The EI Podcast

Mega-influencers shape the public imagination. Phillip Dolitsky and Luke Moon explore a world where narrative matters more than fact. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Still from a film version of George Orwell's 1984. Credit: Allstar Picture Library Limited

Gordon Corera contends that to truly understand Vladimir Putin, you have to understand the phenomenon of Chekism. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/putin-the-once-and-future-chekist/ .  Image: Vladimir Putin's East German Stasi identification card issued while he worked as a KGB agent in Dresden in 1985. Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd

Christopher Harding on the birth of Tokyo. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/when-edo-became-tokyo/ .  Image: A woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige. From One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 1856. Credit: incamerastock / Alamy Stock Photo 

Emma Smith , Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford University, explores Hamlet and its rich critical history with EI’s Alastair Benn and Paul Lay . Image: Laurence Olivier plays Hamlet in 1948. Credit: Masheter Movie Archive

Rana Mitter explores Xi Jinping’s personal and ideological mindset in conversation with EI’s Jack Dickens . Image: Then Vice President Xi Jinping makes an address in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. Credit: Imago

Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri on reading as an antidote to the restless spirit of the industrial age. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/nietzsches-manifesto-for-reading/ . Image: Edvard Munch's painting of Friedrich Nietzsche. Credit: Darling Archive / Alamy Stock Photo 

Jonathan Sumption surveys the last generation of spies before the creation of Europe's professional intelligence services. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/inside-the-world-of-medieval-espionage/ . Image: King Charles VI of France prepares for war. Credit: Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo

EI's Jack Dickens is joined by Charlie Laderman , associate professor at the University of Florida’s Hamilton Center, to discuss how the United States’ hemispheric ambitions emerged from great-power competition – and why the Monroe Doctrine still matters. Image: A satirical cartoon lampooning the expansion of the Monroe Doctrine. Credit: Photo 12

Alastair Benn is joined by Leo Damrosch, author of Storyteller: The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson , to explore the life and legacy of the celebrated Scottish writer, including one of his most enduring literary achievements, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Image: 'Robert Louis Stevenson' by John Singer Sargent, 1885. Credit: IanDagnall Computing

EI's Paul Lay is joined by Helen Thompson to discuss US–China rivalry, the growing importance of the Western Hemisphere in geopolitics, and the inherent instability of a multipolar world. Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Victory Parade marking the 70th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Credit: Associated Press

EI's Paul Lay is joined by neuroscientist Nicholas Wright to discuss how the brain shapes war, and how war shapes the brain. Image: The brain as a weapon of war. Credit: fStop Images GmbH

Graeme Thompson on the fall of a liberal world order. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-end-of-pax-britannica/ . Image: 'Taming the British Lion'. Puck magazine, 1888. Credit: Historical Images Archive

John Tasioulas examines how a classical conception of democracy – distinct from liberal democracy – may offer the resources needed to meet the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-classical-key-to-the-ai-revolution/ . Image: Rudolph Müller, View of the Acropolis from the Pynx (1863). Credit: Eraza C...

Gerald Warner on the origins of a 'black legend' designed to discredit the once-flourishing Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-risorgimento-myth/ .  Image: A painting displaying the splendour of the Neapolitan fleet. Credit: The Picture Art Collection

EI's Paul Lay is joined by technology analyst Dan Wang to discuss how China has engineered its way to global power status.  Image: New high-rise buildings in China. Credit: ton koene

Bill Emmott profiles Lafcadio Hearn, the Anglo-Irish-Greek foreign correspondent who made Japan his home. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-double-agent-who-introduced-japan-to-the-west/ . Image: Lafcadio Hearn photographed with his wife, Setsuko Koizumi, and their son. Credit: GRANGER - Historical Picture Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

Bestselling author Andrew Ross Sorkin discusses his new book, 1929: The Inside Story of The Greatest Crash in Wall Street History , with EI's Iain Martin. Image: The Wall Street financial crash of 1929, with a city businessman speculator trying to sell his car for $100 cash, having lost all on the stock market. Credit: Alamy/ Shawshots.

Historian Damian Valdez on international order's 19th-century origins. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/1821-and-the-invention-of-world-order/ . Image: Mexican general Agustín de Iturbide rides through a ceremonial arch to welcoming officials in Mexico City on September 27, 1821, after decisively winning independence for Mexico. Credit: Album...

Critic Malcolm Forbes investigates Graham Greene's troubled childhood. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-growing-pains-of-graham-greene/ . Image: Graham Greene in 1940. Credit: Everett Collection Historical / Alamy Stock Photo

Historian Luka Ivan Jukic explores how Stalin hijacked the Slavic cause to forge the Soviet Empire. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-slavic-war-according-to-stalin/ . Image: A poster celebrating Stalin at the Russian State Library, Moscow. Credit: Album / Alamy Stock Photo

Aaron MacLean , host of the School of War podcast, on AI's threat to the life of the mind. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/a-warning-to-the-young-just-say-no-to-ai/ . Image: The Library Hall of the Upper Lusatian Library of Sciences. Credit: Petr Svarc / Alamy Stock Photo

Alastair Benn on the magic of Mick Herron’s Slough House series. Image: Still from Apple TV's Slow Horses. Credit: LANDMARK MEDIA / Alamy Stock Photo

EI's Paul Lay discusses a world order in flux with Stephen Kotkin , historian and biographer of Stalin. Image: A Canadian soldier during a NATO-led operation. Credit: Associated Press

Why do people the world over enjoy listening to songs sung in French? Critic Muriel Zagha illuminates the living tradition of French chanson. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-great-french-songbook/ .  Image: Juliette Gréco, the French actress and singer. Credit: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

Alastair Benn explores an attention dilemma that has haunted western thought for centuries. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/our-attention-dilemma-is-age-old/ . Image: Detail from Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse, 1903. Credit: SuperStock / Alamy Stock Photo