The EI Podcast

Nationalism is often thought of as a modern development - but its traces can be found in antiquity. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/did-nationalism-exist-in-the-classical-world/ Credit: Wiki Creative Commons

The influenza pandemic behaved much like the conflict itself - picking out the young and fit before their time. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/counting-the-cost-of-the-1918-19-pandemic/ Credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Niccolo Machiavelli, Renaissance statesman and political theorist, saw factional politics as essential to the prosperity of the Roman Empire and his native Florence. Are today's partisan divisions as beneficial? Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/machiavelli-and-the-benefits-of-civil-strife/ Credit: Icom Images / Alamy Stock Photo

The Victorians saw Plato's Republic as an indispensable guide to reform of the public sphere - we should follow their lead. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/leadership-in-crisis-why-the-west-needs-plato-more-than-ever/ Credit: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Karl Marx was wrong about revolutions - in practice, they beget Caesars and Napoleons. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/history-shows-revolutions-are-a-disaster/ Credit: Andrew Maclear/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Social upheaval has often been a catalyst for artistic change - the Renaissance was no exception. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/crisis-and-the-creation-of-great-art/ Credit: Mauro Magliani for Alinari/Alinari Archives, Florence/Alinari via Getty Images

Empty city London had its harbingers in literature and history. How will it emerge from its isolation? Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/pandemics-and-the-metropolis-city-lockdown-london/ Credit: 1000 Words / Shuttersotck

Despite globalisation, the nation state retains its privileged position in world politics. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/a-world-of-nations-and-states-is-here-to-stay/ Credit: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images

Beijing wants to foster a world where Chinese standards replace those of the post-1945 US-led system. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/chinese-china-the-great-uncoupling/ Credit: Feng Li/Getty Images

The tension between independence and compliance is everywhere in society – but in medicine, reason must come before rules. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/covid-19-and-the-moral-case-for-personal-judgement/ Credit: DeAgostini/Getty Images

This period of turbulence could turn today's twenty-somethings into the leaders of a new liberal revolution. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/meet-the-zoomer-generation/ Credit: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

As a result of President Erdogan's embrace of two interlinked geopolitical concepts, 'Strategic Depth' and 'Blue Homeland', Turkey faces international isolation. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/new-turkeys-old-politics/ Credit: Kerem Uzel/Bloomberg via Getty Images

To argue that Margaret Thatcher attacked the post-war dream is to caricature, not illuminate, her importance to British history. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/continuity-thatcher-rescuing-a-complex-leader-from-historical-cliche/ Credit: John Downing/Getty Images

Thucydides saw plague as an opportunity to improve the health of society. But history shows that pandemics have a way of disrupting medical and social progress. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/challenging-the-great-reset-theory-of-pandemics Credit: Bettmann

Amid the tumult of the 1970s, it appeared the traditional country house had gone into irreversible decline - but it was too early to write it off. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/upstairs-downstairs-demolished-the-changing-fate-of-the-english-country-house/ Credit: The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images

The Covid-19 crisis has accentuated all the geopolitical fault lines of the past decade. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/geopolitics-pandemic-geopolitical-conflict/ Credit: Adobe Stock

The constitutional order is changing as citizens become alienated and demand more say. Americans must take care that their habits of law are not swept away. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/a-government-of-laws/ Credit:  REUTERS / Alamy Stock Photo

London's response to its last plague epidemic involved close collaboration between crown, City and parish. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/living-with-the-great-plague-of-1665/ Credit: Culture Club / Getty Images

The films of John Hughes updated the American Dream for a new generation, and his complex legacy helps us understand what went so wrong. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/john-hughes-and-the-making-and-unmaking-of-the-american-dream/ Credit: CBS via Getty Images

Forget the seduction of grand theories and presentist moral judgments. To learn the lessons of the past, the great foreign policy analysts of our age must rediscover the art of historical discernment. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-case-for-applied-history/ Credit: BLM Collection / Alamy Stock Photo

The Romans have so much to teach us about what it means to live in a society in crisis. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/survival-lessons-from-ancient-rome/ Credit: Thomas Cole / Public domain

Covid-19 heralds the end of our interconnected world. We'll need wise leaders to navigate what comes next. Read by Leighton Pugh. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/this-crisis-has-the-capacity-to-be-apocalyptic/ Credit: Getty Images

Iain Martin with guests Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Professor Joseph Nye, Karin von Hippel and Tom McTague on the foreign policy change facing the Biden administration

Mattias Hessérus is in conversation with John Ferris, the historian 'behind the enigma' of Britain's signals intelligence agency.

Mattias Hessérus is in conversation with Helen Fry on the ingenious exploits of MI9 – the secret service for escape and evasion.