The EI Podcast

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**The EI Podcast**

The EI Podcast brings you weekly conversations with leading writers, thinkers and historians. Hosted by Alastair Benn, Jack Dickens and Paul Lay. Produced by Max Mitchell.

Latest Episodes:

Why liberal democracies win total wars Jul 31, 2025

Show notes

Journalist Duncan Weldon reveals how liberal capitalist economies adapt to total war. Read by Leighton Pugh.

Read the original essay here: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/why-liberal-democracies-win-total-wars/.

Image: Second World War-era British propaganda. Credit: Venimages / Alamy Stock Photo

No more Napoleons: British grand strategy in the 19th century Jul 24, 2025

Show notes

EI’s Paul Lay joins historian Andrew Lambert to discuss his book ‘No More Napoleons: How Britain Managed Europe from Waterloo to World War One', Lambert's provocative new study of how Britain maximised its naval and diplomatic prestige to maintain a stable, post-Napoleonic Europe.
Image: 'A squadron of the Royal Navy running down the Channel' by Samuel Atkins (c. 1760-1810). Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd

The rift that doomed the Confederacy Jul 17, 2025

Show notes

Historian Katherine Bayford exposes the fractures and contradictions that doomed the Confederacy from within. Read by Leighton Pugh.
FURTHER READING:
The rift that doomed the Confederacy | Katherine Bayford
Image: A statue of Alexander Stephens in the US Congress. Credit: Sipa US / Alamy Stock Photo

The Trial at 100: revisiting Kafka’s prophetic masterpiece Jul 10, 2025

Show notes

This year marks the centenary of the publication of Franz Kafka’s novel, The Trial - a seminal work that continues to captivate and unsettle its readers. EI’s Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by Karolina Watroba, author ofMetamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka, to discuss Josef K’s tragic entanglement with a suffocating bureaucracy.
Image: Portrait of Franz Kafka. Credit: history_docu_photo / Alamy Stock Photo

How the Knights Templars conquered Christendom Jul 03, 2025

Show notes

Historian Nicholas Morton explores how a miracle of marketing brought the Knights Templars to prominence. Read by Leighton Pugh.
FURTHER READING:
The Knights Templars and the pursuit of Christendom | Nicholas Morton
Image: A Victorian illustration of the Knights Templars. Credit: Glasshouse Images / Alamy Stock Photo

The lost art of chorography Jun 26, 2025

Show notes

The writer Josh Mcloughlin reflects on the art of chorography, one of English literature’s most eccentric and mercurial forms. Read by Leighton Pugh.
FURTHER READING:
The lost art of chorography | Josh Mcloughlin
Image: Renaissance map of Europe showing England. Credit: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Phot

1975, the year that made the modern world Jun 19, 2025

Show notes

Historian Damian Valdez reflects on the meaning of 1975, a fateful year for the international order. Read by Leighton Pugh.
FURTHER READING:
1975, the year that made the modern world | Damian Valdez
Image: A helicopter is pushed off the overcrowded deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hancock (CV-19) off the coast of South Vietnam during the fall of Saigon. Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo

How Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin fought Hitler – and each other Jun 12, 2025

Show notes

EI’s Paul Lay joins historian Tim Bouverie to discuss ‘Allies at War’, his gripping new book on how Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin’s uneasy alliance led to the end of the Second World War – and reshaped the global order in ways that are still felt today.
Image: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta. Credit: Niday Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo

What happened to the politician’s moustache? Jun 05, 2025

Show notes

Writer Luka Ivan Jukic laments the all-but-total disappearance of facial hair from politics. Read by Leighton Pugh.
FURTHER READING:
What happened to the politician’s moustache? | Luka Ivan Jukic
Image: A double portrait of Mozaffar al-Din Shah, the fifth Qajar shah of Iran. Credit: Penta Springs Limited / Alamy Stock Photo

The strange death of squalor May 29, 2025

Show notes

Journalist and author Jenny McCartney celebrates the magic of squalor, and explores how generations of artists have seen the sublime in slime. Read by Leighton Pugh.
FURTHER READING:
On squalor | Jenny McCartney
Image: Walter Sickert's Easter Monday. Credit: Logic Images / Alamy Stock Photo

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