Podcasts about college london

➡️ Watch the full ad-free interview on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://decodinggeopolitics.substack.com/This is a conversation with Peter Heather - a professor of history at the King's College London and the world's leading authority on the fall of the Roman Empire. Now this might sound a bit random since this is a podcast about contemporary geopolitics but Peter has recently written a book that takes his expertise much further. He makes an argument that all great empires of history go through the exact same cycle of rise and fall - including the present day American empire. And that just like Rome it's fall is caused by the same thing that made it a superpower in the first place - and that just like for Rome, it's now on a swift and inevitable fall down. It's a fascinating argument and one of my favorite discussions that provides a great framework for how to think about today - and what it is that we are - unfortunately - heading towards.

“What is the sweetest thing in the world?” After co-host Latif Nasser's sons ask him this deceptively simple question, he goes on a quest to find it. Is it a West African Katemfe berry? Or an industrial sugar substitute cooked up in a lab? Or an ingredient hiding in plain sight in all of our pantries? A simple mystery that will make you question what sweetness even is, how our tongues (and other body parts you wouldn't expect) determine what we like, and how far you would go to taste something sweeter than anyone has ever experienced. Thank you to Latif's sons for indulging us, to Nicola Twilley and Cynthia Graber at Gastropod, to Anni Laffitte, Nazli Parvizi at Museum of Food and Drink, to food icons Claire Saffitz and Sam Seneveratne who did a live show version of this episode with us at the Tribeca Festival. And thank you to Davy Gardner and his wonderful team of audio folks at the Tribeca Festival.Thank you to Jialin Deng who composed the song that was our ‘sonic seasoning'. And to Laura Rickman and everyone else at Columbia University's Mortimer B Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute for hosting us. And big thanks to experimental psychologist Charles Spence at Oxford, sweetness chemist Grant DuBois, Danielle Reed at Monell Chemical Senses Center, and nutritional scientist Sarah Berry at King's College London who all talked to us about their research. And Brian Everett of Honest Organic Farms.And a very special thanks to Sean Oomens, inventor of producer Jess Yung's favorite candy, nerd gummy clustersEPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latif Nasserwith help from - Jessica Yung, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Jessica Yung, Ekedi Fausther-Keeys, and Natalia RamirezProduced by - Jessica Yung with help from - Mona Madgavkar, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Gabby Santas, and Maia Appleby Melamedwith mixing help from - Jeremy BloomFact-checking by - Sophie Samieeand Edited by - Pat WaltersEPISODE CITATIONS:Videos:Youtuber Chemiolis tried to make Luguduname himself (https://zpr.io/MmUbGfwwFrFH) Articles -Race to Redesign Sugar (https://zpr.io/VpsMxfPRbxaz) by Nicola TwilleyThe Search for Sweet (https://zpr.io/JmeDkVhrd2dK) by Burkhard BilgerHow My Trip to Quit Sugar Became A Journey Into Hell (https://zpr.io/ni6xgC38Qmyf) by Caity WeverHow Much of Our Existence Do We Owe to Sugar? (https://zpr.io/M2py48SxnQAT) by Jackie Flynn MogensenScientists Find Sugar In Space (https://zpr.io/e94UtUuhPtbT) by Rebecca DzombakSign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What if lasting peace isn't something you find in the world, but something you train within your own mind?In this powerful conversation, Mike "C-Roc" sits down with Liam McClintock, founder of FitMind, a mental fitness nonprofit, and author of Fit Mind: 4 Steps to Lasting Bliss—Neuroscience and Meditation for Daily Life. Liam shares his remarkable journey from a career in private equity to traveling throughout Asia to study meditation and ultimately becoming a Buddhist monk. What began as a temporary commitment to deepen his meditation practice became a three-year transformation that completely reshaped how he viewed happiness, purpose, and the mind.Liam explains how neuroscience and meditation can work together to help us understand our thoughts, emotions, expectations, and patterns of suffering. He explores the Buddhist concept of “dukkha,” why unmet expectations can create mental turmoil, and how learning to observe the mind can help us cultivate greater peace and resilience. He also shares why meditation and taking action aren't opposites, and how mindfulness can become a way of living rather than simply something we practice while sitting in silence.Mike and Liam dive into the importance of surrendering to outcomes, letting go of attachment, living with intention, and creating a “fit mind” while still pursuing meaningful goals in everyday life. Liam also opens up about why he ultimately chose to leave monastic life and bring the lessons he learned as a monk back into the world.Liam holds a B.A. from Yale University and an M.S. in Applied Neuroscience from King's College London and has contributed to meditation research at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.This episode offers a thought-provoking look at meditation, neuroscience, inner peace, expectations, and what it truly means to train the mind for a better life.Website-www.fitmind.org https://www.instagram.com/fitmind/?hl=en

By some measures, there is more war in the world today than at any point since World War II. Today's wars have brought a level of destruction, disruption, and global risk that would have been hard to imagine not long ago, often in places where such combat seemed a thing of the past. Policymakers once again worry about nuclear use, and military planners once again contemplate war between great powers, including the United States and China, and NATO and Russia. And all of this comes as the Trump administration dismantles key pieces of the international system and technology scrambles expectations about how wars start, unfold, and end.  No one has left a greater mark on our understanding of wars past and present than Lawrence Freedman. Freedman has written a slew of definitive books on military strategy and history, and he has offered some of the most penetrating analysis of Iran, Ukraine, and more, in Foreign Affairs and elsewhere. He is emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London.   Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Freedman on Monday, September 14, about the course of today's conflicts; about what is and is not changing in the nature of war; and about why policymakers, military officers, and strategists so often start wars based on bad assumptions—and how those bad assumptions explain some of the biggest calamities in global security today.  You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has now said he believes artificial intelligence companies can develop the technology safely without significant harm to people at large. To discuss this further with Anton was Professor Kate Devlin Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Society in the Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London.

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has now said he believes artificial intelligence companies can develop the technology safely without significant harm to people at large. To discuss this further with Anton was Professor Kate Devlin Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Society in the Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London.

For decades, PR professionals have tried to influence what people think or how they think it. AI may be changing something even more fundamental: whether people do much of that thinking themselves. Researchers call it “Cognitive Surrender.” The tendency to accept an AI-generated answer without really scrutinizing it. And if AI increasingly sits between your message and your audience, or starts doing the thinking for communicators themselves, the implications for trust, persuasion and professional judgment could be enormous. Listen For4:30 What Is Cognitive Surrender and How Did Researchers Test It?7:44 Why Did People Accept Wrong AI Answers 80% of the Time?9:53 Can Cognitive Surrender Weaken Critical Thinking Skills?12:47 What Happens When AI Sits Between PR Pros and the Public?15:14 Why Should Communicators Think First and Prompt Second?Guest: Dr Steven Shaw, PhD, King's College London and Wharton School, University of PennsylvaniaWebsite | LinkedIn | Google Scholar pageDougSubstack | Website | LinkedIn Subscribe to the Stories and Strategies PR podcast newsletterAre you a brand with a podcast that needs support? Book a meeting with Doug Downs to talk about it.Apply to be a guest on the podcastConnect with usLinkedIn | X | Instagram | You Tube | Facebook | Threads | Bluesky | PinterestSend us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episodeSupport the show

Paris' new book Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Data Empires is coming out in October. To celebrate, we're revisiting the series that planted the seeds for his deep dive into hyperscale data centers, the communities they're affecting, and the future Silicon Valley is trying to build. This is episode 2 of Data Vampires, a special four-part series from Tech Won't Save Us.The show is hosted by Paris Marx. Original production on Data Vampires was by Eric Wickham. Current production is by Kyla Hewson. Support the show on Patreon.Also mentioned in this episode:Preorder Hyperscale to support Paris at hyperscalebook.com.People Before Profit TD Brid Smith, Tu Nube Seca Mi Río organizer Aurora Gomez Delgado, and King's College London lecturer Sebastian Lehuede were interviewed for this episode.Some pieces by Dara Kerr in NPR, Sarah Emerson and Emily Baker-White in Forbes, and Hannah Daly in The Irish Times were cited.Support the show

"Mar-a-Lago face" is what happens to white women when they try to secure proximity to power by joining a death cult. Feminist icon Soraya Chemaly, author of All We Want is Everything: How We Dismantle Male Supremacy and Rage Becomes Her, joins Gaslit Nation to discuss why MAGA women want to look like the plastic morphing faces in Soundgarden's cinematic masterpiece for "Black Hole Sun."  Andrea and Soraya discuss how to bash the patriarchy, and what perks are in it for the men if we succeed. We also look at what the system does to boys, stripping them of their humanity. Male supremacy convinces boys and men that they are entitled to the three pillars of masculine socialization: providing and protecting and presiding, which requires a woman who cannot provide, cannot protect herself, and does not decide. The research shows that women who wear makeup at work get paid more, because it signals such compliance. We also discuss the progressive Brooklyn moms who may be unknowingly raising incels; the expiration dates of the trad wife economy when the credit card gets cut off; the SAVE America Act coming for married women's voter registrations; and the pornographic rape culture behind media's ominous pivot to short videos. When even Amy Goodman wears eye-shadow, that's when we know it's time to double-down on our rage and resistance. To listen to the full episode, be sure to support Gaslit Nation on Patreon and Substack by joining our community of listeners. Discounted annual memberships are available, and on Patreon you can give the gift of membership. Gaslit Nation is funded by our listeners – we could not make this show without you. Thank you to everyone who supports our independent journalism in these tough times.  The world is on fire. It's time to be unreasonable. If you want a concrete plan to find your purpose and help create the world you want to live in, pre-order Andrea's new book today.

What shapes us more: our DNA or the way we're raised? The “nature” camp points to genetic research and studies of twins raised apart, arguing that traits from personality to abilities are strongly influenced by inherited biology, limiting how much parenting can shape who children become. The “nurture” camp argues upbringing, culture, and parental choices profoundly influence development and behavior. So which matters more? This ethical conundrum is at the crux of this week's debate, originally broadcast in November 2019 ARGUING YES:  Robert Plomin, Professor of Behavioral Genetics at King's College London  Nancy Segal, Professor of Psychology at California State University, Fullerton and Director at the Twin Studies Center  ARGUING NO:  Paige Harden, Psychology Professor at the University of Texas  Ann Pleshette Murphy, Author & Parenting Expert  Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan moderates  Recent twin studies: ⁠Parenting in Childhood Predicts Personality in Early Adulthood: A Longitudinal Twin-Differences Study⁠ (APA, 2025) ⁠Genetics of monozygotic twins reveals the impact of environmental sensitivity on psychiatric and neurodevelopmental phenotypes⁠ (Nature Human Behavior, 2025) ⁠Longitudinal associations between cognitive ability and socioeconomic status are partially genetic in Nature⁠ (Scientific Reports, 2026) Join the conversation on Substack—share your perspective on this episode and subscribe to our weekly newsletter for curated insights from our debaters, moderators, and staff.  Follow us on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Facebook, and TikTok to stay connected with our mission and ongoing debates.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sir Simon Gass is a Senior Adviser to SC Strategy, a London-based geopolitical strategy company. Simon had a long career as a British diplomat and national security expert. While in the British Foreign Office, his appointments included Ambassador to Greece (2004-2009), Ambassador to Iran (2009-2011) and NATO's Senior Civilian Representative to Afghanistan (2011-12). As the Foreign Office's Political Director (2013-2016) Simon led policy on the Middle East, Russia, Africa, South and Central Asia, the United Nations and other international institutions. During this period, he led the UK team at the prolonged E3+3 negotiations which resulted in the Iran Nuclear Agreement – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - in July 2015. After leaving the Foreign Office, Simon became Commandant of the Royal College of Defence Studies in 2018. From 2019 to 2023 Simon was appointed Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee and Adviser on Intelligence to successive British Prime Ministers. He was responsible for providing the Prime Minister and National Security Council with strategic assessments on the full range of national security issues. Simon is also a Visiting Professor at King's College London and a Distinguished Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. He is a frequent media commentator on international affairs. Website: https://jonathanperks.com/podcasts/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of The Times Tech Podcast is in paid partnership with Vitality.AI is already changing medicine. But could it also change the everyday choices we make about our own health?This bonus episode asks whether AI can help shift healthcare from treating illness to prevention – from wearables and personal health data to personalised advice and AI-powered wellbeing tools. With Professor Sébastien Ourselin, Director of the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering at King's College London, and Emile Stipp, CEO of Vitality AI, we ask whether technology can help us live healthier lives and what happens to our most personal data along the way. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you walk through the door after work, are you actually present or are you still running the day's to-do list in your head?Is there ever a “good” time to have a baby in the middle of specialist training and how do you fund it?How do the best dentist-parents you know protect time with their kids without their careers stalling?And can technology actually give you hours back — or is that just another thing to feel guilty about?This is one for the dads. In this Interference Cast episode, Jaz sits down with Dr Sunny Marwaha — a dentist completing part-time specialist training in prosthodontics at Guy's, who became a father right in the middle of it. It's not a clinical episode. It's an honest conversation about doing the hardest career stretch (training, buying practices, building a name) at the exact same time you're raising young children — the sleep, the money, the guilt, and the strategies that actually help. Two dentist dads, comparing notes.What You'll Take From This EpisodePriority management, not time management — Decide what this season of life is for, and protect it; priorities shift as the kids grow.Leave the day at the door — both directions — The driveway is dad mode, the clinic is showtime; you can't take work home or home to work.Run the family like a small business — Regular family meetings and a “mind like water” system can help carry the load without living in your head.Use AI to buy back time — Make use of dictated notes, auto-drafted letters, and turning papers into audio for the commute. This is leverage, not cheating.Specialise or self-direct? — An honest filter for whether a structured training pathway or private courses and mentorship suits you better.Highlights of This Episode00:00     Teaser00:42     Daddy Dentist: Balancing Fatherhood and Dentistry03:42     Should You Specialise or Learn Through Private Courses?10:12      How to Time Having Kids Around Specialist Training13:32     Paternity Leave for Dentists: What's Realistic?16:42     Funding Specialist Training With a Young Family20:02     Why Family Support Is a Privilege, Not a Given22:57     Time Management vs Priority Management23:42     The Two Moments With Your Kids That Matter Most29:12      Protecting Sleep, Fitness and Your Mental Health30:13     Midroll39:03    Top Tips for Dentist Dads41:53      Using AI to Buy Back Time for Your Family45:53     Run Your Family Like a Small Business53:33     How to Cut Kids' Screen Time (and Make It Stick)59:23     Life After Specialist Training: A Shorter Week59:57     OutroFrom the GuestDr Sunny Marwaha is a dentist completing part-time specialist training in prosthodontics at Guy's (King's College London). He's passed the MProst (Royal College of Surgeons), with his final MClinDent and GDC specialist listing still ahead. He became a dad to son Kabir midway through training; his wife Amrit is also a dentist.

3 Takeaways from my conversation with Deniz Kent, CEO of Prolific Machines: 1. Moonshot thinking starts with a real problem. Deniz saw conflict over resources and asked: what if cells could make everything we need? That question built a company. 2. The best technology has the lowest cost AND highest quality. When those two things align — adoption follows. Every time. 3. Assemble people smarter than you. Deniz conceived the idea. Then got out of the way and hired scientists better than himself. That's leadership.   --- About Deniz Kent, PhD • Co-Founder & CEO, Prolific Machines (Oct 2020–Present). Conceived the core technology, built the leadership team, and secured $90 M+ from top-tier investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Ki Tua Fund, Mayfield. • GSK, Scientist (Sep 2014–Sep 2015). Developed in-vitro monocyte-derived dendritic cell models to investigate tolerogenic receptors. • University of Bristol, Tumour Immunology Researcher (Sep 2014–Sep 2016). Investigated adenosinemediated suppression of CD8⁺ T cells. • UMass Medical School, Visiting Scholar (Jun 2019–Dec 2019). Advanced collaborative research on hepatic cell models. Domain expertise & credentials • Conceived the vision for optogenetic bio- manufacturing and moved to the U.S. to co-found and lead Prolific Machines. • PhD, Centre for Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine, King's College London ('16–'20). Co-discovered a novel human liver stem cell population (Segal & Kent et al., Nat Comm 2019). Led first high-throughput small-molecule screen on iPSC-derived hepatocytes—identifying 7 novel hits, 2 under patent. • Technical specialties include optogenetics, single-cell RNAseq, iPSC differentiation, AI-driven bioprocess optimization Notable awards & recognitions • Deniz is a member of Founder's Pledge and was appointed to the World Economic Forum's Bioeconomy Initiative. Connect with Jon Dwoskin: Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejondwoskinexperience/ Website: https://jondwoskin.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin/ Email: jon@jondwoskin.com Get Jon's Book: The Think Big Movement: Grow your business big. Very Big! Connect with Deniz Kent, PhD: Website: https://www.prolific-machines.com  X: https://x.com/prolificmachine   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/prolific-machines    *E - explicit language may be used in this podcast.

In this episode, W. David O. Taylor joins me to talk about To Set the World Aflame and the artist's calling to bear witness to the fullness of God's creation. Artists work with the sensory, the imaginative, the emotional, the metaphorical, the material stuff of the world, and in doing so they help the rest of us see what's actually there. We talk about what an artist really is, why belovedness comes before output, and how the calling has shifted across centuries without losing its center. We linger on abundance: seven thousand kinds of apples, more wine than anyone could drink, a God who delights in more than enough.W. David O. Taylor is Associate Professor of Theology & Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary and the author of ten books, including For the Beauty of the Church: Casting a Vision for the Arts and To Set the World Aflame: How Artists Bear Witness to the Fullness of God's Creation. An Anglican priest, he has written for The Washington Post, The Gospel Coalition, Religion News Service, and Christianity Today, among others, and has contributed scholarly essays to the T&T Clark Companion to Theology and the Arts, Theology, Modernity and the Visual Arts, and Contemporary Art and the Church. He served on the board of Christians in the Visual Arts and is part of a three-year scholarly project, "Theology and the Visual Arts," hosted by King's College London. He lives on twenty-one acres of land east of Austin with his artist wife (Phaedra) and children. He posts about art and faith on Substack (@wdavidotaylor) and Instagram (@davidtaylor_theologian).David's Book:To Set the World AflameConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.comGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Bluesky or YouTubeSupport the podcast and the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below Support the show

Brought to you by the BISA Environment and Climate Politics Working Group. Decolonizing Environmentalism: Alternative Visions and Practices of Environmental Action (Bloomsbury, 2024) helps us reimagine our approach to environmental stewardship critically interrogating the problems associated with existing legacies of environmentalism and how we imagine other ways to addressing the multiple planetary crises. The authors cast a critical eye on wealthy and influential environmental groups that committed to anti-racist strategies in the wake of the racial awakening of 2020. Yet, they continue to embrace false solutions like carbon markets and biodiversity offsets, which carry deeply racialized consequences. By tracing the roots of these misplaced priorities to detrimental modernity steeped in colonialism and capitalism, the authors call for transformational changes in human-nature relationships. They distill lessons from the divestment movement, which has questioned the fossil fuel industry's moral standing, and food sovereignty activists, who have mobilized global civil society to hold agribusiness corporations accountable. In these extraordinary times, Decolonizing Environmentalism invites readers to embark on a transformative journey to embrace anti-racist, emancipatory, and regenerative approaches to environmentalism. Prakash Kashwan is an educator, author, and scholar, whose work cuts across the fields of climate governance, environmental and climate justice, and international affairs. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Brandeis University. He also holds faculty affiliations with the Heller School of Social Policy & Management, and Politics Department at Brandeis. Before moving to Brandeis, he was a tenured Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut and Co-directed the Economic and Social Rights Research Program at UConn's Human Rights Institute. Pauline Heinrichs is a Lecturer in War Studies (Climate and Energy) at King's College London. Her research focuses on global environmental politics with a particular focus on climate and energy security, climate justice grievances, international orders and questions concerning security and existential risks in a warming world. She co-directs the Centre for Integrated Research in Risk and Resilience (CIRRR) and the Environmental Security Research Group. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Brought to you by the BISA Environment and Climate Politics Working Group. Decolonizing Environmentalism: Alternative Visions and Practices of Environmental Action (Bloomsbury, 2024) helps us reimagine our approach to environmental stewardship critically interrogating the problems associated with existing legacies of environmentalism and how we imagine other ways to addressing the multiple planetary crises. The authors cast a critical eye on wealthy and influential environmental groups that committed to anti-racist strategies in the wake of the racial awakening of 2020. Yet, they continue to embrace false solutions like carbon markets and biodiversity offsets, which carry deeply racialized consequences. By tracing the roots of these misplaced priorities to detrimental modernity steeped in colonialism and capitalism, the authors call for transformational changes in human-nature relationships. They distill lessons from the divestment movement, which has questioned the fossil fuel industry's moral standing, and food sovereignty activists, who have mobilized global civil society to hold agribusiness corporations accountable. In these extraordinary times, Decolonizing Environmentalism invites readers to embark on a transformative journey to embrace anti-racist, emancipatory, and regenerative approaches to environmentalism. Prakash Kashwan is an educator, author, and scholar, whose work cuts across the fields of climate governance, environmental and climate justice, and international affairs. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Brandeis University. He also holds faculty affiliations with the Heller School of Social Policy & Management, and Politics Department at Brandeis. Before moving to Brandeis, he was a tenured Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut and Co-directed the Economic and Social Rights Research Program at UConn's Human Rights Institute. Pauline Heinrichs is a Lecturer in War Studies (Climate and Energy) at King's College London. Her research focuses on global environmental politics with a particular focus on climate and energy security, climate justice grievances, international orders and questions concerning security and existential risks in a warming world. She co-directs the Centre for Integrated Research in Risk and Resilience (CIRRR) and the Environmental Security Research Group. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Brought to you by the BISA Environment and Climate Politics Working Group. Decolonizing Environmentalism: Alternative Visions and Practices of Environmental Action (Bloomsbury, 2024) helps us reimagine our approach to environmental stewardship critically interrogating the problems associated with existing legacies of environmentalism and how we imagine other ways to addressing the multiple planetary crises. The authors cast a critical eye on wealthy and influential environmental groups that committed to anti-racist strategies in the wake of the racial awakening of 2020. Yet, they continue to embrace false solutions like carbon markets and biodiversity offsets, which carry deeply racialized consequences. By tracing the roots of these misplaced priorities to detrimental modernity steeped in colonialism and capitalism, the authors call for transformational changes in human-nature relationships. They distill lessons from the divestment movement, which has questioned the fossil fuel industry's moral standing, and food sovereignty activists, who have mobilized global civil society to hold agribusiness corporations accountable. In these extraordinary times, Decolonizing Environmentalism invites readers to embark on a transformative journey to embrace anti-racist, emancipatory, and regenerative approaches to environmentalism. Prakash Kashwan is an educator, author, and scholar, whose work cuts across the fields of climate governance, environmental and climate justice, and international affairs. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Brandeis University. He also holds faculty affiliations with the Heller School of Social Policy & Management, and Politics Department at Brandeis. Before moving to Brandeis, he was a tenured Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut and Co-directed the Economic and Social Rights Research Program at UConn's Human Rights Institute. Pauline Heinrichs is a Lecturer in War Studies (Climate and Energy) at King's College London. Her research focuses on global environmental politics with a particular focus on climate and energy security, climate justice grievances, international orders and questions concerning security and existential risks in a warming world. She co-directs the Centre for Integrated Research in Risk and Resilience (CIRRR) and the Environmental Security Research Group. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Brought to you by the BISA Environment and Climate Politics Working Group. Decolonizing Environmentalism: Alternative Visions and Practices of Environmental Action (Bloomsbury, 2024) helps us reimagine our approach to environmental stewardship critically interrogating the problems associated with existing legacies of environmentalism and how we imagine other ways to addressing the multiple planetary crises. The authors cast a critical eye on wealthy and influential environmental groups that committed to anti-racist strategies in the wake of the racial awakening of 2020. Yet, they continue to embrace false solutions like carbon markets and biodiversity offsets, which carry deeply racialized consequences. By tracing the roots of these misplaced priorities to detrimental modernity steeped in colonialism and capitalism, the authors call for transformational changes in human-nature relationships. They distill lessons from the divestment movement, which has questioned the fossil fuel industry's moral standing, and food sovereignty activists, who have mobilized global civil society to hold agribusiness corporations accountable. In these extraordinary times, Decolonizing Environmentalism invites readers to embark on a transformative journey to embrace anti-racist, emancipatory, and regenerative approaches to environmentalism. Prakash Kashwan is an educator, author, and scholar, whose work cuts across the fields of climate governance, environmental and climate justice, and international affairs. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Brandeis University. He also holds faculty affiliations with the Heller School of Social Policy & Management, and Politics Department at Brandeis. Before moving to Brandeis, he was a tenured Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut and Co-directed the Economic and Social Rights Research Program at UConn's Human Rights Institute. Pauline Heinrichs is a Lecturer in War Studies (Climate and Energy) at King's College London. Her research focuses on global environmental politics with a particular focus on climate and energy security, climate justice grievances, international orders and questions concerning security and existential risks in a warming world. She co-directs the Centre for Integrated Research in Risk and Resilience (CIRRR) and the Environmental Security Research Group. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Welcome to the Psychedelic Conversations Podcast!Episode 176:In this episode, we speak with returning guest Matt Zemon about ordinary mysticism, psychedelic spirituality, and the healing power of human connection. Matt shares how his first guided psychedelic experience reshaped his worldview and inspired his studies in neuroscience, psychology, ministry, and spiritual practice. We discuss his book "Ordinary Mystics" and the idea that mystical experiences are available to everyone, not only saints, prophets, or spiritual authorities. Together, we explore community as a container for integration, the risks of spiritual grandiosity, religious harm, and the tension between medical and spiritual models of psychedelic use. We also consider how psychedelics may help us remember our interconnectedness, deepen family relationships, and rediscover childlike wonder. Finally, Matt explains his work supporting entheogenic communities and reducing risk across medical, recreational, and spiritual contexts.Watch our previous conversation here:https://youtu.be/4Jr3awHkvXg?si=rkLqF508QgJ4M1HQAbout Matt:Matt Zemon is Executive Director of the Council on Spiritual Practices, an organization that for over three decades has been dedicated to making experiences of the Sacred more available to more people. He holds a Doctor of Ministry from Pacific School of Religion, specializing in psychedelics in religious practice, and a Master of Science in Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health from King's College London. The author of six books on psychedelics, religion, and healing, he serves an entheogenic faith community and views direct spiritual experience as rooted in religious tradition and deserving of legal protection. Matt is grounded in the conviction that personal healing contributes to collective healing. He writes and speaks as a fellow traveler who does not promote psychedelics as shortcuts or cures. Matt speaks regularly at conferences, universities, and religious communities on the intersection of psychedelics, spirituality, science, and law.Connect with Matt:- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattzemon/- Website: https://www.mattzemon.com/- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matt.zemon/?hl=enThank you so much for joining us!Psychedelic Conversations Podcast is designed to educate, inform, and expand awareness.For more information, please head over to https://www.psychedelicconversations.comPlease share with your friends or leave a review so that we can reach more people and feel free to join us in our private Facebook group to keep the conversation going. https://www.facebook.com/groups/psychedelicconversationsThis show is for information purposes only,and is not intended to provide mental health or medical advice.About Susan Guner:Susan Guner is a holistic psychotherapist with a mindfulness-based approach grounded in Transpersonal Psychology, focusing on trauma-informed, community-centric processes that offer a broader understanding of human potential and well-being.Connect with Susan:Website: https://www.psychedelicconversations.com/Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/susan.gunerLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-guner/Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/susangunerTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/susangunerBlog: https://susanguner.medium.com/Podcast: https://anchor.fm/susan-guner#PsychedelicConversations #SusanGuner #MattZemon

Brought to you by the BISA Environment and Climate Politics Working Group. Decolonizing Environmentalism: Alternative Visions and Practices of Environmental Action (Bloomsbury, 2024) helps us reimagine our approach to environmental stewardship critically interrogating the problems associated with existing legacies of environmentalism and how we imagine other ways to addressing the multiple planetary crises. The authors cast a critical eye on wealthy and influential environmental groups that committed to anti-racist strategies in the wake of the racial awakening of 2020. Yet, they continue to embrace false solutions like carbon markets and biodiversity offsets, which carry deeply racialized consequences. By tracing the roots of these misplaced priorities to detrimental modernity steeped in colonialism and capitalism, the authors call for transformational changes in human-nature relationships. They distill lessons from the divestment movement, which has questioned the fossil fuel industry's moral standing, and food sovereignty activists, who have mobilized global civil society to hold agribusiness corporations accountable. In these extraordinary times, Decolonizing Environmentalism invites readers to embark on a transformative journey to embrace anti-racist, emancipatory, and regenerative approaches to environmentalism. Prakash Kashwan is an educator, author, and scholar, whose work cuts across the fields of climate governance, environmental and climate justice, and international affairs. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Brandeis University. He also holds faculty affiliations with the Heller School of Social Policy & Management, and Politics Department at Brandeis. Before moving to Brandeis, he was a tenured Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut and Co-directed the Economic and Social Rights Research Program at UConn's Human Rights Institute. Pauline Heinrichs is a Lecturer in War Studies (Climate and Energy) at King's College London. Her research focuses on global environmental politics with a particular focus on climate and energy security, climate justice grievances, international orders and questions concerning security and existential risks in a warming world. She co-directs the Centre for Integrated Research in Risk and Resilience (CIRRR) and the Environmental Security Research Group. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Six years ago, in a village in West Sumatra, a tiger died and its human relatives moved to bury it — because the tiger is understood as their own family. The Indonesian wildlife conservation authority BKSDA intervened, fearing poachers might take the carcass; the villagers, in deep grief, buried the tiger anyway. It's not an isolated case: similar stand-offs have played out in southern Aceh and elsewhere, as Sumatra's forests are cut into ever-smaller patches by plantations and logging, pushing tigers and people into closer contact than ever before, and tensions grow between different ontologies and practices on how to manage the relationship. This is why, as Universitas Indonesia anthropologist Imam Ardhianto puts it, human-tiger relations are best read not as belief systems in isolation, but as sensitive registers of ongoing socio-ecological change. So what happens to a centuries-old relationship between people and tigers when plantations fragment the forest, a virus jumps species from village dogs, and social media reshapes how a new generation understands the animal at all? In this week's episode, Tito Ambyo chats with Imam Ardhianto, an anthropologist and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Universitas Indonesia. Imam's research on the cosmopolitics of human-tiger relations draws on fieldwork in Sumatra, tracing how ancestral guardian tigers, were-tigers, and “outsider” tigers are understood — and how those categories are shifting as the forest itself changes. In 2026, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Clara Siagian from the University of College London, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, and Dr Tito Ambyo from RMIT

The Feast of the Passion (or Beheading) of Saint John the Baptist is commemorated annually on August 29. It marks the martyrdom and death of John the Baptist, unlike his other major feast on June 24, which celebrates his birth. The word "passion" comes from the Latin word passio, which means "suffering" or "enduring." Christians believe John the Baptist's death mirrors Christ's ultimate sacrifice. The Church uses "passion" to elevate John's death above common martyrdom. John the Baptist and Jesus are the only figures whose deaths are considered liturgical "passions." Dan Snow's History Hit podcast at podcasthttps://amzn.to/4feSBb7 The Immerser: John the Baptist by Joan Taylor at https://amzn.to/3LEQrE4 John the Baptist books available at https://amzn.to/3LCfQy1 Gospel of Luke available at https://amzn.to/3M6sTId Gospel of Matthew available at https://amzn.to/3LEeP8F ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVine Mark's History of North America podcast: www.parthenonpodcast.com/history-of-north-america Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: Dan Snow's History Hit podcast 23jun2024 (Episode 1463: John the Baptist with Joan Taylor, professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism at King's College London). Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Richard Pater speaks with Dr Simon Waldman about Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's grip on power, the erosion of Turkish democracy and Turkey's neo-Ottoman ambitions. Waldman examines antisemitism in Turkish society, Ankara's support for Hamas and its growing influence in Syria. He also assesses Turkey's potential return to the F-35 programme, its naval ambitions in the eastern Mediterranean and the prospects for repairing relations with Israel. Dr Simon Waldman teaches in the Defence Studies Department at King's College London. His research focuses on Turkish history and politics, international diplomacy in the Middle East, state-building and leadership, and the Arab Israeli conflict. He is the author of Anglo-American Diplomacy and the Palestinian Refugee Problem and co-author of The New Turkey and Its Discontents.

"This is a natural progression of how to protect your borders. And the other advantage is that it's cheaper; it's already there. So I can see that as demands on the defence budgets go up and up and up, that warWilding will become more and more prominent because it's a cash win-win situation for the beleaguered defence budgets." Ben's latest guest is Jasper Humphreys, director of programmes for the Marjan Study Group in the department of war studies at King's College London who has coined a new phrase: warWilding, “using nature in warfare”. In the early days of the Russia-Ukraine war the dying Irpin River was reflooded for the first time in more than 70 years. The rising water stopped the Russians literally in their tracks, leaving behind a trail of tanks and military hardware. In this episode find out how Jasper thinks that warWilding can be used by military departments at a time when budgets and resources appear thin. Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to people from all over the world who champion nature and are helping to restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes. We'd love to know what you think of the podcast. Do you have suggestions for guests, stories or topics you'd like to hear more about? To help us develop the show please consider taking a couple of minutes to complete our listener survey. Thank you. 

Datshiane Navanayagam discusses the impact of toxic masculinity in South Africa and South Korea. The United Nations has raised concern about online communities promoting misogynistic and anti-feminist views saying they're a serious threat to gender equality.    Kutlwano Mokgwathi is a doctoral researcher from Botswana, studying at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa - a country with some of the world's highest levels of gender-based violence. Her work is examining the emergence of the “Africana Manosphere” – with a focus on South Africa and Botswana.Seungsook Moon is Professor of Sociology at Vassar College in New York State. She grew up in Seoul, and her research includes gender and social change in South Korea. In particular, she focuses on the remaking of masculinities shaped by neoliberal transformation of economy, politics, and culture locally and globally. South Korea ranked the highest out of 30 countries for how citizens perceive tension between men and women, according to a study by King's College London. But what is driving the country's gender-divide and how is misogyny taking shape online?Produced by Elena Angelides(Image: (L) Kutlwano Mokgwathi, courtesy Kutlwano Mokgwathi. (R) Seungsook Moon, courtesy Seungsook Moon.)

This week on the Full of Beans podcast, Han is joined by Sophie du Plessis, a final-year Master of Nursing student in Adult and Mental Health Nursing at King's College London and founder of ED Informed.Sophie previously studied psychology at the University of Toronto, where she capped off a 15-year career as a national-level swimmer, co-captaining the varsity women's team to a second-place finish at Canadian Nationals.Drawing on her background in competitive sport and her own lived experience of an eating disorder, Sophie set up ED Informed, a campaign calling on gyms and fitness spaces to become eating disorder informed.She's currently working with Beat to develop accredited training for fitness staff to help them recognise and signpost people at risk of disordered eating and compulsive exercise, alongside piloting screening measures at the King's College London campus gym.In This Episode:Sophie's journey from competitive swimming to compulsive exercise and eating disorderSpotting the difference between healthy training and compulsive exerciseWhy disordered exercise can sneak in quietly, unnoticedDiscipline vs wellness culture vs compulsive exerciseSigns gym staff can look out for in clientsSophie's work piloting eating disorder awareness training for gymsRebuilding a healthy relationship with exercise after an eating disorderSophie's vision for ED Informed and eating disorder-informed gyms⚠️ Content note: this episode discusses eating disorders, compulsive exercise, and body image. Please take care while listening.Connect with us:Subscribe to the Full of Beans PodcastFollow Full of Beans on InstagramCheck out our websiteListen on YouTubeConnect with Sophie and ED Informed via her website or Instagram (@edinformed)Health policy petition: https://www.change.org/EDInformed_HealthPolicy

Erin Maglaque's first book, Presence, explores the hidden history of the female body through deep archival research: fragments in medical texts, trial transcripts, legal treatises, prayerbooks, letters, and diaries come together to make tangible a vanished past, unfamiliar because of its deliberate suppression. The artist Celia Paul has described Presence as ‘a landmark book', which makes the female body in the past ‘real as never before'. Maglaque was in conversation with Hannah Dawson, a historian of political thought at King's College London and the editor of The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing. You can buy a copy of Presence from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Day 1,638.Today, as Russia is accused of yet another incursion into Nato airspace, there are reports of a major Ukrainian drone attack on occupied Crimea. Kyiv is apparently seeking approval – again – from Elon Musk, this time to use Starlink in strikes on Russian missile launchers. Meanwhile, Russia is defenseless in the Mediterranean for the first time in a decade. We speak to the Telegraph journalist who got the scoop. Plus, a bizarre twist in the story of the suspected Nord Stream saboteur - and which American music artist is set to perform in St Petersburg in October? Finally, we catch up with occupied territories expert Dr Jade McGlynn on her recent trip to eastern Ukraine.Contributors:Adelie Pojzman-Pontay (Host on Ukraine: The Latest). @Adeliepjz on X.Sophie O'Sullivan (Telegraph journalist). Tom Cotterill (Telegraph defence editor). @TomCotterillX on X.Jade McGlynn (Research fellow, King's College London). @DrJadeMcGlynn on X.Producer: Rachel PorterSenior Producer: Lilian FawcettVideo Producer: Sophie O'SullivanSocial Producer: Anita BlayStudio Director: James EnglandExecutive Editor: Francis DearnleyCreated by David KnowlesNOW IN FULL VIDEO WITH MAPS & BATTLEFIELD FOOTAGE:Every episode is now available on our YouTube channel shortly after the release of the audio version. You will find it here: https://www.youtube.com/@UkraineTheLatest CONTENT REFERENCED:If you're interested in sponsoring Dom's upcoming defence event, email our colleagues at events@telegraph.co.ukUkraine's Logistics Targeting Raises Questions for Russia's Rear Defences (RUSI)https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/ukraines-logistics-targeting-raises-questions-russias-rear-defences ‘Highway of death': the Ukrainian drone campaign menacing Russian logistics (The Guardian)https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/11/highway-of-death-the-ukrainian-drone-campaign-menacing-russian-logisticsUkraine seeks Elon Musk's help to hit Russian missile launchers (Financial Times)https://www.ft.com/content/ff536e6e-dc56-45e3-b5e0-2dfb28148cb6?syn-25a6b1a6=1Ukraine Planned to Swarm Moscow Airports With AI-Guided Drones (Simon Shuster for The Atlantic)https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/08/ukraine-moscow-airports-ai-drones/688337/ Coalition of the Willing to hold Independence Day meeting in Kyiv (Kyiv Independent)https://kyivindependent.com/coalition-of-the-willing-to-hold-independence-day-meeting-in-kyiv/Russian publishers reportedly cut print runs after Ukrainian strikes on Wildberries warehouses, where their books are stored (Meduza) https://meduza.io/en/news/2026/08/21/russian-publishers-reportedly-cut-print-runs-after-ukrainian-strikes-on-wildberries-warehouses-where-their-books-are-storedThe cheap submarine-detection kits set to expose Putin's invisible force (Tom Cotterill for The Telegraph)https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/21/cheap-submarine-detection-kits-expose-russia-navy-ships-war/ Russian widows hire clairvoyants to contact husbands killed in war (The Telegraph)https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/08/17/russian-widows-hire-clairvoyants-to-contact-husbands-killed/To hear Francis answer the question about Russian missile launchers in our last Q&A, on August 13th: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbf1PD2Xjhs&t=1890sEMAIL US:Contact the team on ukrainepod@telegraph.co.uk. We continue to read every message, and seek to respond to as many as possible.HIGHLIGHTS:Russia 'defenceless' in the Mediterranean for first time in warUkraine hits Moscow's supply lines to Crimea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 393 A controversial TV show has suggested ADHD is a myth - a largely made up condition that is really just a “social construct”. But the science just doesn't back this up. Decades of research prove ADHD is a real condition that impacts lives - and often needs treatment, which saves lives. But at a time when diagnoses are rising, people are wondering what's causing the increase. Are we overdiagnosing the condition? Are we medicalising normal behaviour? That's what this documentary might have you believe - but such messaging is damaging. Katya Rubia of King's College London is one of the scientists featured in the documentary - and has spoken out about being misrepresented. She features on this episode to explain how harmful shows like this can be. From the benefits of ADHD medication to emerging data on women with the condition, we explore what the science really shows. Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet are also joined on the panel by science writer and author Caroline Williams who is open about having ADHD and New Scientist's Alexandra Thompson. To read more about these stories, visit https://www.newscientist.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Space is now an essential part of military planning and operations. Recent reports suggest Russia and China have discussed targeting Starlink satellites, highlighting their increasing importance in conflicts.  Are ‘space wars' no longer science fiction but part of military planning? Joining Gavin Esler to discuss the implications and the dangers of this new potential battleground is Dr Mark Hilborne, senior lecturer in the School of Security Studies at King's College London.  • Support us on Patreon to keep This Is Not a Drill producing thought-provoking podcasts like this. Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe: A New History (Allen Lane, 2026), award-winning historian Roderick Beaton tells the story of Europe as never before—as the history of an idea, and a collective identity. Since its dramatic birth in ancient Greece, 'Europe' has been defined, and redefined, by its people. Through this powerful lens, and with the narrative drive and scope of a novelist, Beaton deftly surveys Europe's major historical developments: the rise and fall of Rome; the explosion of Christianity; the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment; the arrival of Europeans in the Americas; the violent upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the uncertainties of the present. Throughout, original sources allow the voices of the past, from Tacitus to Thatcher, to speak for themselves. Grappling with the multilayered identities that have always come with being European, Europe places the Europe of today in a long arc of history stretching back more than 2,500 years. Roderick Beaton is Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King's College London and Chair of Trustees of the British School at Athens, an institute of advanced research. He is a four-time winner of the Runciman Award, for his books An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature, George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel: A Biography, Byron's War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution, and Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, published by Penguin in 2019. He is also the author of The Greeks: A Global History. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, Commander of the Order of Honour of the Hellenic Republic, and an honorary citizen of Greece. He was knighted in 2025. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe: A New History (Allen Lane, 2026), award-winning historian Roderick Beaton tells the story of Europe as never before—as the history of an idea, and a collective identity. Since its dramatic birth in ancient Greece, 'Europe' has been defined, and redefined, by its people. Through this powerful lens, and with the narrative drive and scope of a novelist, Beaton deftly surveys Europe's major historical developments: the rise and fall of Rome; the explosion of Christianity; the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment; the arrival of Europeans in the Americas; the violent upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the uncertainties of the present. Throughout, original sources allow the voices of the past, from Tacitus to Thatcher, to speak for themselves. Grappling with the multilayered identities that have always come with being European, Europe places the Europe of today in a long arc of history stretching back more than 2,500 years. Roderick Beaton is Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King's College London and Chair of Trustees of the British School at Athens, an institute of advanced research. He is a four-time winner of the Runciman Award, for his books An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature, George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel: A Biography, Byron's War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution, and Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, published by Penguin in 2019. He is also the author of The Greeks: A Global History. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, Commander of the Order of Honour of the Hellenic Republic, and an honorary citizen of Greece. He was knighted in 2025. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe: A New History (Allen Lane, 2026), award-winning historian Roderick Beaton tells the story of Europe as never before—as the history of an idea, and a collective identity. Since its dramatic birth in ancient Greece, 'Europe' has been defined, and redefined, by its people. Through this powerful lens, and with the narrative drive and scope of a novelist, Beaton deftly surveys Europe's major historical developments: the rise and fall of Rome; the explosion of Christianity; the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment; the arrival of Europeans in the Americas; the violent upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the uncertainties of the present. Throughout, original sources allow the voices of the past, from Tacitus to Thatcher, to speak for themselves. Grappling with the multilayered identities that have always come with being European, Europe places the Europe of today in a long arc of history stretching back more than 2,500 years. Roderick Beaton is Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King's College London and Chair of Trustees of the British School at Athens, an institute of advanced research. He is a four-time winner of the Runciman Award, for his books An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature, George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel: A Biography, Byron's War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution, and Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, published by Penguin in 2019. He is also the author of The Greeks: A Global History. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, Commander of the Order of Honour of the Hellenic Republic, and an honorary citizen of Greece. He was knighted in 2025. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe: A New History (Allen Lane, 2026), award-winning historian Roderick Beaton tells the story of Europe as never before—as the history of an idea, and a collective identity. Since its dramatic birth in ancient Greece, 'Europe' has been defined, and redefined, by its people. Through this powerful lens, and with the narrative drive and scope of a novelist, Beaton deftly surveys Europe's major historical developments: the rise and fall of Rome; the explosion of Christianity; the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment; the arrival of Europeans in the Americas; the violent upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the uncertainties of the present. Throughout, original sources allow the voices of the past, from Tacitus to Thatcher, to speak for themselves. Grappling with the multilayered identities that have always come with being European, Europe places the Europe of today in a long arc of history stretching back more than 2,500 years. Roderick Beaton is Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King's College London and Chair of Trustees of the British School at Athens, an institute of advanced research. He is a four-time winner of the Runciman Award, for his books An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature, George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel: A Biography, Byron's War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution, and Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, published by Penguin in 2019. He is also the author of The Greeks: A Global History. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, Commander of the Order of Honour of the Hellenic Republic, and an honorary citizen of Greece. He was knighted in 2025. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe: A New History (Allen Lane, 2026), award-winning historian Roderick Beaton tells the story of Europe as never before—as the history of an idea, and a collective identity. Since its dramatic birth in ancient Greece, 'Europe' has been defined, and redefined, by its people. Through this powerful lens, and with the narrative drive and scope of a novelist, Beaton deftly surveys Europe's major historical developments: the rise and fall of Rome; the explosion of Christianity; the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment; the arrival of Europeans in the Americas; the violent upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the uncertainties of the present. Throughout, original sources allow the voices of the past, from Tacitus to Thatcher, to speak for themselves. Grappling with the multilayered identities that have always come with being European, Europe places the Europe of today in a long arc of history stretching back more than 2,500 years. Roderick Beaton is Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King's College London and Chair of Trustees of the British School at Athens, an institute of advanced research. He is a four-time winner of the Runciman Award, for his books An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature, George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel: A Biography, Byron's War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution, and Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, published by Penguin in 2019. He is also the author of The Greeks: A Global History. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, Commander of the Order of Honour of the Hellenic Republic, and an honorary citizen of Greece. He was knighted in 2025. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode of the Breaking Cycles of Conflict mini-series, XCEPT's Dr Nafees Hamid talks to Dr Iain McGilchrist – psychiatrist, philosopher, neuroscientist and author of The Master and His Emissary and The Matter with Things – about how the brain's left and right hemispheres attend to the world in fundamentally different ways. They explore how shifts in hemispheric dominance have shaped trust, institutions and the rise and fall of civilisations throughout history, and what this means for how governments, mediators and practitioners build, and lose, legitimacy in fragile and conflict-affected settings today. This research is part of XCEPT (Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends), a UK aid-funded programme. King's College London's contribution to XCEPT focuses on the factors that shape violent and peaceful behaviour in conflict-affected populations. Find out more about XCEPT at xcept-research.org.

Today Justin sits down with Kevin Riehle. Kevin earned his Bachelor's degree in Russian and Political Science at Brigham Young University, his Master's degree in Strategic Intelligence at the Joint Military Intelligence College, and his PhD in War Studies from King's College London. Kevin worked for more than 30 years in the US National Security Community, including for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Counterintelligence Center, and other organizations. He also served in the US Navy Reserve, retiring at the rank of commander. He's currently a lecturer in intelligence and security studies at Brunel University in London. He's here today to discuss his book, which tells the story of the earliest wave of Soviet defectors, how they were handled and mishandled by Western intelligence agencies, and the reprisals they faced from Stalin's government Connect with Kevin: kevinriehle.com Check out the book, Soviet Defectors: Revelations of Renegade Intelligence Officers, 1924-1954, here. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1474467237?ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_EA66JST8SRZGKEC4YTZD&bestFormat=true Connect with Spycraft 101: Get Justin's latest book, Murder, Intrigue, and Conspiracy: Stories from the Cold War and Beyond, here. spycraft101.com IG: @spycraft101 Shop: shop.spycraft101.com Substack: spycraft101.substack.com Patreon: Spycraft 101 Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here. Check out Justin's second book, Covert Arms, here. Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here. Kruschiki The best surplus military goods delivered right to your door. Use code SPYCRAFT101 for 10% off! https://kruschiki.com/ Clandestine Laboratories Your new favorite fragrance is here. I'm partial to Novochoc. https://www.clandestinelaboratories.com/fragrances Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

PhenoNet Cleared By FDA To Begin Phase 3 Trial Of Inhaled Alzheimer's Drug PhenoNet has received FDA clearance to begin a Phase 3 trial of PHENOGENE-1A, an inhaled formulation of cromolyn sodium, an asthma drug with decades of safety data. Unlike most Alzheimer's therapies, which target only APOE4 gene carriers, this ~648-person trial stratifies both carriers and non-carriers by genotype, testing whether reducing amyloid aggregation, inflammation, and microglial dysfunction can benefit a broader Alzheimer's population than current treatments reach. Host Dave Asprey explains why this genotype-inclusive design challenges the field's narrow focus on APOE4 carriers, and what it means for families with Alzheimer's history who don't carry the gene. Sources: https://www.morningstar.com/news/business-wire/20260813649121/phenonet-cleared-by-fda-to-begin-phase-3-trial-of-inhaled-phenogene-1a-in-early-alzheimers-disease https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260813649121/en/ https://www.phenonet.us ~~~University Of Zurich Researchers Discover The Adult Brain Can Repair Itself Better Than Believed Researchers at the University of Zurich identified a population of "regenerative astrocytes" in living mouse brains that repair damaged tissue through a previously unknown mechanism: dividing cells send newly formed nuclei traveling across long cellular extensions to repopulate injured regions and rebuild the astrocyte network. The discovery overturns the long-standing assumption that adult brains have limited capacity to replace lost astrocytes after injury or autoimmune disease. Host Dave Asprey unpacks why this finding reframes brain injury recovery as something the body may already be equipped to handle, and what the newly identified genetic pathways could mean for future regenerative therapies. Sources: https://www.news.uzh.ch/en/articles/media/2026/regenerative-astrocytes.html https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260812015158.htm https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1139114 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-026-02354-5 ~~~Sheep's Wool-Derived Keratin Outperforms Collagen In Bone Regeneration Study Researchers at King's College London developed a keratin scaffold from sheep's wool, a farming industry waste product, and tested it against collagen, the current gold standard, in rats with non-healing skull defects. While collagen produced more total bone volume, the keratin scaffold generated bone that was more structurally organized and closer to natural bone architecture, while remaining stable and integrating cleanly with surrounding tissue. Host Dave Asprey explains why bone quality, not just quantity, matters for weight-bearing repair, and why a cheaper, more sustainable material outperforming the standard is a bigger deal than it sounds. Sources: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-scientists-wool-bone-material.html https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260812015210.htm https://www.ivanhoe.com/news_flash/scientists-turn-sheeps-wool-into-a-material-that-helps-regrow-bone-click-here/ ~~~Oral GLP-1 Pill Aleniglipron Shows 12% Weight Loss In Phase 2b Trial Structure Therapeutics' oral small-molecule GLP-1 receptor agonist, aleniglipron, produced up to 12.1% weight loss at 36 weeks in a 230-person Phase 2b trial, with no apparent plateau and continued loss to 16% in the open-label extension, putting an oral pill in the same efficacy range as injectable GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic. Host Dave Asprey weighs the compliance advantage of an oral option against his ongoing concerns about muscle loss, rebound weight gain, and the fact that GLP-1 drugs treat a symptom rather than the underlying metabolic cause. Sources: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42249138/ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-026-04476-6 https://ir.structuretx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/structure-therapeutics-announces-publication-nature-medicine/ https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/structure-touts-16-weight-loss-aleniglipron-highest-efficacy-oral-glp-1 ~~~Study Finds 150 Minutes Of Weekly Exercise Falls Far Short Of Real Heart Protection A Macao Polytechnic University analysis of over 17,000 UK Biobank participants found that the standard 150-minute weekly exercise guideline only reduces cardiovascular risk by 8-9%, while achieving a substantial risk reduction of over 30% requires 560-610 minutes a week, three to four times current recommendations. Only 12% of participants hit that higher threshold. Host Dave Asprey breaks down why public health minimums are a floor, not an optimization target, and what listeners serious about cardiovascular protection should actually be aiming for. Sources: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-real-heart-weekly-climbs-current.html https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/560-610-minutes-weekly-exercise-lower-cardiovascular-risk-heart-health https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2026/05/19/bjsports-2025-111351 ~~~New Research Clarifies The Mechanism Behind IV Vitamin C's Anti-Cancer Effect Decades after Linus Pauling's high-dose vitamin C claims were dismissed following failed oral-dose trials, researchers have clarified that Pauling had the mechanism right and the delivery method wrong: IV vitamin C bypasses gut absorption limits to reach plasma concentrations up to 100 times higher than oral dosing, generating hydrogen peroxide that is selectively toxic to cancer cells due to their lower catalase levels. A 2024 University of Iowa study found IV vitamin C combined with chemotherapy doubled overall survival in advanced pancreatic cancer patients. Host Dave Asprey reflects on how this vindicates a decades-old idea that was dismissed for the wrong reasons, and what it means for anyone facing a cancer diagnosis. Sources: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10.3389/fphys.2018.01182/full https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/cam/hp/vitamin-c-pdq https://medicine.uiowa.edu/news/2024/11/high-dose-iv-vitamin-c-plus-chemotherapy-doubles-survival-advanced-pancreatic-cancer This episode is designed for biohackers, longevity enthusiasts, and high-performance listeners who want the latest breakthroughs in neurodegenerative disease, regenerative medicine, metabolic health, and cancer therapeutics, translated into what actually matters for your biology right now. Host Dave Asprey connects clinical trial data, mechanistic research, and decades of context into practical frameworks for taking control of your own health decisions. New episodes every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. Keywords: PhenoNet PHENOGENE-1A, inhaled cromolyn Alzheimer's, APOE4 genotype Alzheimer's trial, regenerative astrocytes brain repair, University of Zurich brain regeneration, adult neuroplasticity, keratin bone scaffold, sheep's wool regenerative medicine, collagen vs keratin bone repair, aleniglipron oral GLP-1, Structure Therapeutics weight loss drug, oral semaglutide alternative, exercise minutes cardiovascular risk, 150 minutes exercise guideline, Macao Polytechnic University heart study, IV vitamin C cancer, Linus Pauling vitamin C, ascorbate hydrogen peroxide cancer cells, integrative oncology, biohacking news 2026, Thank you to our sponsors! - Visit www.myvitalc.com/davesfav to unlock Dave's discount - Neuronic | Go to www.neuronic.online Code DAVE for $100 off - iRestore | Reverse hair loss at www.irestore.com/DAVE and get exclusive savings on the iRestore Elite, use code DAVE Resources: • Get My 2026 Clean Nicotine Roadmap | Enroll for free at https://daveasprey.com/2026-clean-nicotine-roadmap/ • Get My 2026 Biohacking Trends Report: https://daveasprey.com/2026-biohacking-trends-report/ • Dave Asprey's Latest News | Go to https://daveasprey.com/ to join Inside Track today. • Danger Coffee: https://dangercoffee.com/discount/dave15 • My Daily Supplements: SuppGrade Labs (15% Off) • Favorite Blue Light Blocking Glasses: TrueDark (15% Off) • Dave Asprey's BEYOND Conference: https://beyondconference.com • Dave Asprey's New Book – Heavily Meditated: https://daveasprey.com/heavily-meditated • Join My Substack (Live Access To Podcast Recordings): https://substack.daveasprey.com/ • Upgrade Labs: https://upgradelabs.com Timestamps: 00:00 – Alzheimer's Drug Trial 01:43 – Brain Repair Cells 03:07 – Keratin Bone Scaffolds 04:45 – Oral GLP-1 Pill 05:59 – Minimum Effective Exercise 07:26 – IV Vitamin C Revisited 08:12 – Vitamin C Cancer Trial 09:30 – Takeaway See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sickle cell disease is caused by a single mutation in the beta-globin gene that leads to painful crises, anemia, and organ damage. Despite advances in treatment, it remains a devastating and often overlooked global health challenge, particularly in low-resource settings where children frequently go undiagnosed until life-threatening complications arise. The PERICLES project is an ambitious research initiative exploring prenatal gene editing to correct sickle cell disease before birth by targeting fetal blood-forming stem cells. Panicos Shangaris, a clinical senior lecturer and consultant in maternal and fetal medicine at King's College London, discusses what daily life looks like for people living with sickle cell disease today, the limits of existing therapies, and why treating the condition in utero could offer families a one-time, potentially curative therapy to prevent the disease before symptoms appear.

Dinesh Bhugra is a leading voice in social and cultural psychiatry. He is Emeritus Professor of Mental Health and Cultural Diversity at King's College London and has served as president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the British Medical Association, and the World Psychiatric Association. His many honors include being named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to psychiatry and receiving the Yves Pelicier Prize for his contributions to social psychiatry. A prolific scholar who has authored or edited more than 30 books, Bhugra is also a clinician and a longtime advocate for patients' rights to be heard and understood on their own terms. Throughout his career, he has challenged psychiatry to look beyond symptoms and diagnoses and to attend more closely to culture, community, social conditions, and the lived realities of human suffering. In this interview, we discuss how mental health is shaped by interconnected social, political, geographical, and commercial forces, from poverty and migration to corporate lobbying and the conditions in which people work and live. Bhugra considers what clinicians can learn by listening to patients' own explanations of their experiences, and why symptoms may become more livable when people have meaningful relationships, work, security, and a sense of belonging. We also discuss the psychiatrization of society, the limits of exporting Western psychiatric categories across cultures, and the question of who gets to decide what counts as normal or pathological. *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. https://www.madinamerica.com/donate/ To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850 © Mad in America 2026. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org  

Professor Crawford Spence is a Professor of Accounting at King's College London and an experienced researcher and educator across an array of business disciplines with specific expertise in financial service professions. He is a genuinely international scholar, having lived and taught on a number of continents and also happens to have been my PhD supervisor. His most recent book is Inertia – Purposeful Inefficiences in Financial Markets (co-authored with Yuval Millo and James Valentine), and our podcast explores some of the books main themes and assertions here. We start with the idea of purposeful inertia – as it exists between different groups within the financial sector – explore what is this and is it ever likely to be broken? We discuss the “ossified ideas”  that he had in mind when thinking about this.  Digging deeper into inertia we ask if inertia and long-term relationships facilitate the building of trust and validation networks? The research is particularly focused on the social structures that support our economic systems, and we ask how these are shifting particularly with AI and/or hybrid working? Finally we ask if everything in financial markets is noise and end by discussing whether he believes in any form of investment alpha.The Fiftyfaces Podcast is supported by Franklin Templeton and Alvine Capital. Franklin Templeton is a global investment management firm that provides a broad range of investment solutions, including mutual funds, ETFs, alternative investments, wealth management, and technology-enabled financial services. Founded in 1947, the firm manages approximately $1.8 trillion in assets under management (AUM) and serves individual and institutional investors across more than 150 countriesFounded in 2005, Alvine Capital is a European focused private capital advisory and placement agent that provides capital raising services to investment managers. From its base in London and its office in Stockholm it creates bespoke capital raising programs that blend appropriate investor targeting and sophisticated marketing to deliver a fundraise aligned with institutional expectations.

More than six years since the start of the Covid pandemic, it might feel like we're pretty over it, yet that's simply not the case for the millions of people who suffer from long Covid. But could there be hope on the horizon? A new clinical trial led by University College London and University College London Hospitals found that over-the-counter antihistamines and a prescription anti-inflammatory drug called colchicine offered a small reduction in fatigue for people with long Covid. But it's still not a cure. Professor Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London, joins us to discuss this new research and the problems with understanding long Covid. He also tells us about some of the upcoming studies that might help us better get a handle on the condition. Also this week, did you know that around one in 335 people in the UK are living with a stoma? Yet according to Colostomy UK, more than 60 per cent of those with a stoma say a lack of suitable toilet facilities affects their daily lives. Thanks to a campaign that started in Bristol, B&Q has now made the disabled toilets across its stores stoma-friendly. We pay a visit to B&Q with The Traitors' Mollie Pearce, who has been living with a stoma since she was 18, and colorectal surgeon Ms Caroline Burt from Bristol Foundation Trust to find out more. Finally, many of us have been guzzling ice cream to cool off during the hot weather. But have you seen the social media claims that the frozen treat can reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes? We asked nutritional scientist Dr Sarah Berry from King's College London to give us the scoop on the 'ice cream paradox'. Presenter: James Gallagher Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Production coordinator: Stu Laws Editor: Ilan Goodman

Enligt strängteorin består tillvarons minsta delar av vibrerande strängar. Den anger att det finns tio dimensioner. Ändå håller många fast vid den. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radios app. Programmet sändes första gången i september 2025.Allting består av vibrerande strängar. Det finns tio rumsdimensioner. Kanske är vi själva och allting hologram?En del av de påståenden som strängteorin resulterar i eller öppnar för är ganska häpnadsväckande. Ändå jobbar fysikerna vidare med den. De beskriver den som den bästa vägen just nu mot en lösning på en svår utmaning inom fysiken: Att få å ena sidan Einsteins allmänna relativitetsteori, om gravitationen, och å andra sidan kvantmekaniken, som beskriver partiklarnas värld, att gå ihop med varann.Vi möter Sameer Murthy från King's College London, Magdalena Larfors från Uppsala universitet, och tre unga forskare från Leuvens universitet i Belgien.Camilla Widebeckcamilla.widebeck@sverigesradio.se

How can content marketing in a tight niche build the audience that launches your book? And how do you decide whether to hand your self-published bestseller to a traditional publisher. Suzanne Smith shares what she learned in four years of going from blog to book deal. In the intro, how to stand out as a writer in the age of AI [Nathan Barry Show; Interview with Nathan Barry]; thoughts on asset maintenance; Goodreads giveaway on Bones of the Deep (Aug 5-20, 2026) This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Suzanne Smith is the founder of The Independent Landlord, and the bestselling author of The Good Landlord Handbook. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How a free blog in a tight niche built the audience for the book Rewriting the book from scratch when the law changed Why speed made self-publishing the only option Building a paid membership after one audience member asked for it Negotiating a Penguin Random House deal with no agent Using AI as a business sidekick, with a control room and an engine room You can find Suzanne at TheIndependentLandlord.com. Transcript of the interview with Suzanne Smith Jo: Suzanne Smith is the founder of The Independent Landlord, and the bestselling author of The Good Landlord Handbook. So welcome to the show, Suzanne. Suzanne: Thank you. Jo: Oh, there's so much to talk about today. But first up— Tell us a bit more about you and your background, and how you got into property and writing after a legal career. Suzanne: Well, I've always loved reading books. In fact, I recently did a French literature degree as a mature student. Being an author was never in the game plan at all. It's not something that I even thought about. I was brought up in New Zealand, so shout out to all the Kiwis and those across the pond in Australia. The thing about it is, Jo, you've lived there yourself. Kiwis are independent, self-reliant and have this great sense of fair play. So that was a very formative experience for me. We moved back to England when I was 16, and I have become thoroughly anglicised since then, but a Kiwi at heart. I always wanted to become a lawyer. New Zealand in some ways on television is quite American, and there was this American programme called The Paper Chase. It was about all of these students at Harvard studying law, and the professor said, “You come here with a skull full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer.” I thought, “Oh, I like the sound of that.” I didn't really know what a lawyer was, but everyone seemed to be very happy that I wanted to become one, and then that was it. Jo: So you went into law, and then how did you get into property? Suzanne: So I worked for 25 years as a solicitor. That's like an attorney if you're American. Started off in a law firm, and then I went into pharmaceuticals and I worked for big companies like what is now GSK, GlaxoSmithKline, and small companies as well. When I started out, it was before the internet, before Google. When you're in house, you're very much a generalist. You do a bit of everything. So you help companies grow their business. You're not business prevention, but you're still bound by the code of conduct for solicitors. You've got this role of keeping the company on the right side of the law. Then I had twins, who were born about five years after I became a lawyer, and I decided to work part-time for a while and did an MBA when they were little, part-time through the Open University. I know Jonathan is doing one at the moment. Jo: Yes. He's finished, so that's exciting. Suzanne: That was transformational for me, because I had probably been thinking a bit too much as a lawyer, and it helped me to broaden my view of the world and understand all sorts of things. Sso I continued going up the greasy pole, and then for my last job, in 2015, I joined a biotech company in Cambridge, England, as general counsel and company secretary. It was a long way from home, about two, three hours' drive from home. So I decided to buy a flat, an apartment, and to stay there in the week. I thought to myself, “Well, when I leave this company, I can let it out as a buy-to-let,” but actually as a landlord. So I stayed there for five years, and then when I left, I let out the property. The reason why I decided to leave law after 25 years, I had what I call a sliding doors moment, like in the film. I was 50. I was on holiday with my husband, and we'd probably had one too many rum cocktails. And he said to me, “Well, what do you want to be doing with your life? What would you do if you could do anything?” I was thinking, “Well, I've done law. I want to do something else now.” I didn't really know what that was, and I'd always been thinking about studying French properly, and that's when I left. So I decided, 18 months later, I left to do a French degree at King's College London, full-time. I was the only old person there with lots of 18-year-olds. When I did that, I was able to cash in my share options because I was a good leaver. I retired, and so I started buying properties to let out and became a landlord, without really thinking too much about it, and I used letting agents. They were fine to begin with, but I didn't really have a game plan or anything like that. What I realised is that when I tried to research things online, I couldn't really find anything that was terribly helpful. It was either quite general or it was very legal. So after a while… I became a landlord in 2019. I had the idea, why don't I set up a blog? And this is August 2022, so just four years ago. My husband came up with the idea of the name, The Independent Landlord, because it's that Kiwi spirit, being very independent. I thought, “Right, I'm not going to charge anyone for it. It's a hobby. It's not a business. I'm going to pay it forward and help, use my legal training, practical legal approach, and practical common sense, by doing this blog.” Almost exactly four years ago, I sent my first newsletter to 13 people. Jo: Woo-hoo. Suzanne: And I sent one last week to over 18,000. So it's been quite a journey. Jo: Wow, this is so great. I love this. There's so much in there. The turning 50 and then doing a degree. My master's in death is a little different to your French literature, but I like it. So I love this, and buying properties, starting it on the side, not a business at first, and growing the audience, and obviously you've put so much work in. Then you decide to write a book. So talk about that, because an online blog, although I'm sure your articles and everything were super useful, it's very different to write a blog than a book. So talk about your challenges in writing. Why did you decide to do a book in the first place? Suzanne: Again, I was an accidental landlord, is what they call it when you let a property when you didn't intend to buy it as a buy-to-let, which I did with my Cambridge flat. And I became, in many respects, an accidental author. So I was having a conversation with my husband again and I was saying I'd done this lead magnet to get people to sign up to my newsletter, and a big new law was going through Parliament at the time, called the Renters Reform Bill, that was going to completely transform the way landlords operate. I was saying to my husband, “Oh, I need to update my lead magnet, a little ebook, to explain the new law.” He looked at me and said, “Well, why don't you do a proper book? Write a book.” This was on the 29th of September, 2023. The reason why I mention that is that I thought, “Wow, what a great idea,” and my head was bursting. I went onto Google, and guess what I downloaded on the 1st of October? Jo: My blueprint? Suzanne: Exactly. I found you immediately, the Author Blueprint, and I downloaded it. I checked: on the 1st of October, 2023. Then I listened to almost… well, I think I went back several years on your podcast, just trying to understand. I'm like that. When I try and do something, I just try and learn everything that there is to know about it. So I started writing the book, and I guess the first challenge was I write quickly, and I'm used to writing for people who aren't lawyers, being in-house. So I thought I needed to have a structure. The structure was easy in many respects because, a bit of business at the end, and then you can go through a tenancy. I thought it was important to have a narrative thread all the way through it, just to bring it together. This is the literature degree coming in here. I thought that the mission for everything I do, the reason why I started doing this, is to help landlords, but also to help the experience of renting that people have in England. It's very specific for English law. And to help improve the private rented sector. So that's why I originally set up my blog for free, and I wanted, when people went onto Google, they could find something sensible and very detailed from me. My blog posts were… Well, I've now got over 400,000 words on my blog, so it's a substantial piece of work that is out there free of charge. So what I decided to do was to bring this narrative thread, I call it the good landlord ethos, to the book. Then I wrote very quickly, and I had a pretty good draft by April 2024, because we were all thinking that the law was going to change very soon. But then there was an election, and in the end the government changed and the legislation changed completely, so I had to rewrite the book and start again. So I think that my biggest challenge was that my subject matter, the new law, changed. Because I wanted to publish this book that explained to people practically what they have to do, and make it really straightforward, keeping out of politics, because it is a very politically charged area. I wanted to write it so it's a manual, somebody could literally follow it. So I used an editor, and I did write the book twice. I had a beta reader who is another lawyer, and a landlord as well. Then I got to the get-the-damn-thing-done stage. The really tedious bit of all the typos at the end. Jo: Yes, the finishing energy to get it out there. So at that point, obviously you'd found my blueprint, so you were learning about the indie way of doing things. Did you always decide to self-publish? How did you think about publishing? What were your challenges in publishing? Suzanne: It never occurred to me not to self-publish, because the new law came into effect on the 1st of May, 2026. The law and the details that I needed for the book were finalised in January, and I published on Amazon on the 5th of March, so I had to go so quickly. Even though I'd got a lot of it written, the last bit came in January, and so I needed speed. I knew that for landlords to be able to have something that they can use straightaway to help get them ready for it, and then use as a manual afterwards, I had to be first. Jo: Sorry, just on the year. Was it '24? You said '26. You meant May— Suzanne: 2024? No, no, because I actually published it this year. What happened in 2024, I had the first draft ready, but then I had to do another draft because the law changed when the Labour government came in. Jo: Right. Suzanne: The Renters Reform Bill turned into the Renters' Rights Bill. So I had to rewrite the book. So I finished however many drafts at the end of January 2026. Then it went to an editor, et cetera, et cetera, and I managed to get the book ready for a proof, to get the proof printed, towards the end of February. So it was really quick to go from the law being sufficiently finalised for me to write a book in January, and then having it ready in just over a month. There is no way that I could have done that if I'd gone to a traditional publisher. It didn't even occur to me to go, because I didn't want to be going touting around my book and, “Please publish me,” et cetera. It's just not me. I'm the independent landlord, and that moved very easily to being the independent publisher. So I learnt how to do all the publishing. And a huge thanks: I joined your Patreon and I was a very good student. I went through everything systematically and followed your playbook, and used Vellum and BookFunnel and all the other tools. So I decided to go on Amazon as well as have my own Shopify store, which just about killed me. Jo: I was going to say, you are an excellent student. You really like learning, but you also put this into practice, which is why I also wanted to talk to you. You haven't just talked about all this. You've literally done everything. Suzanne: Sometimes it was like my head was going to burst. Luckily, Claude upped his game earlier this year when we got the Opus 4.5. I didn't use AI really until this year. I decided I need to do exercise all the time, and have that as a have-to-do, because my head was spinning all the time with all these different things. So I would go to the gym, go to a spin class, and then I would walk out with my phone on, with the Claude app, and dictate a stream of consciousness into it. “Oh, I need to do this, or what about that? Oh, I just remembered about this. Oh, I've had this idea, blah.” And then said, “Make sense of it for me, Claude.” So it was very much as a thinking partner, because when you're writing your first book, it's bad enough, but when you're learning how to publish… Even, like, when I got the first proof of the book back from BookVault, I realised that all the footnotes—I have 114 footnotes in my book, and that, again, is the recent degree there—and the formatting had gone skew-whiff. Apparently it was an issue with Vellum, and they were really lovely and they sorted it straight out for me. So it shows: always get a proof of the book. They were able to sort that out very quickly, and BookVault were very quick in getting me another proof, because you can shortcut it and just pay to get a very quick delivery. Amazon, on the other hand, was really slow. It took a week. So I actually published earlier on my Shopify store for my members, of my membership, and I gave them a discount. Then I finally got it onto Amazon on the 5th of March. There are all these different skills you're having to learn. The Shopify store I found very hard, and there was all the tax, because I'm VAT registered. So I think I'm still recovering. Jo: You're still recovering. I wouldn't normally recommend a Shopify store for someone with their first book, doing first of everything. But, as you say, you're someone who learns a lot, puts it into practice, and— I think you were pretty determined to do that because you had a community as well, right? Suzanne: Exactly, yes. The big subscriber list. I think that's why the book did so well. So in the first week, because I met you at the Indie Author Lab put on by— Jo: Yes, London Book Fair, yes. Suzanne: Yes, the Alliance of Independent Authors. I met you there, and it was just my first week, and I had 1,000 sales in the first week. That was because of my audience. I'd been going on about the fact that I'm writing this book for two and a half years, because that's how long it took me to do. So I had a wait list for it, and I had a thing on my website, a landing page on my website, saying how good the book was and why it's the best thing for the Renters' Rights Act. Then I went onto Google, and I think I sent you a screenshot of this at the time. I put into Google, “What's the best book for the Renters' Rights Act for landlords in England?” And it came up with me as a featured snippet, and I hadn't even published it at that time. It was just about there. So the blog really helped, because I'd become an authority on the Renters' Rights Act. Even though I'm not a practising solicitor any more, I spent all my time reading the damn thing, and it is a very complicated bit of legislation. Funnily enough, I have ruffled a lot of feathers. People have even said about me behind my back, “What does she know? She's only got four properties.” But I just took no notice. I thought, “I'm going to try and use my legal brain and my understanding of what it's like being a landlord, there with the rubber gloves cleaning an oven when people have moved out, and try and write something that's not trying to sell anything else, and to help people.” And then it got picked up. Jo: Yes. Wait, let's just slow down. Slow down, because we will get onto that in a minute. But let's just come back to that launch. So as we talked about, you've had a blog for five years— Suzanne: It was three and a half by then. Jo: Three and a half years you've been blogging, but hundreds of thousands of words of useful information. So you've essentially done content marketing. You've attracted people. You had a lead magnet. You got them on your email list. You told them that you were writing a book. You got a sort of pre-sales list up. So that's an email list. You've got a blog. Did you do anything else in terms of marketing? Suzanne: I had YouTube, a big YouTube channel. I'd only set it up at the end of 2024, and I'd had half a million views. And again, just very straightforward advice, and without all the scaremongering and politics. I deliberately keep out of it all. A lot of people joined my newsletter as a result of that. Also a year ago, exactly today, I was running a Facebook group, which was a lot of hard work. There were a few thousand people in it, but there are often a lot of people going in there trying to sell things: insurance, eviction specialists and things. And there was also a lot of people just being unpleasant to other people. I was getting fed up with it. It was taking me a lot of time, and I was doing a lot of speaking events and trying to explain what this new law was doing, and wearing myself out. I'm an extrovert, but even I find speaking events absolutely exhausting, because it's like everything gets sucked out of you. It's strange. Then somebody came up to me in July last year and said, “Suzanne, can you set up a membership?” I said, “Well, landlords aren't going to pay for that.” And they said, “Yes, they will. You build it and they will come.” I asked ChatGPT and thought about it. I asked ChatGPT, who I was dating at the time, now exclusively with Claude, but I know Claude has other people in his life. But I'm very much set with Claude Fable at the moment. So I asked ChatGPT, how can I go about setting up a membership? And I mentioned your one and said, “Should I do it on Patreon?” And then he came back with: go for Circle. So I set up a membership on Circle, exactly a year ago. In fact, it's the anniversary of my first member yesterday. hTe rules I had were, no selling. So I don't sell, no affiliate links, no one else can sell anything, and we have to be supportive. No negativity, no politics. So what it's become, it's like the senior common room of the private rented sector, with landlords, lawyers, letting agents. There's a fantastic forum in there. It's not me doing it, it's peer-to-peer. I have twice-monthly live streams where people can ask me questions. I wonder where I got that from. No, I very much modelled it on your Patreon, but on a different platform. I have courses in there as well. So that has really grown. I launched it in July, and by September, October, I'd gone past the VAT threshold, which has complicated everything, but it means my business now is this membership. I really enjoy doing it, and there hasn't been all the negativity that you have in a Facebook group. So I had them as… talk about your thousand fans. There are about 1,500 in the membership, and their support really helped the launch of my book, as well as the wider people who get my free newsletter. Jo: Yes. Suzanne: So it's all different types of content marketing. Jo: Y, but I do love this. And of course, if people are wondering, I joined Patreon back in 2014, I think it might have even been before that, and there weren't too many places back then to run communities. It wasn't even really a community at the time, it was a sort of, almost a “give me a bit of support for the podcast.” So things have changed a lot in terms of communities, and obviously you went with Circle, which is great. Patreon is slightly different now, and some people are using Substack for something similar. So that's just on the platform, but on the business: early on in our conversation you said, “I wasn't going to have a business. It wasn't a business. It was just putting stuff out there, helping other people,” and then your audience asked for this membership. And so now it is a business, right? Suzanne: Yes, it is. Jo: And you've got a book and all of this. So are you happy with the change to a business? Because obviously you have to treat it quite differently. Suzanne: Yes, I am, because I think to begin with, I was just doing it one or two days a week. I was actually studying a master's in French literature part-time, and I then found that I was enjoying the blog more than the master's, so I dumped the master's after the first year. But after getting 88% for one of my dissertations, which interestingly was on the translation of a Simone de Beauvoir book into English, and the publisher who's got that now is Random House, but that's another thing. Anyway, so I decided to give up my master's and double down and work full-time on the blog. People were paying to help me with all the big fees and things, the big tech stack, Buy Me a Coffee. I was doing a little bit of consulting and things. I was working six, seven days a week. I was treating it like a business in terms of quality and my effort, but it wasn't a business in terms of revenue. Then it just all came together, and this person said, “Set up a membership,” and I thought, “That's what I'm going to do. I'm now going to put it on a business setting.” I've got an MBA, I know how to do it, and people thought I planned it, but I didn't. It just happened. So now I do very much treat it as a business, but I still don't advertise. I don't allow people to advertise with me, because I want to be independent. If I recommend something, I want people to believe it's me recommending it, not just because someone's paying me, which can be a big issue in the landlord area. Jo: Oh, in any industry. I get pitched every day with loads of random things that people are like, “Oh, a dollar a click or whatever, if you send this to your list.” And it's like, seriously? Just stop it already. I did just want to add there: somebody asked you, they said, “You should have a community,” and that sparked that idea. I just wanted to acknowledge that my Patreon came from Jim Kukral. Some of you will remember, who've been around a long time. Jim Kukral came on my blog around sort of 2013. Amanda Palmer had just put out a book called The Art of Asking, and I was doing a lot of unpaid work on the podcast at the time, and I was either going to give it up or I had to fund it somehow. Jim said, “You should do a Patreon.” And I was like, “Oh, no, I hate asking for money.” So at the time I just felt, oh, weird. Then I was like, “No, I do all this work,” as you were saying. Now the Patreon has changed so much in terms of what it is, but it is the backbone of my business, too. So I love that you listened to one of your fans who said what they wanted, and I love that I've listened as well. Sometimes we just have to listen to those urges, don't we, to take things on? Suzanne: Yes, absolutely. In some ways I didn't really back myself before. I thought, “No one's going to pay for this.” Then the more you give, the more they want. Jo: Yes. Suzanne: What I've been really working on now is having boundaries, because there were two big kind of mottos that I picked up when I was working in pharmaceuticals. One was from a head of the business. He was Canadian, and he was always saying, “You've got to skate to where the puck is heading.” Jo: That's Wayne Gretzky, is it? Suzanne: Exactly. Yes. He would always say it, and so that's what I've done with my blog and my book. When I write things, I don't pay for any tools. I don't do keyword searches and all that. I just think, I do one blog post per topic, and I'm going to guess what people are going to be searching for soon, and I build up all this content around it. That's why most of my blog pages are top five. I've had no advertising. I haven't asked for any backlinks. I don't do it. People backlink to it because it's useful. So that was the first thing, is skate to where the puck is heading, and that was my approach with the book. I knew people would need this book from around May, and they'll need it forever, because it is so complicated and regulated, the rules for being a landlord in England. So that was the first one. The second thing was: when you take something on, you've got to let something go. One in, one out. I found that I was taking on so many different things, and I've just been cutting back, because I can't be doing all the speaking, I can't be answering people's emails. So I now don't do emails. If people want my advice on something, they ask me in the hub, at the twice-monthly live streams. Sometimes I answer in the forums, but I don't have time. When there are 2.4 million landlords in the UK, and even with our 18,000 on my newsletter, I could spend, and I did, I used to spend all my time replying to emails. So anyway, there are the things. Oh, and there was a third one, which is: attract, don't chase. One of my friends gave me that advice and that's exactly what my approach has been. I just don't chase for anything. I just put the stuff there and then build it and they will come. Jo: Yes, and I think another thing is the power of the niche. It's so clear that what you write about, the people you are aiming at, you have an extremely tight target market. That is both a strength and obviously a weakness, because they're the only people. But as you say, there's more than enough of those people for a community, for the book you have. From my own perspective, that's the same for me, the power of the niche. That's how I have a successful podcast, for example, because of that reason. I think you're like a poster child of what a non-fiction author should do. What I like is that you didn't go, “Oh, where's a niche where I could make money?” and then jump in. You've gone about this in a kind of slightly accidental way, but now you're leaning in and this uses all your skills. So this really is a great example of the power of the niche and then making the most of it. But let's move on to what then happened, and— What happened with the book deal? Suzanne: Wow. So you and I met each other on whatever day that was in March at the Indie Author Lab, and the following day I got an email, via my website on a contact form, from Penguin Random House saying, “We love the book. We love the mission, its values,” all this kind of thing. And I was thinking, “Oh, it's another one of those. Must be an—” Jo: AI spam bot, right? Suzanne: Yes, and I remember I sent you a screenshot of it, and then I checked her out on LinkedIn and thought, “Okay, there is somebody with that name there.” You're always saying, and Orna Ross and everyone are always saying, “Watch out for scams.” And in fact, Penguin Random House even this weekend on Instagram put out something saying, “There are lots of people impersonating us.” So I didn't take it too seriously, and it was something like, “Oh, would you be interested in us publishing your book?” And I thought, and I laughed. It was like, no, this is too good to be true. So I replied and said… Oh, I said, “Well, thank you so much. The Renters' Rights Act…” And so this is like the second week in March. “The Renters' Rights Act comes into effect on the 1st of May. If you want to publish it, you're going to need to get your skates on.” I literally did say that. Then she arranged a meeting with me the next day, on the Friday. I still was very dubious about it, and I had a think about it. What helped me, and I have the little booklet here: at the Author Lab, we did some work at the beginning, and Orna said, “Put your phones away.” And it was like, “What? Put my phone away?” Then we had to do this definition of success, and our passion, and our mission, and our purpose. I wrote down things like, I want to help landlords, and in so doing, help improve the private rented sector. I get pleasure from helping people. I want to improve standards and use my legal and practical skills, et cetera. So I thought, “Okay, what is my purpose of doing this book?” It isn't really to make money, because going with Penguin, you wouldn't do that for financial reasons, because you'd make very little money. So I thought, what is my why? My why is I want as many people to read this book as possible. And I've managed to sell a few thousand copies, but there are 2.4 million landlords, and they all need to understand this book, and the only way that I can get it out there, apart from doing ads, is to get it out in bookstores. So I thought about it, and then said, “Yes, I will do it, because I want to get the book out there.” So it's distribution. It's going to be published on the 6th of August, which is really quick, bearing in mind they contacted me in the middle of March. It's exactly the same book, it's just got different copyright wording and different blurb, different paper. Same cover, because I managed to find a fantastic cover person to do it. So they've kept everything the same. So we negotiated that book. I have no agent. They came to me. It's the attract, don't chase. I just put my lawyer hat on, and because one licence is very much like another one… I did turn down their first offer. Jo: Well done. Good negotiation. Suzanne: My daughter said to me, who's an adult daughter, she said, “But it's Penguin.” And I said, “Well, no, but it doesn't work for me.” So I had a call with them, and then they came up with something that worked for me a bit more. I did have to concede on a few things, like I can't sell it in my Shopify store. But in some ways, that was a blessing in disguise, because it means I don't get any more “Where's my book?” emails. Jo: Yes, exactly. Pros and cons of everything, basically. Suzanne: I have very clear rights to get it back. If I want it back, I can get it back and I don't have to give a reason. They're lovely. They have been really very wonderful. When I went up there a month or so ago, they gave me this book bag, and it's got on it, “I'm published by Penguin,” and I burst into tears. Jo: Aw. That's nice. Suzanne: I don't know, it just seemed like such a big deal. Because up until then I was just being all very lawyerly and task-orientated. Then I thought, “Oh my goodness,” and then it dawned on me. So I'm now in this interim period where I've taken it off Amazon and off my Shopify store, and I feel very maternalistic towards the book because, you know, it took me two and a half years, which is longer than a pregnancy. Obviously it's not a child, but it's like my book child. I've sent it off with a backpack and a drink and some snacks, and I hope that they look after him, my book. The day I took it off Amazon it was still number one. And a big shout-out to Publisher Rocket, by the way. Jo: Yes. Very, very useful for niche publishing. Suzanne: Very. It helped me choose the right niche categories. So it was number one on at least one category, often six, all the way through. I thought, “Well, it's over to them now.” They're very lovely people. They've given me some marketing assets, as they call it, some swanky graphics and things to use. We'll have to see what we do in terms of marketing. I don't mind doing marketing. I'm on LinkedIn quite a bit, and my whole blog is marketing. What I've been doing is updating my blog to include one of these graphics and to mention the book, and I got Claude to help me draft the code so it looked right. So I've been going through all of my blog posts and sending people to Amazon rather than to my Shopify store. It is mixed feelings, because I care about my book. I put a lot of effort, a lot of love, a lot of tears. No, not tears, but I put a lot of effort into it, and it's out of my control now. Jo: Yes, you said it's over to them, but obviously you will still be creating content around this topic, so you'll probably still be the biggest driver of book sales. Suzanne: Yes. Jo: Are they also suggesting, for example, a podcast tour, like pitching for podcasts? Are they going to assign you some PR? Because, also if people don't know, as we are recording this, we have a new prime minister who wants to do various things. You said no politics, but this is obviously a political thing. So you have the potential to go on a lot of different podcasts, media, talking about this, becoming almost a talking head in this kind of area. So are you angling for all that, and is that in your contract, or is it literally just going to be whatever you want to do? Suzanne: That's not in the contract. What's in the contract is very minimal. I think I've already done what I'm supposed to do. They are pitching for me to go on podcasts and things. I'll tell you a really funny coincidence. So we now have a new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, and when he was Mayor of Greater Manchester, he set up something called the Good Landlord Charter. I actually talk about it in the book, and I quote him in my book saying that good landlords mean people trying to do the right thing, or something like that. And I coincidentally came up with the same name, The Good Landlord Handbook. I'd already had the book title for a long time. So this idea of good and landlord coming together, the adjective good as opposed to criminal or rogue, and the cover being green. I'm wanting to change the narrative so it's the norm to have a good landlord, and to help people become good landlords. Or if they're good landlords, help them to understand the new rules, because the new rules are very complicated. So what I don't get involved in is this right or wrong. Is it right that landlords can't do this or have to do this? Because as an in-house lawyer, it doesn't really matter what I think about the law. GDPR, goodness me. Jo: Oh, dear. Let's not start on GDPR. Suzanne: No, exactly. Because we've just got to suck it up. I liken it to the grief cycle, that people have been going through so much change and you have the anger, the depression— Jo: Denial. Suzanne: Bargaining, the denial, and then you get to acceptance. For some people, the acceptance means they want to stop doing it. If you want to accept it and stay, you need to understand the rules. So I've deliberately just kept very practical and have kept out of all the politics of it. I have, funnily enough, become involved because I'm now seen as an expert on the Renters' Rights Act. I've worked behind the scenes with the government to help, and give comment on government guidance for landlords. I was even invited to a reception to mark the passing of the Renters' Rights Act at Downing Street with the previous prime minister, all whilst staying apolitical. I won't let anyone make me be a mouthpiece for their political view. It's more, we just have to do this if we want to continue doing it. I've been very clear on that. Jo: It's interesting you mention the grief cycle there, and you've also mentioned Claude and ChatGPT. I wonder if you might also just comment on use of AI for authors and for marketing and all this. Also with legal stuff, because for me now, if I'm looking at a particular legal thing, I tend to ask Claude. I'm like, “Can you just explain this?” or upload a contract or whatever. Although it is not legal advice, it can be quite useful. So give us your thoughts on using AI as a sidekick in your author business and also for wider life. Suzanne: I now struggle to think what life would be like without Claude. I don't use Claude to write, at all, because I have a very particular voice and a turn of phrase, and if ever Claude writes something for me, it doesn't sound like me. It flattens me, and it makes me sound a bit American. So I don't do that. I've used it in the back end of the business. For instance, my blog was down, and there was something called a recursive bot, which I don't even know what it was, and Claude helped me fix it for free. I went through, I did screenshots. When I did an ElevenLabs audiobook and did it all myself, I was literally, for every screenshot, showing it to Claude. Claude said, “Do this, press this, press that.” So I have all these different projects set up. One is the control room, where it's for my strategic thinking. If I have an idea, I want to think about something, I put it in there. I have the engine room, which is for everything techy. Like when I had the recursive bot, or if I'm wanting to have some code on the website to make it look a particular way. Then I have other things for different subjects, and I put all the resources in there, and I use it a lot as a thinking partner. I've noticed that Fable doesn't hallucinate as much, but the Opus used to. There's something called rental discrimination, and it was proofreading and said, “No, it's not rental discrimination, it's rental income discrimination,” and that was just a load of rubbish. So I would never let it go and change things without me looking at it. I went on one of your webinars a month or so ago about MCPs and all the connectors, which is fantastic. It can go into my community and pull out all the questions for one of my live streams and put it into a document in order, by theme, for instance. It can look at my MailerLite, because that's where my newsletter is with, and analyse the different open rates and click rates and things. It's so good for analysing everything, all the book sales. It helped me with my negotiation with Penguin, and it is pretty good on law. It has sometimes hallucinated things, but not so much now. I think with anything, you've always got to go back to the primary source, and this is what we learn in academia: you have to check the primary source yourself. I have a bit of a magpie brain. I'm very much a discovery writer, like you, and things occur to me as I'm doing it. I think that Claude, at the moment, is incredible. I've been quite open about it on social media that I have Claude as a business partner. I'm a solopreneur, or whatever the word is. I have quite a big business now, and lots of different things, and it's just me doing it, because I can ask Claude how to do this, and how to do that. Claude can go and check my emails and tell me, is there somebody I've not replied to, which helps a lot. Jo: Yes. I think it's empowering as a solopreneur as such. You talk there about the fixing the tech stuff. I have my web host come to me and say, “Look, you're getting so much traffic and bot stuff, and we need to put this thing in, and it's going to be $120 extra a month.” I was like, “Can you just give me an hour? I'll get back to you.” And then I just had Claude code up, and I was like, “Analyse this and tell me what we can do.” It was like, “No, you just need to flip this switch and do that.” And I'm like, “Okay, fair enough.” Then the guy said, “Oh, no, okay, actually you don't need it.” Just stuff like that. As a solopreneur, you're either going to pay somebody technically quite a lot of money, or you can get Claude or ChatGPT. We should say, the ChatGPT Sol is very good, like the Claude Fable, for example. So, yes, using it as a sidekick. I love your control room and your engine room projects as well. That's a great way of doing it. Suzanne: I wouldn't be without it now, and I would have published the book a lot later without Claude, because Claude was helping me with the Shopify store and all the many steps of things. It saved me real time. It is just fantastic. I think, like now when I'm updating my blog, I have a connection between Claude and my blog. Claude can go in, I can give it my Google Search Console results for the page: what should I change, are the headings right? All this kind of thing. And it will give me a view on every single page, which is incredible. Jo: And YouTube, and just everything. Just super useful for that business sidekick. That's what I want authors to think. I feel like authors get so obsessed with the creative side with AI, whereas actually, people like you and me, we're using it as that engine room for the solo business, which is what I love. So we're out of time. I did want to ask one more thing, which is, one of the biggest issues with a specific book like yours is when they change the law again. So do you have a plan in place for if, say, a new government changes the law again? Will you just be updating the book over time? Suzanne: I think that there'll need to be a new edition of the book in three years' time, and I've spoken to Penguin about it. Not all of this new law has been implemented, and there's going to be case law and things. So I expect that I will update the book every few years. I have some other ideas for books as well, but for the moment, I'm just taking a bit of a break. You always say we've got to refill our creative well. I really feel like that at the moment. Recently I've just got myself a personal mobile phone so that I can turn off my work one when I'm on holiday and actually take time off. Because for all the time that I was doing the book, basically from Christmas until May, I didn't have one day off. That is not good. So I'm just trying to be a bit more balanced. I had an idea to write another book for summer, but I've just decided not to, and I'm going to leave it until I feel the urge again. Jo: Oh, well done. Suzanne: Which will come. Jo: Yes, well done. Suzanne: I think there's nothing wrong with that. We just need to think what's right for us. I'm 58. So I want to be able to have time to enjoy things and not be working all the time. Jo: No, that's great. It's a sustainable business. So where can people find you and the book and your community online? Suzanne: The easiest way to find me is theindependentlandlord.com. Or if you put Suzanne Smith and landlord into Google, you'll find me as well, and there's a link on there to the book, The Good Landlord Handbook. In the community, there's a link to that on my website as well. Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Suzanne. That was great. Suzanne: Thank you.The post From Blog To Community To Book: A Non-Fiction Author's Journey With Suzanne Smith first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Yascha Mounk and Katja Hoyer also discuss what the Islamist attack on Berlin's Pride parade says about the state of Germany. Katja Hoyer is a visiting Research Fellow at King's College London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Her latest book is Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe. In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Katja Hoyer discuss why the Weimar comparison is so tempting (and so often misleading), what genuine enthusiasm for democracy in 1919 Germany can teach us about how democracies fail, and whether political fragmentation or economic crisis was the more decisive factor in Weimar's collapse. If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone. Email: leonora.barclay@persuasion.community Podcast production by Mickey Freeland and Leonora Barclay. Connect with us! Spotify | Apple X: @Yascha_Mounk & @JoinPersuasion YouTube: Yascha Mounk, Persuasion LinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

 We use our faces more than any other part of our body to communicate with others and that communication has evolved a lot over the centuries. Fay Bound-Alberti founded the Centre for Technology and the Body at King's College London where she leads Interface, a project examining technologies of the face. She joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how facial understanding is tied to where and when people live, what happens when someone is “face blind,” and why the Mona Lisa's smile is still so beguiling. Her book is “The Face: A Cultural History.”  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Ashley Stahl is the founder of Wise Whisper, a boutique speaking agency that's helped hundreds of clients craft their signature speeches and get placed as speakers on hundreds of BIG stages around the world, including the TEDx stage. Ashley is also the international bestselling author of YOU TURN: Get Unstuck, Discover Your Direction, Design Your Dream Career, host of the You Turn Podcast (ranked on Apple in the top 100 mental health shows in the US) and a keynote speaker with a top 100 most viewed TEDx talk on YouTube. With a master's degree from King's College London's Department of War Studies, as well as a master's in psychology from University of Santa Monica, Ashley started her career in counterterrorism and learned speech writing while working for the government.

From impoverishment to global superpower, China's supremacy happened at a breakneck speed thanks to the visionary strategy of the man who took power in 1978. Over the next decade, under leader Deng Xiaoping's firm leadership, China flirted with capitalism and transformed its socio-economic and political systems, effectively becoming the world's factory.Guests:Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King's College London and author of several books, including Xi: A Study in PowerDan Wang, a writer specializing in contemporary China and author of Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the FutureSupport shows like Throughline with NPR+. Sign up today at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

In Episode 490 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Patrick Boyle—founder of the quantitative hedge fund Palomar Capital Management, professor of finance at King's College London and Queen Mary University of London, and host of Patrick Boyle on Finance—about the SpaceX IPO and what it reveals about the integrity of America's financial markets, the cult of personality filling the vacuum left by the nation's collapsing institutions, the commercial and fiscal challenges facing Europe's largest economies, and the housing crisis and generational wealth divide driving the appeal of left-wing populism across the developed world. The first hour opens with the recent SpaceX IPO—how the deal was priced and marketed, the mechanics and share-price consequences of its unusually rapid index inclusion, the small number of shares made available for trading, and the wave of bullish sell-side coverage that accompanied it—before broadening into a discussion of the integrity of America's financial markets and what happens to investor behavior and to the country's cost-of-capital advantage when the institutions tasked with regulating those markets can no longer be trusted to do so. From there the conversation turns to the cult of personality and the rise of powerful figures in industry and politics filling the vacuum left by collapsing institutions, and to the growing appeal of left-wing populists whose policies increasingly resonate with younger voters who feel priced out of the American dream. The second hour examines the commercial and fiscal challenges facing Europe's largest economies: why the continent has produced no answer to America's large technology platforms, how regulation, energy costs, demographics, and labor rigidity weigh on its growth prospects, and what the flood of cheap Chinese goods, high-end machine tools, and electric vehicles means for European industry and for a Germany that cannot afford to miss yet another technological revolution. They discuss the European security picture, the war in Ukraine, and whether Russia is in any meaningful sense winning it given the human, economic, and demographic toll and its deepening dependence on China. The episode closes with a discussion of the housing crisis, the generational wealth divide, and the political incentives that keep home prices high across the United States, the United Kingdom, and beyond—returning at the end to the appeal of left-wing populism and the prospect of redistributive policies as an inevitable response by fiscally overburdened governments looking for someone to blame. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you'd like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed today's episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, CastBox, or via our RSS Feed Writing us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Join our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at https://hiddenforces.io. Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 07/16/2026