The EI Podcast

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

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: Keysto...

Samuel Rubinstein explores how Nazi historiographers sought to present Adolf Hitler as the heir to Charlemagne. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/how-the-nazis-weaponised-charlemagne/ . Image: A large Sèvres presentation plate celebrating Nazism's alleged debt to Charlemagne. Credit: INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo

James Vitali reflects on the profound importance of political judgement. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/why-do-we-get-the-wrong-leaders/ .  Image: The front door of Number 10 Downing street. Credit: GreatBritishStock.com / Alamy Stock Photo

Journalist Duncan Weldon reveals how liberal capitalist economies adapt to total war. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/why-liberal-democracies-win-total-wars/ .  Image: Second World War-era British propaganda. Credit: Venimages / Alamy Stock Photo 

EI’s Paul Lay joins historian Andrew Lambert to discuss his book ‘No More Napoleons: How Britain Managed Europe from Waterloo to World War One', Lambert's provocative new study of how Britain maximised its naval and diplomatic prestige to maintain a stable, post-Napoleonic Europe. Image: 'A squadron of the Royal Navy running down the Channel' by Samuel Atkins (c. 1760-1810). Credit: Pictorial Pres...

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 Bayford Image: 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_pho...

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 Morton Image: 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 Mcloughlin Image: 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 Valdez Image: 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 Jukic Image: 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 McCartney Image: 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-Pasternak Image: During the Soviet-Finnish war (1939-1940) skiers of the Finnish army in white camouflage made lightning and effective atta...

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 Coker Image: Leonidas at Thermopylae, by Jacques-Louis David, 1814. Credit: Peter Horree / Alamy Stock P...

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 Omrani Image: 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 Poirier Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Image: Parisians gather around the Arc de Triomphe a...

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 Sheridan Engelsberg Ideas is funded by...

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 Daouda Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Imag...

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 Simms Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Im...

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...

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 Samuel 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 /...

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 Benn 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...