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The EI Podcast

Engelsberg Ideas
The EI Podcast
Latest episode

375 episodes

  • The EI Podcast

    Weimar’s descent into darkness

    07/05/2026 | 1h 3 mins.
    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 EI Podcast

    The civilising wonders of wine

    05/05/2026 | 11 mins.
    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
  • The EI Podcast

    Can Europe thrive in a multipolar world?

    30/04/2026 | 53 mins.
    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 EI Podcast

    The long shadow of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials

    27/04/2026 | 27 mins.
    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.
  • The EI Podcast

    Universities are at crisis point

    23/04/2026 | 1h 1 mins.
    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

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About The EI Podcast

The EI Podcast brings you weekly conversations and audio essays from leading writers, thinkers and historians. Hosted by Alastair Benn and Paul Lay. Find the EI Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or search The EI Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
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