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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, Jack Dickens 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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25 episodes
weekly
Avg 38 min
English

Episodes 25

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Thursday · 48 min
The scramble for the Middle East
Simon Sebag Montefiore speaks to Jack Dickens about his new book, ‘The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East’. Image: British troops on parade at Jaffa Gate after seizing military control of the region from the Ottoman Empire (1917). Credit: Wikimedia Commons
September 3 · 1 hr 8 min
The novel in Britain: from cover to cover
Philip Hensher speaks to Alastair Benn about his new book, ‘A History of the Novel in Britain’, a stylish and very personal survey of a great tradition. Image: Portrait of Algernon Talmage circa 1915, by Hilda Fearon. Credit: Alamy
August 27 · 37 min
Journeys in Europe’s grey zone
Hannah Lucinda Smith speaks to Caitlin Allen about her new book, ‘Hinterlands: Journeys through Europe’s Unfinished Frontiers’. Image: United Nations Buffer Zone near the ghost town resort of Varosha, Famagusta, Cyprus. Credit: Alamy
August 20 · 37 min
Machiavelli still matters
Stephen Bowd speaks to Paul Lay about why, 500 years after his death, Niccolò Machiavelli remains one of the world’s most vital political philosophers. Image: Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli (1570). Credit: Alamy
August 13 · 47 min
The entire history of cinema in one shot
Film critic David Thomson speaks to Paul Lay about his new book, ‘A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of the Movies’. Image: A sign advertises the opening of the Hollywoodland housing development in the hills overlooking Los Angeles. Credit: Alamy
August 6 · 49 min
America’s universal document: a curious history
Marking 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, Michael Auslin speaks to Paul Lay about the document’s powerful yet often strange afterlife. From Philadelphia in 1776, through the Civil War, the Gilded Age, both World Wars and the Cold War, America’s founding document has been a perennial symbol of hope. Image: An illustration from ‘Columbia's Courtship: A Picture History of the United States in Twelve Emblematic Designs in Color with Accompanying Verses’ by Walter Crane (1983). Credit: Alamy
July 30 · 1 hr 9 min
The alien world of Homer’s Odyssey
What does Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of ‘The Odyssey’ have in common with Homer’s poem? Classicist and actor Orlando Gibbs speaks to Alastair Benn about the strangeness of this ancient epic, which depicts a moral world far removed from Nolan’s secular and post-Christian worldview, and discusses whether its popularity will lead to a renewed interest in the classical world. Image: Odysseus and the Sirens, represented on an ancient Greek vase. Credit: Alamy
July 23 · 38 min
How wine made the modern world
Historian Kathleen Burk speaks to Max Mitchell about the long history of humanity's relationship with wine, taking us on a journey from the ancient Near East to modern France. Image: A vineyard near the Temple of Zeus at Ancient Nemea, Korinthia, Greece. Credit: Alamy
July 20 · 19 min
The struggle for Saudi Arabia’s buried past
Saudi Arabia’s expensive investment in its future has come with a concurrent focus on its archaeological past but its ambitions risk eradicating the remnants of pre-Islamic history. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-struggle-for-saudi-arabias-buried-past/. Image: The Qasr Al Farid tomb in Saudi Arabia. Credit: Alamy
July 16 · 35 min
The diplomats who defeated Hitler
Peter Ricketts, Britain’s former ambassador to France, speaks with Paul Lay about a golden age of diplomacy. Image: Archibald Clark Kerr (Britain’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union) and Alexander Cadogan (Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs) at the Potsdam Conference, 1945. Credit: Alamy.
July 13 · 15 min
The political power of knowing your enemy
In war and diplomacy, personal relationships between leaders can shape the course of events in unpredictable ways. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the-political-power-of-knowing-your-enemy/. Image: Cartoon from Punch showing from Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Credit: Alamy
July 9 · 1 hr 3 min
The return of the Great Powers
Brendan Simms talks to EI’s Jack Dickens about a new age of geopolitical rivalry. Image: Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. Credit: Alamy
July 6 · 20 min
Germany’s new old nuclear dilemma
When it comes to nuclear weapons, the concerns that West Germany’s first chancellor wrestled with during the Cold War have not disappeared. In this audio essay, Marina E. Henke suggests that they have simply re-emerged in new forms. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read it here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/germanys-new-old-nuclear-dilemma/ Image: A nuclear power plant in Bavaria, circa 1985. Credit: INTERFOTO
July 2 · 46 min
250 years of the American experiment
Paul Lay speaks to Phil Tinline, author of Ghosts of Iron Mountain: The Hoax that Duped America and its Sinister Legacy, about the variety and violence of a country built on high ideals and low conspiracies. Image: The interior of the United States Capitol. Credit: Alamy
June 29 · 42 min
Where is Russia’s place in the world?
Russia is a Near Eastern country now subordinated to East Asia. But Stephen Kotkin argues that historically it has prospered most when tied closely to Europe. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/where-is-russias-place-in-the-world/. Image: Map of Russia, 1562. Credit: Alamy
June 25 · 46 min
Christianity’s debt to Rome
What does Christ’s Kingdom owe to the culture of the Roman Empire? Tim Whitmarsh speaks to EI’s Alastair Benn about his new book, Rome’s Age of Revolution: Augustus, Empire and the Making of Christianity. Image: A statue of Augustus Caesar in Turin. Credit: Alamy
June 22 · 16 min
Jean Eustache: the outsider who reshaped French cinema
The filmmaker Jean Eustache’s interest in rural France and his sardonic scepticism about the May ’68 ideologues mark him out from his Nouvelle Vague contemporaries. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/portraits/jean-eustache-the-outsider-who-reshaped-french-cinema/. Image: The film director Jean Eustache. Credit: Alamy
June 18 · 43 min
How to end a war
Margaret MacMillan speaks to EI’s Jack Dickens about how wars – and attempts to bring about peace – have shaped every era of human history. Image: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference, 1945. Credit: Alamy
June 15 · 17 min
Testament to doomed media
The old media has failed to rise to the challenge of tech, but we'll miss it when it's gone. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/testament-to-doomed-media/. Image: Woman reading a newspaper. Credit: Alamy
June 11 · 33 min
Why Armenia’s elections matter
Thomas de Waal joins EI’s Jack Dickens to discuss how the recent elections in Armenia could reshape geopolitics in the Caucasus and beyond. Image: Armenian flag with Mount Ararat in background. Credit: Alamy

Showing 1–20 of 25 episodes