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Rory Stewart: What Does it Mean to be a 21st-Century Tory?
Episode 37
This week David talks to Rory Stewart about his life in politics and the history of the ideas behind his political philosophy. What does it mean to b…
1 year, 11 months ago
The End of the UK?
Episode 36
This week David talks to the political scientist Mike Kenny about the possible fate of the United Kingdom. What makes the UK such an unusual politica…
1 year, 11 months ago
History of Ideas 12: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Episode 12 in our series on the great essays is about Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ‘The Case for Reparations’, published in the Atlantic in 2014. Black America…
2 years ago
History of Ideas 11: Umberto Eco
Episode 11 in our series on the great essays explores Umberto Eco’s ‘Thoughts on Wikileaks’ (2010). Eco writes about what makes a true scandal, what …
2 years ago
History of Ideas 10: David Foster Wallace
Episode 10 in our series on the great essays is about David Foster Wallace’s ‘Up, Simba!’, which describes his experiences following the doomed campa…
2 years ago
History of Ideas 9: Joan Didion
Episode 9 in our series on the great essays is about Joan Didion's 'The White Album' (1979), her haunting, impressionistic account of the fracturing …
2 years ago
History of Ideas 8: Susan Sontag
Episode 8 in our history of the great essays is about Susan Sontag’s ‘Against Interpretation’ (1963). What was interpretation and why was Sontag so a…
2 years ago
History of Ideas 7: James Baldwin
Episode 7 in our series on the great essays is about James Baldwin’s ‘Notes of a Native Son’ (1955), an essay that combines autobiography with a sear…
2 years ago
History of Ideas 6: Simone Weil
Episode 6 in our series on the great essays is about Simone Weil’s ‘Human Personality’ (1943). Written shortly before her death aged just 34, it is a…
2 years ago
History of Ideas 5: George Orwell
Episode 5 in our series on the great essays is about George Orwell. His wartime essay ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ (1941) is about what it does – and d…
2 years ago