In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even today progress and prosperity in the world's largest, most advanced economies--the ... Show More
Today
Mary Edwards, "Sartre’s Existential Psychoanalysis: Knowing Others" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
Thinking of the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, it is hard to think of him without imagining him in very particular contexts. One will likely imagine him in a Parisian cafe working through a pack of cigarettes and coffee, working on his latest play while waiting for his frie ... Show More
1h 47m
Nov 12
Tracy Borman, "The Stolen Crown: Treachery, Deceit and the Death of the Tudor Dynasty" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2025)
In the long and dramatic annals of British history, no transition from one monarch to another has been as fraught and consequential as that which ended the Tudor dynasty and launched the Stuart in March 1603. At her death, Elizabeth I had reigned for 44 turbulent years, facing ma ... Show More
49m 45s
Nov 11
Lars Cornelissen, "Neoliberalism and Race" (Stanford UP, 2025)
In Neoliberalism and Race (Stanford UP, 2025) Lars Cornelissen argues that the category of race constitutes an organizing principle of neoliberal ideology. Using the methods of intellectual history and drawing on insights from critical race studies, Cornelissen explores the var ... Show More
1h 17m
Jul 2025
Julian Jackson, "De Gaulle" (Harvard UP, 2018)
Charles de Gaulle is one of the greatest figures of twentieth century history. If Sir Winston Churchill was (in the words of Harold Macmillan) the "greatest Englishman In history", then Charles de Gaulle was without a doubt, the greatest Frenchman since Napoleon Bonaparte. Why so ... Show More
1h 11m
Jul 2024
472. The Road to The Great War: Britain's Fateful Choice (Part 4)
On the 24th of July 1914, in London, the Liberal British Cabinet met to hear the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, read them the Ultimatum handed to Serbia by the Austro-Hungarian Empire the day before. The world held its breath, awaiting Serbia’s response. With Germany determi ... Show More
53m 45s
Oct 1
World War II: Part 1 - World War I
<p>World War II didn’t appear out of nowhere. Dr. Roy begins by going back to the 18th and 19th centuries, explaining how the rise of the British Empire, the exploitation of India, the discovery of oil, and the unification of Germany set the stage for catastrophe. Along the way, ... Show More
1h 50m
Jul 2025
Patrick Luiz Sullivan De Oliveira, "Ascending Republic: The Ballooning Revival in Nineteenth-Century France" (MIT Press, 2025)
On August 27, 1783, a large crowd gathered in Paris to watch the first ascent of a hydrogen balloon. Despite the initial feverish enthusiasm, by the mid-nineteenth century the balloon remained relatively unchanged and was no longer seen as the harbinger of a new era. Yet that all ... Show More
1h 13m
Oct 21
11th-century Europe: not just the Norman Conquest
When we think of Europe in the 11th century, one date stands out: 1066. However, as Professor Charles West explains, this was a century of great change, and great events, across all of Europe. In conversation with David Musgrove, Charles talks about why we should perhaps be more ... Show More
36m 4s