The Critic Podcast

In this edition of Black's History Week, Professor Jeremy Black, author of A Short History of War, talks to The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, about the nature of warfare in Ancient Greece and Rome. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and iTunes to ensure you never you never miss an episode. -- Image: Statue of Leonidas on the monument celebra...

After the US withdrawal from Afghanistan ignited a bitter briefing war between the President and members of the British Cabinet, it seemed that Britain's relationship with the US was on ice. But then, out of the blue, a secret trilateral agreement between the US, UK and Australia was struck, gifting Australia nuclear propulsion technology for use in their submarines, much to the chagrin of France....

In this week's Black's History Week, Professor Jeremy Black talks to The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, about the centuries’ old military rivalry between China and Japan. Image by Getty. Music: Radetzky March by Human Symphony Orchestra (premiumbeat.com)

In this episode of The Critic's podcast, publisher Olivia Hartley speaks to Chris Elston — A.K.A Billboard Chris — about the progression of gender ideology in Canada as well as the use of puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria. Chris has travelled the length and breadth of Canada raising awareness of these issues and has amassed an online following of over 35,000. In this podcast, Oli...

In this week's Black's History Week, Professor Jeremy Black talks to The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, about the centuries’ old military rivalry between China and Japan.

Australia's military capacity to check Chinese influence is being boosted by a new Anglo-American submarine contract and the establishment of the AUKUS defence pact. But how have Australia's interests been defended until now in the south-west Pacific and what difference will AUKUS make?   In this week's Black's History Week podcast, Professor Jeremy Black talks to The Critic's deput...

Is there anything a 21st century military strategist can usefully learn from the tactics of Hannibal or the age of pike, sword and musket? In this edition of Black's History Week, Professor Jeremy Black offers The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, a crash course in the history of war. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and iTunes to ensure you never...

Concluding the Black's History Week series on the deployments of the British armed forces between Waterloo and the fall of Kabul, in this podcast Professor Jeremy Black talks The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, about the themes, breaks, and continuities that have shaped the British military over the last two hundred years. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify ...

In this edition of Black's History Week, the author of Military Strategy: A Global History, Professor Jeremy Black, talks to The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, about the strategic options for American defence policy in the aftermath of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and iTunes to ensure you never you never...

Continuing the series of Black's History Week podcasts on British military deployments, Professor Jeremy Black talks to The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, about the future role of Britain's armed forces and whether the departure from Kabul marks the end of foreign nation-building operations. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and iTunes to ensure...

By his own admission, Vivek Ramaswamy is a traitor to his class. A self-made man who founded a successful bio-tech firm in his 20s, Ramaswamy’s story has the telltale signs of membership of America’s corporate elite. But in his new book, Woke, Inc, he takes aim at fellow business leaders for what he calls “the defining scam of our time”. According to Ramaswamy, big business’s enthusiastic embrace...

A campaign is underway to elect members to the General Synod of the Church of England under a “Save the Parish” banner. The campaign leader Marcus Walker, the Rector of St Bartholomew’s, described it as “the last chance to save the system that has defined Christianity in this country for 1000 years”. Campaigners say the Church of England hierarchy already squeezes parish churches and is planning t...

The dramatic events in Afghanistan in recent days mark many things. The end of America’s longest war, the end of the post-9/11 era and the return of the Taliban. They also constitute the first and perhaps defining foreign policy crisis for US President Joe Biden. To try to make sense of the US side of the momentous Afghanistan story, the Critic’s US Editor, Oliver Wiseman spoke to Jacob Heilbrunn,...

In this edition of Black's History Week, Professor Jeremy Black, author of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, talks to The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, about the performance of British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and iTunes to ensure you never you never miss an episode. -- Image: A British Army soldier...

With the abrupt end of the Cold War, how successfully did Britain's armed forces adapt to new challenges - from the sands of Kuwait to the disintegration of Yugoslavia - in the 1990s? The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, talks to Professor Jeremy Black, author of War in the Modern World. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and iTunes to ensure y...

Continuing the Black's History Week podcasts on British military strategy and deployments, in this episode, Professor Jeremy Black talks to The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, about the role Britain's nuclear deterrent and conventional forces played in facing the Warsaw Pact from Brezhnev to Gorbachev.

Continuing the series on British military deployments over the last two hundred years, in this episode of Black's History Week Professor Jeremy Black talks to The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, about how the British Task Force liberated the Falkland Islands from Argentinian occupation in 1982.

Continuing Black History Week's series on the British armed forces, in this podcast, Professor Jeremy Black, author of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, talks to The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, about the British army's thirty year deployment in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and iTunes to ensure yo...

In this episode, The Critic's publisher, Olivia Hartley, speaks to Dr Jon Pike, co-convener of the newly established Open University Gender Critical Research Network and a philosopher of sport and ethics, about setting up the UK’s new network for gender-critical academics and the inclusion of transwomen in women’s sport. Jon tells Olivia that, far from being a gender-critical activist gr...

Continuing our series on Britain's armed forces over the last two hundred years, Professor Jeremy Black, author of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: a global history, talks to The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, about how Britain's armed forces handled nationalist protests and uprisings from the Mediterranean and Middle East to Africa and Southeast Asia during the 1950s and 60s....

Continuing the series on Britain's armed forces, in this edition of Black's History Week, Professor Jeremy Black, author of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, talks to The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, about how British defence priorities adapted from the end of the Second World War to the first years of the Cold War. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify&nbsp...

In this episode of The Critic Podcast, Jo Bartosch is joined by Helen Joyce, the Britain editor of The Economist, to talk about her new book: Trans. Bartosch and Joyce discuss the ideology of the Trans movement, the influences behind this new book and how the direction the Trans movement is taking is damaging to young homosexuals. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and&n...

In this third Black's History Week podcast on the role of the British armed forces in the Second World War, Professor Jeremy Black talks to The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, about the British contribution to the Allied victory. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and iTunes to ensure you never you never miss an episode. -- Image: Music: Radetzky M...

In this Critic podcast, the writer Alexander Larman tells The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, why he thinks studying English literature at university is becoming such a deadening experience. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and iTunes to ensure you never you never miss an episode. -- Music: “Modern Jazz Samba” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech...

Continuing our series on the performance of the British armed forces in the Second World War, Professor Jeremy Black discusses with The Critic's deputy editor, Graham Stewart, morale, naval firepower, the RAF's bombing offensive and the campaigns in Greece, Italy and Normandy. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and iTunes to ensure you never you never miss...