Engelsberg Ideas Podcast

The Society of Aurelians brought butterflies out of their undeserved obscurity. Nigel Andrew's audio essay sheds new light on Britain's first entomological society. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: Detail from ‘The Aurelian; a Natural History of English Moths and Butterflies', published by Henry Bohn, London, 1840. Credit: Getty

What is driving Donald Trump's increasingly volatile foreign policy? Brendan Simms examines the US President and his ideological roots with EI's Jack Dickens.Image: Donald Trump at the White House, July 2025. Credit: Alamy

In the early 1970s, the idea of a private life – that citizens ought to be left alone by the state – began to disappear. In this audio essay, Tiffany Jenkins argues that we should mourn its absence. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: 1930s poster for the London Underground. Credit: Alamy

Shiraz Maher examines how the fallout from the US-Iran conflict is reshaping the Gulf States and the wider Middle East, with EI's Jack Dickens.Image: Close-up vintage map of the Middle East. Credit: Alamy

Mega-influencers shape the public imagination. Phillip Dolitsky and Luke Moon explore a world where narrative matters more than fact. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: Still from a film version of George Orwell's 1984. Credit: Allstar Picture Library Limited

Gordon Corera contends that to truly understand Vladimir Putin, you have to understand the phenomenon of Chekism. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: Vladimir Putin's East German Stasi identification card issued while he worked as a KGB agent in Dresden in 1985. Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd

Christopher Harding on the birth of Tokyo. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: A woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige. From One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 1856. Credit: incamerastock / Alamy Stock Photo 

Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford University, explores Hamlet and its rich critical history with EI's Alastair Benn and Paul Lay.Image: Laurence Olivier plays Hamlet in 1948. Credit: Masheter Movie Archive

Rana Mitter explores Xi Jinping's personal and ideological mindset in conversation with EI's Jack Dickens.Image: Then Vice President Xi Jinping makes an address in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. Credit: Imago

Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri on reading as an antidote to the restless spirit of the industrial age. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: Edvard Munch's painting of Friedrich Nietzsche. Credit: Darling Archive / Alamy Stock Photo 

Jonathan Sumption surveys the last generation of spies before the creation of Europe's professional intelligence services. Read by Leighton Pugh.Image: King Charles VI of France prepares for war. Credit: Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo

EI's Jack Dickens is joined by Charlie Laderman, associate professor at the University of Florida's Hamilton Center, to discuss how the United States' hemispheric ambitions emerged from great-power competition – and why the Monroe Doctrine still matters.Image: A satirical cartoon lampooning the expansion of the Monroe Doctrine. Credit: Photo 12

Alastair Benn is joined by Leo Damrosch, author of Storyteller: The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, to explore the life and legacy of the celebrated Scottish writer, including one of his most enduring literary achievements, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.Image: 'Robert Louis Stevenson' by John Singer Sargent, 1885. Credit: IanDagnall Computing

EI's Paul Lay is joined by Helen Thompson to discuss US–China rivalry, the growing importance of the Western Hemisphere in geopolitics, and the inherent instability of a multipolar world. Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Victory Parade marking the 70th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Credit: Associated Press

EI's Paul Lay is joined by neuroscientist Nicholas Wright to discuss how the brain shapes war, and how war shapes the brain. Image: The brain as a weapon of war. Credit: fStop Images GmbH

Graeme Thompson on the fall of a liberal world order. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: 'Taming the British Lion'. Puck magazine, 1888. Credit: Historical Images Archive

John Tasioulas examines how a classical conception of democracy – distinct from liberal democracy – may offer the resources needed to meet the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Rudolph Müller, View of the Acropolis from the Pynx (1863). Credit: Eraza Collection

Gerald Warner on the origins of a 'black legend' designed to discredit the once-flourishing Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: A painting displaying the splendour of the Neapolitan fleet. Credit: The Picture Art Collection

EI's Paul Lay is joined by technology analyst Dan Wang to discuss how China has engineered its way to global power status.  Image: New high-rise buildings in China. Credit: ton koene

Bill Emmott profiles Lafcadio Hearn, the Anglo-Irish-Greek foreign correspondent who made Japan his home. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Lafcadio Hearn photographed with his wife, Setsuko Koizumi, and their son. Credit: GRANGER - Historical Picture Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

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. 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 / Alamy Stock Photo 

Critic Malcolm Forbes investigates Graham Greene's troubled childhood. Read by Leighton Pugh. 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. 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. 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.  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. 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. 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. 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: Keystone Press

Samuel Rubinstein explores how Nazi historiographers sought to present Adolf Hitler as the heir to Charlemagne. Read by Leighton Pugh. 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. 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. 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 Press Ltd

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_photo / Alamy Stock Photo 

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 attacks on units of the Red Army. Credit: World of Triss / Alamy Stock Photo

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 Photo

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 as Allied forces liberate the city. Credit: RBM Vintage Images / Alamy Stock Photo.

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 the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. This episode of The EI Podcast was hosted by Paul Lay and Alastair Benn, and produced by Caitlin Brown. The sound engineer was Gareth Jones. Image: An electronics recycling facility in Shanghai, China. Credit: Cavan Images / Alamy Stock Photo 

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. Image: Isabelle Huppert, Madame Bovary 1991. Credit: Collection Christophel / Alamy Stock Photo

Germany today struggles to muster a serious military response to the Russian challenge. That should trouble keen observers of Europe's history. Read by Helen Lloyd. Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Image: The Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). Napoleon watching the Tsar, the Emperor of Austria and King of Prussia dividing up Europe. Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy