Thinking Class

Warren Smith is the founder of YouTube channel The Secret Scholar Society ( @SecretScholars ). He lives in Massachusetts, USA, where he is a volunteer firefighter.  In this episode Warren and I discuss his transition from teaching to becoming a full time YouTuber with his channel and why that 'career-change' happened at all, and we think out loud about the importance of critical thinking...

Sam Bidwell is the Director of the Next Generation Centre at the Adam Smith Institute and has worked as a Parliamentary Researcher, and as a Press and Research Consultant for the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council. His writing on foreign affairs has been published internationally, including in Australia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and he was a contributor to the 2023 Commonwealth Securi...

Harrison Pitt is a writer at the European Conservative and a fellow at the New Culture Forum.   In this episode, Harrison and I think out loud about the problem in talking about British values and why they cannot be reduced to bullet point summaries, the philosophical underpinnings of national identity and cultural heritage, the impact of mass immigration on British culture, whether integration in...

Ed West is a British author, journalist, and blogger known for The Wrong Side of History on Substack and his work with UnHerd, The Catholic Herald, The Spectator, and more. His books include Small Men on the Wrong Side of History, The Diversity Illusion, and Tory Boy. Paul Morland is one of the world’s leading demographers, exploring how population trends shape our world. A former research fellow...

Professor Robert Tombs is Professor Emeritus of French History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of St John’s College. Robert is the author of That Sweet Enemy (2006, co-written with his wife Isabel), The English and Their History (2014), and the Sunday Times bestseller This Sovereign Isle: Britain In and Out of Europe.  In this episode, Robert and I think out loud about whether England an...

Professor Alan McFarlane is a renowned anthropologist, historian, and Professor Emeritus of King’s College, Cambridge. Author or editor of 20 books and countless articles, Alan has spent his career exploring the origins and nature of the modern world. Alan is also the creator of the YouTube channel  @ayabaya . In this episode, we Alan and I discuss England’s unique national character and its influ...

Tom Rowsell is a historian and an independent film maker, director and editor, known for From Runes to Ruins (2014) and his YouTube channel Survive the Jive , which includes documentary films about pagan religion and ancient European cultures. In this episode, Tom and I delve into the genetic ancestry of the British peoples and how Genetic studies reveal the stability of Northwest European ancestr...

David Goodhart is a British journalist, commentator and author. David is the Head of the Demography, Immigration and Integration Unit at the think tank Policy Exchange and the founder and a former editor of Prospect magazine. David has authored four books, including The British Dream: Successes and Failures of Post-War Immigration, The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt & The Future Of Pol...

Philip Kiszely is a cultural historian, an academic, an author, a political commentator, and senior fellow at the New Culture Forum. In this episode, we talk about the evolution of British culture, media, and education from the post-war era to the present day, why we have seen significant shifts in the media's treatment of Britain and its history, how British comedy has changed, how social me...

 Professor James Clark is Professor of History at the University of Exeter and has published widely on medieval monasteries and their place in the medieval world and he was historical advisor on the BBC TV series Tudor Monastery Farm. His book, The Dissolution of the Monasteries: A New History was published in 2022 to widespread acclaim.   In this conversation, James and I talk about the impact of...

Carl Trueman is Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. And he is the author of several books and perhaps best known for The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and The Road to Sexual Revolution. Karl is also the author of To Change All Worlds, Critical Theory from Marx to Marcuse.  In this conversa...

Hello, classmates, and welcome to Thinking Class. Today I'm speaking with, well, myself and you, dear listener. I'm a management consultant, podcaster, and proud Northumbrian, Englishman and Briton.  I'm recording this episode to mark 50 episodes of Thinking Class and almost one year, and to reflect on what I've learned, which episodes have proven popular and why they spoke dee...

Spencer Klavan is a scholar, writer, and podcaster. A graduate of Yale, he earned his doctorate in ancient Greek literature from Oxford University. Spencer is the author of the acclaimed book How to Save the West, Ancient Wisdom for Five Modern Crises , and his latest release is Light of the Mind, Light of the World: Illuminating Science through Faith . Spencer is also the editor of Gateway to the...

Dr. Alka Sehgal-Cuthbert is the director of the organisation Don't Divide Us. She is an educator, academic, author, and campaigner who believes passionately in the essential importance of impartiality.  In this episode, Alka and I think out loud about the importance of recognising our common humanity amidst a sea of divisive ideologies, the various critiques of the current anti-racism movemen...

William Clouston is the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the United Kingdom.  In this episode, William and I talk about the reasons behind the SDP’s resurgence, his personal political journey, what the current political landscape looks like in Britain, and why it’s hard to escape the feeling of civilisational decline in the country, how cultural identity is being undermined through i...

Glen Scrivener is an ordained Church of England minister and evangelist who preaches through writing, speaking, and online media. Glen is also the director of Speak Life, and the creator of the 3-2-1 evangelism course. In this episode, Glenn and I talk about the profound impact of Christianity on Western values, the personal journeys that lead someone to faith, and the cultural shifts that have re...

Philip Pilkington is a macroeconomist and investment professional, and he's also the host of the Multipolarity Podcast.  In this episode, Phil and I talk about why European nations are struggling so much economically, and why the macroeconomic environment shows that we're in for a scary ride, how the European Union and the European Central Bank are intervening in national elections, why...

Peter Hitchens is a columnist for the Mail on Sunday and a contributor to many other publications. He has published several books, mainly on aspects of what he regards as a cultural revolution which has transformed Britain for the worse in the last half century, and these include The Abolition of Britain and The Rage Against God. Peter has been a journalist for nearly 50 years, has reported from 5...

Charlie Downes is the co-founder of the think-tank Centre for Migration Control, which is "committed to controlling and reducing immigration to the United Kingdom".  In this episode, Charlie and I talk about why there is only a hair's breadth between the Conservative Party and the Labour Party on immigration policy; how the negative impacts of mass immigration can be seen in the cri...

James Esses is a social commentator and writer, the co-founder of Thoughtful Therapists and the coordinator of the Declaration for Biological Reality.  In this episode, James and I talk about why he was expelled from a Masters in Psychotherapy three years ago, the personal consequences he suffered for airing his gender critical views, the extent of ideological capture of Britain's largest ins...

Lorenzo Warby writes the substack Lorenzo from Oz , and he contributes regularly to one of Substack's recommended publications, Helen Dale’s Not On Your Team, But Always Fair . In this episode, Lorenzo and I talk about what hereditarianism is, and whether it is compatible with our notions of equality, the pitfalls of making political decisions based on people's genes, cultures, and envir...

Dr. John Rapley is a political economist at the University of Cambridge and a senior fellow at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Studies. His books include Understanding Development, Globalization and Inequality, and most recently, Twilight of the Money Gods, Economics as a Religion, and How It All Went Wrong. Dr. Peter Heather is a British historian of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ag...

Chris Martz is a meteorology student who interns at CFACT, the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, runs a hugely popular x profile, and writes the climate blog chrismartzweather.com.  In this episode Chris and I talk about his passion for climate science and meteorology began and how he was concerned about the increasing talk of climate change, how his mind began to change as he was exposed to...

Tobi Emonts-Holley is a husband, a dad of six, and a CEO of Tipareth, a nonprofit organisation that provides support and opportunities to people with learning disabilities.  In this episode, Tobi tells us what being a father has taught him about his relationship to time and, well, death; how parenting taught him the wisdom of the ages without having to read philosophy or theology from the last few...

Hilary White is the creator of the Sacred Images Project, which you can find on Substack, and which explores the Christian life, thought, history, and culture through the lens of the first 1, 200 years of sacred art. In this episode, Hilary and I talk about what classifies as sacred art and why it is so important, how the Renaissance led to sacred art's (and the West's) decline when man...