Thinking Class

Driss Ghali is a political author and speaker. Driss was born in Morocco and educated in Europe. He graduated from prestigious French universities and spent a lot of time in a corporate career focused on high-tech companies. Driss is an intellectual and observer of human nature as it is: ugly and splendid at the same time. Since 2017, he has written books about Violence and Identity. He frequently...

This is a compilation episode focused on the themes of England and Britain's history at home and abroad, the making of its social, political, and cultural life. You can expect to hear from the likes of Peter Hitchens, Connor Tomlinson, Charlie Downes, David Starkey, Nigel Biggar, Robert Tombs, Paul Embery, Lionel Shriver, Douglas Carswell, Neema Parvini, Alan MacFarlane, & many more.    T...

Dr. Bijan Omrani is a classicist, historian, and Oxford-educated barrister. His research explores questions of religious history and cultural identity, spanning from ancient Roman Greece to Afghanistan and the Silk Road. He has taught Classics at Eton College and Westminster School, is a former editor of Asian Affairs, and currently serves as a Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. He is al...

Prof. Tim Lang is the emeritus professor of food policy at City University London Centre for Food Policy. He was professor of food policy at Citi from 2002 to 2021 and had founded the Centre in 1994 at Thames Valley University, now the University of West London. After a PhD in social psychology at Leeds University in the early seventies, he became a hill farmer in the forest of Boland Lancashire,...

Dr. Mario Trabucco della Torretta is a classical archaeologist trained in Sicily and Athens. Mario's expertise covers classical Greek architecture and sculpture, ancient Athens and the Elgin Marbles. He tweets @Mario_Trabucco and runs the YouTube channel @ElginMarbleGames⁩ . In this episode, Mario and I think out loud about how museums acquire artefacts, the contested nature of certain items,...

Douglas Carswell was a member of the British Parliament for 12 years. He also co-founded Vote Leave the Official campaign that won the 2016 Brexit vote in Britain. The author of five books, Douglas has written widely about bank reform and monetary policy, as well as publishing a libertarian history of human progress.  In this episode, Douglas and I think out loud about his plan to save Britain, wh...

Charles Cornish Dale, otherwise known as Raw Egg Nationalist, is a writer and owner of a popular X/Twitter account . Charlie is the editor of the Mans World Magazine and the author of four books, Raw Egg Nationalism in Theory and Practice; Three lives of Golden Age Bodybuilders; Draw Me a Gironda and Raw Egg Trilogy . His fifth book is The Last Men: Liberalism and The Death of Masculinity. He has...

Nuriyah Khan is the host of the YouTube channel Holy Humanist and is a prominent ex-Muslim and women's rights campaigner, known for her fearless advocacy and outspoken views.  In this episode, Nuriyah and I think out loud about her experiences as an ex Muslim and her views on women's rights and human rights. We also talk about the changing landscape of Islam in Britain, the perception of...

Niall Gooch is a writer and has appeared in The Spectator, Unheard, and The Catholic Herald.  In this episode, Niall and I think out loud about the unique aspects of British identity, the impact of political ideologies on historical narratives, and why we need to strike a balance between kindness and justice in public policy. We also talk about why each of us need a deeper understanding of the cul...

Lorenzo Warby writes the Substack Lorenzo from Oz and he contributes regularly to Helen Dale's Substack, Not on your team, but always fair . He needs little introduction to long time classmates because this is the third time he has appeared on the show. Check out the archives for the other two.  In this episode, Lorenzo and I think out loud about why the term capitalism is misleading and why...

Alan McFarlane is an anthropologist, historian, and Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at King’s College, Cambridge. He is the author or editor of 20 books and numerous articles covering the anthropology and history of England, Nepal, Japan, and China. A fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society, Alan has dedicated much of his work to the comparative study of the origins...

Today, I’m speaking with Dr Anthony Daniels, better known by his pen name, Theodore Dalrymple. He is an English cultural critic, prison physician, and psychiatrist who has worked in several sub-Saharan African countries and London’s East End. **Please excuse the audio issues on my side. This problem was caused by my audio interface. Anthony's audio is clear and that is the main thing** Before...

Neema Parvini is the author of eight books including The Prophets of Doom , The Populist Delusion , The Defenders of Liberty , Shakespeare's Moral Compass . He has also written dozens of chapters and articles in scholarly publications and the media. Neema is the Director of Academic Agency , which he set up to focus on core academic skills and knowledge areas which can help students and learn...

Lord Nigel Biggar CBE is Emeritus Regis Professor of Moral Theology at Oxford and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Pusey House. Nigel holds a BA in Modern History from Oxford and a PhD in Christian Theology and Ethics from the University of Chicago. In 2021, he was appointed CBE for services to higher education. His books include Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning and What's Wrong With Right...

David Starkey is a historian, broadcaster, and bestselling author. Known for The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Monarchy , David now runs the popular YouTube channel David Starkey Talks and has written extensively on the British monarchy, including Monarchy , Crown and Country , and Henry, a Virtuous Prince . In this episode David and I think out loud about why history, properly taught, is the basis...

Dr. Roy Baumeister is one of the world's most prolific and influential psychologists. He has published over 700 scientific works, including over 40 books. In 2013 he received the highest award given by the Association for Psychological Science, the William James Fellow Award in recognition of his lifetime achievements. As of 2023, Roy holds affiliations with Harvard University in the USA, Con...

Dr. Mark Dooley is an Irish philosopher, author and journalist who has taught at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and at University College Dublin where he was John Henry Newman Scholar in Theology. He has been a columnist for both the Sunday Independent and the Irish Daily Mail , and is currently a Contributing Editor to The European Conservative magazine. His many books include The...

Warren Smith is the founder of YouTube channel The Secret Scholar Society ( @SecretScholars ). He lives in Massachusetts, USA, where he is a volunteer firefighter.  In this episode Warren and I discuss his transition from teaching to becoming a full time YouTuber with his channel and why that 'career-change' happened at all, and we think out loud about the importance of critical thinking...

Sam Bidwell is the Director of the Next Generation Centre at the Adam Smith Institute and has worked as a Parliamentary Researcher, and as a Press and Research Consultant for the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council. His writing on foreign affairs has been published internationally, including in Australia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and he was a contributor to the 2023 Commonwealth Securi...

Harrison Pitt is a writer at the European Conservative and a fellow at the New Culture Forum.   In this episode, Harrison and I think out loud about the problem in talking about British values and why they cannot be reduced to bullet point summaries, the philosophical underpinnings of national identity and cultural heritage, the impact of mass immigration on British culture, whether integration in...

Ed West is a British author, journalist, and blogger known for The Wrong Side of History on Substack and his work with UnHerd, The Catholic Herald, The Spectator, and more. His books include Small Men on the Wrong Side of History, The Diversity Illusion, and Tory Boy. Paul Morland is one of the world’s leading demographers, exploring how population trends shape our world. A former research fellow...

Professor Robert Tombs is Professor Emeritus of French History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of St John’s College. Robert is the author of That Sweet Enemy (2006, co-written with his wife Isabel), The English and Their History (2014), and the Sunday Times bestseller This Sovereign Isle: Britain In and Out of Europe.  In this episode, Robert and I think out loud about whether England an...

Professor Alan McFarlane is a renowned anthropologist, historian, and Professor Emeritus of King’s College, Cambridge. Author or editor of 20 books and countless articles, Alan has spent his career exploring the origins and nature of the modern world. Alan is also the creator of the YouTube channel  @ayabaya . In this episode, we Alan and I discuss England’s unique national character and its influ...

Tom Rowsell is a historian and an independent film maker, director and editor, known for From Runes to Ruins (2014) and his YouTube channel Survive the Jive , which includes documentary films about pagan religion and ancient European cultures. In this episode, Tom and I delve into the genetic ancestry of the British peoples and how Genetic studies reveal the stability of Northwest European ancestr...

David Goodhart is a British journalist, commentator and author. David is the Head of the Demography, Immigration and Integration Unit at the think tank Policy Exchange and the founder and a former editor of Prospect magazine. David has authored four books, including The British Dream: Successes and Failures of Post-War Immigration, The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt & The Future Of Pol...