What Rhymes With Now?

History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. What Rhymes With Now? is a podcast, produced by Louis Walsh, that puts today's biggest challenges in historical perspective.

Each episode, host Patrick Cook interviews a leading historian about a period that illuminates something urgent about the present. If you're looking for the bigger picture, this is your show.

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12 episodes
Avg 45 min
English

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August 19 · 1 hr 1 min
The dramatic history of the English language with Frederick Atkinson
Patrick is joined by Frederick Atkinson to discuss the history and development of the English language, some of the great writers in English history and how social media and AI is changing the way we engage with language. Frederick Atkinson is writer and presenter focussing on English history, mythology and literature. Patrick Cook is the host of the What Rhymes With Now? podcast, which looks at historical events and turning points to understand the great challenges of our time.
August 5 · 51 min
What would Plato say today? With Angie Hobbs
Fake news. Money and politics. Demagogues who tell the crowd exactly what it wants to hear. And the oldest question of all — what does a good life actually look like? Plato was turning these questions over 2,400 years ago, and his conclusions are as strange and as sharp as ever. In this episode I'm joined by Professor Angie Hobbs — Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. Her new book, Why Plato Matters Now, makes the case that if you want to understand democracy, autocracy, truth and the good life today, there is no better place to begin than Athens in the fourth century BC. We discuss Plato’s life and work from the trial of Socrates and the Allegory of the Cave to his uncomfortable warnings about democracy, his account of how societies slide towards tyranny, and his questions about truth, desire, fame and what money can and cannot buy — and ask what he would make of the world today. Angie Hobbs' new book — Why Plato Matters Now (Bloomsbury): Why-Plato-Matters-NowAngie Hobbs' website: https://angiehobbs.comAngie Hobbs on X: https://x.com/drangiehobbs Listen to What Rhymes With Now? on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon, and find everything else here: https://linktr.ee/whatrhymeswithnow ABOUT WHAT RHYMES WITH NOW: History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. What Rhymes With Now? is a podcast that puts today’s biggest challenges in historical perspective. In each episode, we speak to an expert about an important period of history, to help inform our approach to today’s challenges.
July 22 · 59 min
UK nuclear energy and infrastructure with Simon Taylor
Why does it feel like the UK (and the West in general) can't build anything anymore? Why is nuclear so hotly debated by environmentalists and policy makers? What can we do to get clean, cheap energy and infrastructure? Patrick speaks with Professor Simon Taylor about the history and financing of nuclear power in Britain — from the early ambitions of the civil nuclear programme to the cost overruns, cancelled projects, and policy reversals that followed. They trace how well-intentioned regulation and short-term political incentives have combined to make major infrastructure in Britain slower and more expensive to build than it once was, and what — if anything — can be done to fix it. Professor Simon Taylor is a Management Practice Professor in Finance at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. He writes at https://www.simontaylorsblog.com What Rhymes With Now? is a podcast looking at what we can learn from history to help us face our current challenges. Find us on all platforms: https://linktr.ee/whatrhymeswithnow
July 8 · 46 min
Global order and disorder with Ayse Zarakol
Ayşe Zarakol is Professor of International Relations at the University of Cambridge and a Politics Fellow at Emmanuel College. She is the author of Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders, which argues that the sovereign, universalist world orders we associate with the modern West have older precedents in the great Eastern empires — and that understanding how those orders rose and fell tells us something about how our own might end. Her next book, Ozymandias, is a world history of strongmen (forthcoming in the UK from William Collins in 2027). In this conversation we discuss the history of large scale political orders, periods of disorder, and the future of the current Western world order in the 21st century. Ayse argues that the 17th century has many lessons that could be relevant for us in the 21st century,
June 24 · 4 min
Andy Beckett Bonus Clip
An additional clip from Patrick's discussion with Andy Beckett. 16/04/2026
S1 · E6
June 10 · 57 min
How our beliefs shape society with Ryan Avent
Why does Western civilization feel lost? What are the underlying beliefs behind our society, and how did they emerge? How will social media and AI impact the way we live? What can we do about it? I’m speaking about all of this with Ryan Avent, author of the new book, In Good Faith: How the Nature of Belief Shapes the Fate of Societies.
S1 · E5
May 27 · 59 min
The future of dollar dominance with Paul Blustein
How did the dollar become the dominant global currency? What impact does that have on the US and the global economy? How might this change with the emergence of new global powers, geopolitical uncertainty and technological innovation? To find out more, I spoke with the author Paul Blustein about his latest book King Dollar.
S1 · E4
May 13 · 54 min
Britain, England, and the Anglo Saxons with Nicholas J. Higham
Why is Great Britain divided into England, Scotland and Wales? The answer lies nearly two thousand years ago, in the collapse of Roman rule and the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons — a story of migration, cultural replacement and identity that resonates with debates we're having today. Patrick speaks with historian Nicholas J. Higham, author of the new book How England Began: From Roman Britain to the Anglo-Saxons, about what happens when a civilian society loses the military power that protected it, how an incoming culture can reshape a country within generations (or not), and what it actually means to be from somewhere.
May 12 · 1 min
Trailer: What Rhymes With Now?
History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. What Rhymes With Now? is a podcast, produced by Louis Walsh, that puts today's biggest challenges in historical perspective. Each episode, host Patrick Cook interviews a leading historian about a period that illuminates something urgent about the present. If you're looking for the bigger picture, this is your show.
S1 · E3
April 15 · 50 min
The Politics of the French Revolution with John Hardman
You may have heard that inequality today has reached levels not seen since the French Revolution. But what actually happened after 1789 — and what does it teach us about the fragility of political institutions, and populist politics? Patrick speaks with John Hardman, author of The French Revolution: A Political History, about how a group of radical lawyers wrestled control from a king, how revolutionary politics devoured its own, and why the structural design of government matters just as much as the intentions of the people running it.
S1 · E2
April 15 · 47 min
The Great Depression and the New Deal with Robert McElvaine
Why didn't America turn to fascism during the worst economic crisis in modern history? If AI causes mass unemployment in the coming years, what can the 1930s teach us about replacing the social role of work? Patrick speaks with Robert S. McElvaine, historian, political commentator and author of The Great Depression: America 1929–1941, about the wealth inequality and debt-fuelled consumption that caused the crash, Roosevelt's political genius, and why the lessons of the New Deal matter more now than ever.
S1 · E1
April 15 · 55 min
Stagflation and Politics in the 70's with Andy Beckett
We are in an era of stagflation. What happened last time? And why do the 1970s cast such a long shadow over British politics? Patrick speaks with Andy Beckett, journalist and author of When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies, about the three-day week, the collapse of the post-war consensus, the rise of Thatcherism, and why a country that was more egalitarian than it had ever been still felt like it was falling apart.

Showing 1–12 of 12 episodes