Ritual, Ancestry, and Cultural History in Modern China, with Alice Mah
What do we owe to the dead? What responsibilities do we inherit from the past, and how do they intersect with the crises of the present? In an era of ecological collapse and cultural dislocation, how ...
23 Apr 202539min
Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global, with Laura Spinney
What if a single ancient language lay at the root of nearly half of the world’s spoken tongues? In today’s episode, acclaimed science writer and journalist Laura Spinney joins us to discuss her new b...
21 Apr 202542min
Classic Debate: Austen vs Brontë
Jane Austen created the definitive picture of Georgian England. No writer matches Austen’s sensitive ear for the hypocrisy and irony lurking beneath the genteel conversation. That’s the argument of th...
20 Apr 20251h 35min
An Evening with Elif Shafak and Peter Frankopan
Elif Shafak’s award-winning novels are celebrated globally. Her work has been translated into 58 languages, and her latest, There Are Rivers in the Sky, is a testament to the power of storytelling acr...
18 Apr 202552min
Abundance: A New Blueprint for Liberal Politics, With Derek Thompson
What if the biggest threat to liberal democracy isn’t authoritarianism - but our failure to build? On today’s episode we’re joined by journalist Derek Thompson to unpack Abundance, a new vision of pr...
16 Apr 202546min
The Illegals: A Secret History of Soviet Espionage, with Shaun Walker
On today’s episode: the untold history of Russia’s deep cover spy programme. Shaun Walker is an international correspondent for The Guardian. He reported from Moscow for more than a decade, and his c...
13 Apr 202550min
Who Owns Our Digital Afterlives? With Carl Öhman
These days, so much of our lives takes place online - but what about our afterlives? A recent study by the Oxford Internet Institute predicts that the number of deceased Facebook users could outnumber...
12 Apr 202545min
Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History, with Moudhy Al-Rashid
On today’s episode, Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid sheds light on the history of Ancient Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, gave rise to writing, literature, astronomy, ...
10 Apr 202539min
