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Pittacus, the good tyrant Feb 06, 2025

Show notes

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

The power of shareholder democracy Jan 31, 2025

Show notes

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

The dawn of the post-literate society Jan 30, 2025

Show notes

Is the era of mass literacy over? And what might a post-literate society look like?
EI's Alastair Benn is joined by Times columnist James Marriott and Senior Editor Paul Lay to discuss the promise and peril of a culture defined by the audiovisual.
Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. EI Talks... is hosted by Paul Lay and Alastair Benn, and produced by Caitlin Brown. The sound engineer is Gareth Jones.
Image: Painting of a woman reading by Carl Vilhelm Holsøe. Credit: Vidimages / Alamy Stock Photo

Sergey Radchenko on what drives Vladimir Putin Jan 24, 2025

Show notes

Putin’s justifications for invading Ukraine uncannily reflect the motivations of one of Russian literature’s most famous antiheroes, Dostoevsky's Rodion Raskolnikov. Read by Helen Lloyd.

https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/what-drives-vladimir-putin/

Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.

Image: Vladimir Putin at an EU-Russia summit in Brussels. Credit: Peter Cavanagh / Alamy Stock Photo

Tim Marshall on Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, rocket man Jan 23, 2025

Show notes

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

Liberty in the shadow of Bonaparte Jan 17, 2025

Show notes

Benjamin Constant’s considered response not only to the mass murder inflicted by the French Revolution, but to the attempt to reduce the whole French population to the condition of willing slaves under Bonaparte’s First Empire, provides a diagnosis of the character of many subsequent totalitarian regimes. Read by Helen Lloyd.
Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.
Image: Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife Josephine were crowned Emperor and Empress of France on 2 December 1804. Credit: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

The case for Classics Jan 16, 2025

Show notes

Is the study of Latin in peril? And what does the future hold for the ancient inheritance? EI's Alastair Benn is joined by Daisy Dunn, classicist and author, Armand D’Angour, Professor of Classics at Oxford University, and Paul Lay, EI’s Senior Editor, to discuss the value of ancient languages.
Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. EI Talks... is hosted by Paul Lay and Alastair Benn, and produced by Caitlin Brown. The sound engineer is Gareth Jones.
Image: Giovanni Paolo Panini's painting from circa 1730, The Coliseum amongst Roman Ruins. Credit: incamerastock / Alamy Stock Photo

How 1970s California created the modern world Jan 10, 2025

Show notes

What happened in California in the 1970s played an outsized role in creating the world we live in today – both in the United States and in large parts of the globe – for better or worse. Read by Helen Lloyd.
Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.
Image: 1970s commercial airline advert. Credit: ClassicStock / Alamy Stock Photo

Guittone d’Arezzo, Dante’s forgotten muse Jan 09, 2025

Show notes

At a time of moral and political crisis, the medieval poet pioneered a daring and emotive vernacular style which inspired generations of Italian literature. Read by Sebastian Brown.
Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.
Image: A sketch of Guittone d'Arezzo from the nineteenth century. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

The writer's right to speak freely Dec 20, 2024

Show notes

While we may think we have moved beyond the censorship of the past, writers' artistic freedoms are still constrained. Read by Helen Lloyd.
Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.
Image: Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence was the subject of a watershed obscenity trial. Credit: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo.

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