The EI Podcast
China's bid for economic supremacy
George Magnus speaks to EI’s Jack Dickens about the geopolitical logic behind China’s economic strategy.
Image: A container ship from China. Credit: Rudmer Zwerver
A Jewish-American dream
The largest Jewish community in the world is defined by its deep integration into America's national story, its liberal traditions and scepticism towards Israeli governments. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/a-jewish-american-dream/
Image: A member of the American Jewish Congress participating in the 1965 Montgomery March, advocating for civil rights. Credit: Image Bank
Muslims and Jews' shared inheritance
Marc David Baer speaks to EI’s Paul Lay about his new book 'Children of Abraham: The Story of Jewish-Muslim Relations', and the deep historical connection between two faiths, bound by common roots.
Image: Tiles at Ali Ben Youssef Medersa in Marrakech, Morocco. Credit: Stelios Michael.
Finding Turkey in Narnia
Re-reading CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, Hannah Lucinda Smith discovers glimmers of the culture and history of the Turkic peoples in the author's work. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/finding-turkey-in-narnia/
Image: Puffin paperback editions of the Narnia tales by author CS Lewis. Credit: NearTheCoast.com / Alamy Stock Photo
The life and legacy of Steve Schapiro
Filmmaker Maura Smith discusses Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere, her documentary on the photographer who captured modern America.
Image: Steve Schapiro in the 1960s. Credit: Steve Schapiro
Agent Zo, the spy who saved Poland
Elżbieta Zawacka, who played a key role in the Home Army’s resistance efforts, was one of the most highly decorated women in Polish history. Clare Mulley assesses her legacy. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/portraits/agent-zo-the-spy-who-saved-poland/.
Image: Monument to Agent Zo. Credit: Alamy
Lewis and Clark’s American Odyssey
Craig Fehrman speaks to EI’s Max Mitchell about his new book ‘This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark’, shedding light on one of America’s founding myths.
Image: ‘America in the Making: Lewis and Clark’ by Newell Convers Wyeth (1938). Credit: Alamy
Why powerful individuals are dominating politics
From Xi Jinping in China to Narendra Modi in India and Donald Trump in the US, Nicholas Wright explores how powerful leaders are reshaping the rules of the global great game. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/why-powerful-individuals-are-dominating-politics/.
Image: Caspar David Friedrich’s ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’. Credit: incamerastock
Weimar’s descent into darkness
How did Weimar, the town of Goethe and Schiller, become the crucible of Germany's moral collapse? Katja Hoyer, author of Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe, speaks to EI's Alastair Benn about the town's role in the rise of the Third Reich.
Image: Adolf Hitler at the ‘Haus Elephant’ in Weimar, 1936. Credit: Alamy
The civilising wonders of wine
Amid the rise of individualistic technologies and weight-loss drugs, there has been a steady decline in alcohol consumption in Western societies. Yet, Henry Jeffreys argues that this is no good thing. Instead, it suggests a gradual weakening of a shared civilisational inheritance. This audio essay is read by Leighton Pugh.
Read it here: https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the-civilising-wonders-of-wine/.
Image: Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s ‘Luncheon of the Boating Party’. Credit: Maidun Collection
Can Europe thrive in a multipolar world?
Mark Leonard, co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, speaks to EI’s Jack Dickens about Europe’s place in a changing world order.
Image: The EU flag in Siracusa, Sicily. Credit: Alamy
The long shadow of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials
In the courtrooms of Nuremberg and Tokyo, the victorious Allies declared that civilisation must not merely win wars but also judge them, leaving a legal and moral legacy that persists to this day. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Image: The defendants at the Nuremberg Trial in 1946. Credit: PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive.
Universities are at crisis point
Daisy Christodoulou and Nicholas Wright join EI’s Paul Lay to discuss the crisis in British universities and how to fix it.
Image: Sightseers outside the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Credit: Alamy
The anatomy of the spy novel
From the gung-ho glamour of Ian Fleming’s James Bond to the decline and disorder of Mick Herron’s Slow Horses, postwar spy novels have captured the shifting myths, legends and caricatures surrounding the secret world. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-anatomy-of-the-spy-novel/.
Image: Sean Connery as James Bond in Dr No (1962). Credit: Alamy
The roots of the West’s identity crisis
Marie Kawthar Daouda, author of Not Your Victim: How our Obsession with Race Entraps and Divides Us, speaks to EI’s Alastair Benn about the historical illiteracy of attempts to ‘decolonise’ Western culture. Instead, she argues that the moral complexities of history must be accepted in order to develop a genuine appreciation of the Western tradition.
Image: ‘Ruins with an Obelisk in the distance’ by Hubert Robert (1775). Credit: Alamy
Iran’s strange Scottish obsession
From placard-waving crowds in Yazd to troll farms on social media, the Islamic Republic has long tried to wield Scottish nationalism as a weapon against the UK. This audio essay is read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/irans-strange-scottish-obsession/.
Image: Royal Scots Guards military pipers. Credit: Alamy
Washington’s return to Latin America
Following the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, President Donald Trump has warned that Cuba is ‘next’. What exactly does he mean by that? Joseph Ledford, Fellow at the Hoover Institution, speaks to EI’s Jack Dickens about a new age of US interventionism in Latin America.
Image: Protesters outside the White House following the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, January 2026. Credit: Alamy
The Houthis’ forever war
Elisabeth Kendall speaks to EI’s Jack Dickens about what motivates the Houthis. Following the outbreak of the war in Iran, the Yemeni militant group now has an outsized ability to disrupt global trade and threaten regional stability in the Middle East. But who are they and what do they really want?
Image: A protester at a pro-Palestine demonstration in Sanaa, Yemen. Credit: Alamy
Can epic poetry revive History?
When combined, as the ancients knew, history and poetry offer an incomparable insight into the human condition. Michael Auslin laments the demise of poetry as a form for exploring great moments in history.
Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/can-epic-poetry-revive-history/.
Image: Hector taking leave of Andromache. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo
The need for muscular liberalism
Adrian Wooldridge speaks to EI’s Paul Lay about his new book, Centrists of the World Unite! The Lost Genius of Liberalism. He believes that the West can only overcome its current malaise by rediscovering and reviving the liberal tradition.
Image: Engraving of the frontispiece from Thomas Hobbes’s ‘Leviathan’ (1651). Credit: Alamy
The first butterfly collectors
The Society of Aurelians brought butterflies out of their undeserved obscurity. Nigel Andrew’s audio essay sheds new light on Britain’s first entomological society. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the-first-butterfly-collectors/.
Image: Detail from ‘The Aurelian; a Natural History of English Moths and Butterflies’, published by Henry Bohn, London, 1840. Credit: Getty
Trump’s imperial worldview
What is driving Donald Trump’s increasingly volatile foreign policy? Brendan Simms examines the US President and his ideological roots with EI’s Jack Dickens.
Image: Donald Trump at the White House, July 2025. Credit: Alamy
The strange death of private life
In the early 1970s, the idea of a private life – that citizens ought to be left alone by the state – began to disappear. In this audio essay, Tiffany Jenkins argues that we should mourn its absence. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-strange-death-of-private-life/.
Image: 1930s poster for the London Underground. Credit: Alamy
The Gulf’s Iran dilemma
Shiraz Maher examines how the fallout from the US-Iran conflict is reshaping the Gulf States and the wider Middle East, with EI’s Jack Dickens.
Image: Close-up vintage map of the Middle East. Credit: Alamy
The rise of the mega-influencer
Mega-influencers shape the public imagination. Phillip Dolitsky and Luke Moon explore a world where narrative matters more than fact. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Image: Still from a film version of George Orwell's 1984. Credit: Allstar Picture Library Limited
Putin, the once and future Chekist
Gordon Corera contends that to truly understand Vladimir Putin, you have to understand the phenomenon of Chekism. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/putin-the-once-and-future-chekist/.
Image: Vladimir Putin's East German Stasi identification card issued while he worked as a KGB agent in Dresden in 1985. Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd
When Edo became Tokyo
Christopher Harding on the birth of Tokyo. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/when-edo-became-tokyo/.
Image: A woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige. From One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 1856. Credit: incamerastock / Alamy Stock Photo
Hamlet unravelled
Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford University, explores Hamlet and its rich critical history with EI’s Alastair Benn and Paul Lay.
Image: Laurence Olivier plays Hamlet in 1948. Credit: Masheter Movie Archive
The making of Xi Jinping's worldview
Rana Mitter explores Xi Jinping’s personal and ideological mindset in conversation with EI’s Jack Dickens.
Image: Then Vice President Xi Jinping makes an address in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. Credit: Imago
Nietzsche’s manifesto for reading
Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri on reading as an antidote to the restless spirit of the industrial age. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/nietzsches-manifesto-for-reading/.
Image: Edvard Munch's painting of Friedrich Nietzsche. Credit: Darling Archive / Alamy Stock Photo
Inside the world of medieval espionage
Jonathan Sumption surveys the last generation of spies before the creation of Europe's professional intelligence services. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/inside-the-world-of-medieval-espionage/.
Image: King Charles VI of France prepares for war. Credit: Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo
The Monroe Doctrine: The United States’ hemispheric strategy explained
EI's Jack Dickens is joined by Charlie Laderman, associate professor at the University of Florida’s Hamilton Center, to discuss how the United States’ hemispheric ambitions emerged from great-power competition – and why the Monroe Doctrine still matters.
Image: A satirical cartoon lampooning the expansion of the Monroe Doctrine. Credit: Photo 12
The strange case of Robert Louis Stevenson
Alastair Benn is joined by Leo Damrosch, author of Storyteller: The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, to explore the life and legacy of the celebrated Scottish writer, including one of his most enduring literary achievements, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Image: 'Robert Louis Stevenson' by John Singer Sargent, 1885. Credit: IanDagnall Computing
The instability of a multipolar era
EI's Paul Lay is joined by Helen Thompson to discuss US–China rivalry, the growing importance of the Western Hemisphere in geopolitics, and the inherent instability of a multipolar world.
Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Victory Parade marking the 70th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Credit: Associated Press
Why the brain is the ultimate weapon of war
EI's Paul Lay is joined by neuroscientist Nicholas Wright to discuss how the brain shapes war, and how war shapes the brain.
Image: The brain as a weapon of war. Credit: fStop Images GmbH
The end of Pax Britannica
Graeme Thompson on the fall of a liberal world order. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-end-of-pax-britannica/.
Image: 'Taming the British Lion'. Puck magazine, 1888. Credit: Historical Images Archive
The classical key to the AI revolution
John Tasioulas examines how a classical conception of democracy – distinct from liberal democracy – may offer the resources needed to meet the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-classical-key-to-the-ai-revolution/.
Image: Rudolph Müller, View of the Acropolis from the Pynx (1863). Credit: Eraza Collection
The Risorgimento myth
Gerald Warner on the origins of a 'black legend' designed to discredit the once-flourishing Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the original here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-risorgimento-myth/.
Image: A painting displaying the splendour of the Neapolitan fleet. Credit: The Picture Art Collection
China's quest to engineer the future
EI's Paul Lay is joined by technology analyst Dan Wang to discuss how China has engineered its way to global power status.
Image: New high-rise buildings in China. Credit: ton koene
The double agent who introduced Japan to the West
Bill Emmott profiles Lafcadio Hearn, the Anglo-Irish-Greek foreign correspondent who made Japan his home. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-double-agent-who-introduced-japan-to-the-west/.
Image: Lafcadio Hearn photographed with his wife, Setsuko Koizumi, and their son. Credit: GRANGER - Historical Picture Archive / Alamy Stock Photo
