The EI Podcast

The late Christopher Coker , Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics for almost 40 years, explains why, although the love of liberty is not unique to the West, the lust for liberty is. Read by Helen Lloyd. FURTHER READING: The West’s lust for liberty | Christopher Coker Image: Leonidas at Thermopylae, by Jacques-Louis David, 1814. Credit: Peter Horree / Alamy Stock P...

In this episode of The EI Podcast, the historian Bijan Omrani is joined by EI's Paul Lay to explore the indelible mark Christianity has left on England’s identity and culture. FURTHER READING: The tragic decline of Christian rituals | Bijan Omrani Image: South View of Salisbury Cathedral, JMW Turner. Credit: Penta Springs Limited / Alamy Stock Photo 

Agnès Poirier , journalist and broadcaster, examines how the liberation of France in 1944 opened the way for Paris to become a laboratory of ideas. Read by Helen Lloyd. FURTHER READING: The liberation of France made the modern world | Agnès Poirier Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Image: Parisians gather around the Arc de Triomphe a...

EI's Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by Michael Sheridan , author of two books on China and a foreign correspondent for 40 years, to discuss China’s rise, its subsequent entry into the international trading system, and its contemporary status as the problem child of our globalised world. FURTHER READING: China and America, the great decoupling | Michael Sheridan Engelsberg Ideas is funded by...

Marie Daouda , lecturer in French language and literature at the University of Oxford, shows how the pursuit of apparently 'real' desires comes at the expense of collective truth. The consequences can be disastrous. Read by Helen Lloyd. FURTHER READING: The truth shall set us free | Marie Daouda Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Imag...

Brendan Simms , founder and Director of the Centre for Geopolitics at the University of Cambridge, illustrates why contemporary Germany struggles to muster a serious military response to the Russian challenge. Read by Helen Lloyd. FURTHER READING: The German key to European liberty | Brendan Simms Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Im...

What are the deep roots of Trump's worldview? Can we learn to read Trump’s behaviour? And are there opportunities to be had for those who can? EI's Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by Charlie Laderman , Senior Lecturer in International History at King's College London, to discuss how to interpret the Trump White House. This episode was recorded on 7th April. FURTHER READING: How Iran’s Tanker...

Iuliia Osmolovska , head of the GLOBSEC Kyiv Office, argues that Ukrainians are better placed than their Western partners to decode the Russian negotiating style. Read by Helen Lloyd. Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Image: Street art in Tbilisi of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin playing chess. Credit: Georg Berg / Alamy Stock Photo

Juliet Samuel , columnist for The Times newspaper, highlights that a belief in liberty is not self-evident and its expansion is not inevitable. Read by Helen Lloyd. FURTHER READING: Liberty under attack from enemies within | Juliet Samuel Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Image: Second world war propaganda poster. Credit: Photo 12 /...

What makes us laugh? And why should it matter? EI's Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by the critic Mathew Lyons to discuss the uses of comedy. FURTHER READING: The subtle art of English comedy | Alastair Benn Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . EI Talks... is hosted by Paul Lay and Alastair Benn, and produced by Caitlin Brown. The...

Roel Sterckx , the Joseph Needham Professor of Chinese History, Science, and Civilization at Cambridge University, makes the case for studying China's centuries-long history. Read by Helen Lloyd. FURTHER READING: Gazing back to see China’s future | Roel Sterckx Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Image: The Great Wall of China. Credit:...

Alexander Lee , author of Machiavelli: His Life and Times , argues that liberty was central to the idea of Venice. Read by Helen Lloyd. FURTHER READING: Liberty and the myth of Venice | Alexander Lee Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Image: Procession in Piazza San Marco by Gentile Bellini, 1496. Credit: Peter Barritt / Alamy Stock P...

Richard Miles , historian and archaeologist, profiles Spartacus, a figure who floats between history and allegory. Read by Helen Lloyd. FURTHER READING: Spartacus, history’s nowhere man | Richard Miles Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Image: Promotional poster for the film, Spartacus. 1960. Credit: Allstar Picture Library Ltd / Alam...

Mary Elise Sarotte , Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Distinguished Professor of Historical Studies at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, reflects that the choice to enlarge NATO was a justifiable response to the geopolitics of the 1990s. The problems came later. Read by Helen Lloyd. FURTHER READING: How a Second Cold War could have been averted | Mary Elise Sarotte Engelsberg Ideas...

What makes Classical music special among the arts? And where did it come from? To reckon with the inexhaustible complexity of the western musical tradition, its long history and the roots of its contemporary crises, EI's Alastair Benn is joined by Richard Bratby , the chief classical music critic of The Spectator magazine, and Alexandra Wilson , musicologist and cultural historian. Engelsberg Idea...

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was slowed down because of determined, courageous resistance. That success also owed much to Western intelligence on the nature of the Russian attack. External support will remain crucial to the success of the Ukrainian war effort. Read by Helen Lloyd. Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Credit: The...

Non-western elites are redefining freedom on their own terms, as sovereignty, state security and stability. But the world becoming a lot less free should concern us all. Read by Helen Lloyd. Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Image: Eugène Delacroix's 'Painting of Liberty Leading the People'. Credit: Exotica.im 20 / Alamy Stock Photo

Are we living through a golden age of espionage drama? And what do spy stories tell us about the true nature of the secret world? EI's Alastair Benn is joined by David Omand , ex-head of GCHQ, the British government’s world-renowned cyber agency, and author of How Spies Think , Pauline Blistène , an expert on intelligence affairs and spy fiction, and Senior Editor Paul Lay to discuss the enduring...

Citizens of the GDR were exposed to an idealised version of western freedoms made up of luxury shopping, blue jeans and cowboy flicks. Read by Helen Lloyd. Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Image: Intershop in Friedrichstrasse in East Berlin. Credit: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo / Alamy Stock Photo

After unpromising beginnings and innumerable controversies, Pittacus, seventh-century ruler of Mytilene on Lesbos, should be remembered as one of the great leaders of his age. Read by Sebastian Brown. Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Image: An illustration of Pittacus. Credit: Historical image collection by Bildagentur-online / Alam...

The limited liability company remains the best vehicle for capitalistic endeavour. Read by Helen Lloyd. Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Image: Lloyd's coffee house in the City of London. Credit: CPA Media Pte Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo 

Is the era of mass literacy over? And what might a post-literate society look like? EI's Alastair Benn is joined by Times columnist James Marriott and Senior Editor Paul Lay to discuss the promise and peril of a culture defined by the audiovisual. Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . EI Talks... is hosted by Paul Lay and Alastair Benn,...

Putin’s justifications for invading Ukraine uncannily reflect the motivations of one of Russian literature’s most famous antiheroes, Dostoevsky's Rodion Raskolnikov. Read by Helen Lloyd. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/what-drives-vladimir-putin/ Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Image: Vladimir Putin at an EU-Russia summit in Bru...

The Russian recluse, a scientific self-starter who left school at 14, developed pioneering theories of space travel that anticipated the great feats of the Space Race fifty years later. Read by Sebastian Brown. Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit . Image: Soviet poster featuring a portrait of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). Credit: A...

Benjamin Constant’s considered response not only to the mass murder inflicted by the French Revolution, but to the attempt to reduce the whole French population to the condition of willing slaves under Bonaparte’s First Empire, provides a diagnosis of the character of many subsequent totalitarian regimes. Read by Helen Lloyd. Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Found...