The EI Podcast

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 

Historian David Cowan explains how radical reform can reshape the state. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/how-the-state-can-do-more-for-less/ .  Image: A political caricature, 'Political Dreams, Visions of Peace, Perspective Horrors', by James Gillray of Pitt the Younger. Credit: INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo

David Omand , ex-head of GCHQ, the British government's world-renowned cyber agency, explores how intelligence officers exploit the latest technological advances. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-espionage-revolution/ .  Image: Digital espionage is on the rise. Credit: Stu Gray / Alamy Stock Photo 

EI's Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by Jonathan Esty , of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, to discuss Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, published 70 years ago, a gripping novel that captures the passing of the baton from the old colonial powers to the new masters in South-East Asia. Image: French paratroops at the beginning of the First Indochina War. Credit: Keysto...

Samuel Rubinstein explores how Nazi historiographers sought to present Adolf Hitler as the heir to Charlemagne. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/how-the-nazis-weaponised-charlemagne/ . Image: A large Sèvres presentation plate celebrating Nazism's alleged debt to Charlemagne. Credit: INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo

James Vitali reflects on the profound importance of political judgement. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/why-do-we-get-the-wrong-leaders/ .  Image: The front door of Number 10 Downing street. Credit: GreatBritishStock.com / Alamy Stock Photo

Journalist Duncan Weldon reveals how liberal capitalist economies adapt to total war. Read by Leighton Pugh. Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/why-liberal-democracies-win-total-wars/ .  Image: Second World War-era British propaganda. Credit: Venimages / Alamy Stock Photo 

EI’s Paul Lay joins historian Andrew Lambert to discuss his book ‘No More Napoleons: How Britain Managed Europe from Waterloo to World War One', Lambert's provocative new study of how Britain maximised its naval and diplomatic prestige to maintain a stable, post-Napoleonic Europe. Image: 'A squadron of the Royal Navy running down the Channel' by Samuel Atkins (c. 1760-1810). Credit: Pictorial Pres...

Historian Katherine Bayford exposes the fractures and contradictions that doomed the Confederacy from within. Read by Leighton Pugh. FURTHER READING: The rift that doomed the Confederacy | Katherine Bayford Image: A statue of Alexander Stephens in the US Congress. Credit: Sipa US / Alamy Stock Photo

This year marks the centenary of the publication of Franz Kafka’s novel, The Trial - a seminal work that continues to captivate and unsettle its readers. EI’s Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by Karolina Watroba , author of Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka , to discuss Josef K’s tragic entanglement with a suffocating bureaucracy. Image: Portrait of Franz Kafka. Credit: history_docu_pho...

Historian Nicholas Morton explores how a miracle of marketing brought the Knights Templars to prominence. Read by Leighton Pugh. FURTHER READING: The Knights Templars and the pursuit of Christendom | Nicholas Morton Image: A Victorian illustration of the Knights Templars. Credit: Glasshouse Images / Alamy Stock Photo

The writer Josh Mcloughlin reflects on the art of chorography, one of English literature’s most eccentric and mercurial forms. Read by Leighton Pugh. FURTHER READING: The lost art of chorography | Josh Mcloughlin Image: Renaissance map of Europe showing England. Credit: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Phot

Historian Damian Valdez reflects on the meaning of 1975, a fateful year for the international order. Read by Leighton Pugh. FURTHER READING: 1975, the year that made the modern world | Damian Valdez Image: A helicopter is pushed off the overcrowded deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hancock (CV-19) off the coast of South Vietnam during the fall of Saigon. Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo

EI’s Paul Lay joins historian Tim Bouverie to discuss ‘Allies at War’, his gripping new book on how Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin’s uneasy alliance led to the end of the Second World War – and reshaped the global order in ways that are still felt today. Image: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta. Credit: Niday Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo

Writer Luka Ivan Jukic laments the all-but-total disappearance of facial hair from politics. Read by Leighton Pugh. FURTHER READING: What happened to the politician’s moustache? | Luka Ivan Jukic Image: A double portrait of Mozaffar al-Din Shah, the fifth Qajar shah of Iran. Credit: Penta Springs Limited / Alamy Stock Photo

Journalist and author Jenny McCartney celebrates the magic of squalor, and explores how generations of artists have seen the sublime in slime. Read by Leighton Pugh. FURTHER READING: On squalor | Jenny McCartney Image: Walter Sickert's Easter Monday. Credit: Logic Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Geopolitical analyst Charly Salonius-Pasternak examines Finland's long journey to full membership of the Western alliance, and explores how the Nordic nation could play a leading role in its future. FURTHER READING: Why Finns joined the fight | Charly Salonius-Pasternak Image: During the Soviet-Finnish war (1939-1940) skiers of the Finnish army in white camouflage made lightning and effective atta...