The EI Podcast

Napoleon appointed a total of 26 Marshals between 1804 and 1815, and they became crucial to his military success. Yet only two of them fought alongside him at the Battle of Waterloo. Andrew Roberts sits down with Paul Lay to discuss his new book, ‘Napoleon and his Marshals’. Image: Napoleon near Borodino , by Vasily Vereshchagin (1897). Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Earlier this week, a Russian drone strike hit the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv, bringing terror to the historic centre of Ukraine’s capital and damaging a symbol of national independence. Paul Josephson speaks to Jack Dickens about why Vladimir Putin is targeting Ukraine’s leading research institutes. Image: The Soviet-era Duga radar near Chernobyl, Ukraine. Credit: Alamy

Earlier this month, the US confirmed for the first time that it had deployed a space weapon in Earth’s orbit. John B. Sheldon and Jack Dickens discuss the fight for extraterrestrial supremacy.  Image: A mural of a Soviet-era cosmonaut in Ukraine. Credit: Alamy

What did Benjamin Disraeli believe and why is he still invoked as a prophet of modern conservatism? Emily Jones speaks to Paul Lay about her new book, ‘The Disraeli Myth: The Making of a Conservative Tradition’. Image: Portrait of Benjamin Disraeli, c.1860. Credit: Alamy

Simon Sebag Montefiore speaks to Jack Dickens about his new book, ‘The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East’.  Image: British troops on parade at Jaffa Gate after seizing military control of the region from the Ottoman Empire (1917). Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Philip Hensher speaks to Alastair Benn about his new book, ‘A History of the Novel in Britain’, a stylish and very personal survey of a great tradition. Image: Portrait of Algernon Talmage circa 1915, by Hilda Fearon. Credit: Alamy

Hannah Lucinda Smith speaks to Caitlin Allen about her new book, ‘Hinterlands: Journeys through Europe’s Unfinished Frontiers’. Image: United Nations Buffer Zone near the ghost town resort of Varosha, Famagusta, Cyprus. Credit: Alamy

Stephen Bowd speaks to Paul Lay about why, 500 years after his death, Niccolò Machiavelli remains one of the world’s most vital political philosophers. Image: Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli (1570). Credit: Alamy

Film critic David Thomson speaks to Paul Lay about his new book, ‘A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of the Movies’.  Image: A sign advertises the opening of the Hollywoodland housing development in the hills overlooking Los Angeles. Credit: Alamy

Marking 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, Michael Auslin speaks to Paul Lay about the document’s powerful yet often strange afterlife. From Philadelphia in 1776, through the Civil War, the Gilded Age, both World Wars and the Cold War, America’s founding document has been a perennial symbol of hope.  Image: An illustration from ‘Columbia's Courtship: A Picture History of the United S...

What does Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of ‘The Odyssey’ have in common with Homer’s poem? Classicist and actor Orlando Gibbs speaks to Alastair Benn about the strangeness of this ancient epic, which depicts a moral world far removed from Nolan’s secular and post-Christian worldview, and discusses whether its popularity will lead to a renewed interest in the classical world. Image: Odysseus and t...

Historian Kathleen Burk speaks to Max Mitchell about the long history of humanity's relationship with wine, taking us on a journey from the ancient Near East to modern France. Image: A vineyard near the Temple of Zeus at Ancient Nemea, Korinthia, Greece. Credit: Alamy 

Saudi Arabia’s expensive investment in its future has come with a concurrent focus on its archaeological past but its ambitions risk eradicating the remnants of pre-Islamic history. Read by Leighton Pugh.  Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-struggle-for-saudi-arabias-buried-past/ . Image: The Qasr Al Farid tomb in Saudi Arabia. Credit: Alamy

Peter Ricketts, Britain’s former ambassador to France, speaks with Paul Lay about a golden age of diplomacy.  Image: Archibald Clark Kerr (Britain’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union) and Alexander Cadogan (Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs) at the Potsdam Conference, 1945. Credit: Alamy.

In war and diplomacy, personal relationships between leaders can shape the course of events in unpredictable ways. Read by Leighton Pugh.  Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the-political-power-of-knowing-your-enemy/ . Image: Cartoon from Punch showing from Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Credit: Alamy

Brendan Simms talks to EI’s Jack Dickens about a new age of geopolitical rivalry. Image: Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. Credit: Alamy

When it comes to nuclear weapons, the concerns that West Germany’s first chancellor wrestled with during the Cold War have not disappeared. In this audio essay, Marina E. Henke suggests that they have simply re-emerged in new forms. Read by Leighton Pugh.  Read it here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/germanys-new-old-nuclear-dilemma/ Image: A nuclear power plant in Bavaria, circa 1985. Credit:...

Paul Lay speaks to Phil Tinline , author of Ghosts of Iron Mountain: The Hoax that Duped America and its Sinister Legacy , about the variety and violence of a country built on high ideals and low conspiracies. Image: The interior of the United States Capitol. Credit: Alamy

Russia is a Near Eastern country now subordinated to East Asia. But Stephen Kotkin argues that historically it has prospered most when tied closely to Europe. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/where-is-russias-place-in-the-world/ . Image: Map of Russia, 1562. Credit: Alamy

What does Christ’s Kingdom owe to the culture of the Roman Empire? Tim Whitmarsh speaks to EI’s Alastair Benn about his new book, Rome’s Age of Revolution: Augustus, Empire and the Making of Christianity. Image: A statue of Augustus Caesar in Turin. Credit: Alamy

The filmmaker Jean Eustache’s interest in rural France and his sardonic scepticism about the May ’68 ideologues mark him out from his Nouvelle Vague contemporaries. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/portraits/jean-eustache-the-outsider-who-reshaped-french-cinema/ .  Image: The film director Jean Eustache. Credit: Alamy

Margaret MacMillan speaks to EI’s Jack Dickens about how wars – and attempts to bring about peace – have shaped every era of human history.  Image: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference, 1945. Credit: Alamy

The old media has failed to rise to the challenge of tech, but we'll miss it when it's gone. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/testament-to-doomed-media/ .  Image: Woman reading a newspaper. Credit: Alamy

Thomas de Waal joins EI’s Jack Dickens to discuss how the recent elections in Armenia could reshape geopolitics in the Caucasus and beyond. Image: Armenian flag with Mount Ararat in background. Credit: Alamy

The late Len Deighton produced novels that were packed with excitement and suspense but also infused with moral complexity and psychological insight. Read by Leighton Pugh.  Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/len-deightons-spycraft/ . Image: Michael Caine in The Ipcress File. Credit: Allstar Picture Library Ltd