credit: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

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 hosted by Paul Lay and Alastair Benn, and produced by Caitlin Brown. The sound engineer is Gareth Jones.Image: Giovanni Paolo Panini's painting from circa 1730, The Coliseum amongst Roman Ruins. Credit: incamerastock / Alamy Stock Photo

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

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.

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.

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

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.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image: The Freedom is Our Religion banner in Maidan Square, Kyiv. Credit: Ali Kerem Yucel / Alamy Stock Photo

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)

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

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 against VAR. Credit: Sipa US / Alamy Stock Photo

With deterrence and compellence becoming more crucial than they have been in over three decades, understanding what makes foreign leaders tick is of the utmost importance. Read by Helen Lloyd.Image: Silhouettes of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. Credit: KLYONA / Alamy Stock Photo

Andrew Roberts profiles Brendan Bracken, Winston Churchill's faithful and most trusted political adviser. Read by Sebastian Brown.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image: Winston Churchill leaving Downing Street with Brendan Bracken. Credit:: Fremantle / Alamy Stock Photo

EI's Angus Reilly discusses the life and legacy of Henry Kissinger with Thomas A. Schwartz, author of Henry Kissinger and American Power: A Political Biography.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: President Gerald Ford and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger conversing in the grounds of the White House in 1974. Credit: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

Gustaf Mannerheim's rise from a troubled youth to Finland's great wartime leader illustrates how leadership is forged by both personal traits and the unpredictable tides of history. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image: Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, centre, discusses strategy against the Russians at his field headquarters on the Finnish-Russian border, April 1942. Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo

EI's Paul Lay discusses how the Baltic states have survived, and thrived, in the shadow of Russian aggression, with Kristjan Prikk, Estonia's Ambassador to the United States and Eitvydas Bajarūnas, a former Lithuanian senior diplomat, who has served as the Ambassador to Sweden, Russia and the UK.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: A new Iron Curtain in Europe. Credit: aleksey Shirmanov / Alamy Stock Photo

Australia stands at the forefront of democratic resistance against China's expanding influence, reshaping its strategy and alliances to meet the challenges of a contested Indo-Pacific. Read by Helen Lloyd.Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.Image: Two US Air Force B-2 Spirits fly alongside four Royal Australian Air Force EA-18G Growlers and a RAAF E-7A Wedgetail, August 2022. Credit: UPI / Alamy Stock Photo

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 offered opportunities to reset relations between East and West. EI's Paul Lay discusses how these opportunities were squandered with Mary Elise Sarotte, Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Distinguished Professor of Historical Studies at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs.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: The fall of the Berlin Wall. Credit: Agencja Fotograficzna Caro / Alamy Stock Photo