The EI Podcast

How does an institution in the business of preserving the past prepare itself for the interests and sensibilities of the future? Where do museums fit in the national psyche?  In our latest episode of Worldview, host Adam Boulton is joined by director of the V&A Tristram Hunt, Professor Armand D'Angour and Dr. Tiffany Jenkins to discuss what the future might hold for museums.  Image: Renaissance and Medieval sculptures at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Credit: Bjanka Kadic / Alamy Stock Photo.

Asian literature, with its technologically-adept Chinese emperors, Animist Spirit-negotiators, and Yogic sages, shows us how to live well in troubled times. Read by Leighton Pugh.  Image: Ma Yuan's The Yellow River Breaches its Course, from a series of paintings of water.

In our latest episode of History Lessons, Mattias Hessérus is joined by author Sarah Bakewell to discuss her new book Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Enquiry and Hope. Together they chart the history of the Humanist movement and its relevance to this secular age. Image: The six Tuscan poets. Credit: Giorgio Morara / Alamy Stock Photo.

Where does war end and peace begin? And what role does diplomacy play in that transition? In our latest episode of Worldview, host Adam Boulton is joined by historians Margaret MacMillan, Andrew Ehrhardt and Frank Gavin, as well as former European Commission High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton.  Image: Satirical cartoon of the Congress of Vienna. Credit: The Granger Collection / Alamy Stock Photo

The US cultivated a garden that it grew weary of the burdens of sustaining but, once all other alternatives have been exhausted, the US will be pushed back into defending its liberal world order. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: 'Young America rescues Europe!', declares a French cartoon from 1918. Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo.

Is demography destiny? Shifting patterns in population have marked history, drive political change and sharpen cultural divides.  In our latest episode of Worldview, host Adam Boulton is joined by Paul Morland, the UK's leading demographer, Bill Emmott, former editor of the Economist and author of Japan's Far More Female Future, and Richard Assheton, the Times' and Sunday Times' West Africa correspondent. Image description: A group of elderly women in Kyoto, Japan. Credit: Trevor Mogg / Alamy Stock Photo.

Augustine’s seminal book was written in the context of the Roman Empire, but it remains ever-relevant. Read by Leighton Pugh.  Image description: St Augustine / Wiki Public domain.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the worlds of art, manufacturing, medicine, even the language we use, at a bewildering speed. Should we fear or welcome it? What are its risks and rewards? And could it ever come to outpace the human mind?  In our latest episode of Worldview, host Adam Boulton is joined by Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis of New York University, and Susan Schneider, Director of the Centre for Future Mind, to discuss the profound cultural, philosophical and ethical implications of AI. Meanwhile, journalists Hugo Rifkind and Gaby Wood consider how AI will revolutionise the media and publishing industries.  Image description: An auction at Sotheby's, London, selling AI art created by Mario Klingemann, March 2019. Credit: Malcolm Park/Alamy Live News.

For the United States, geopolitics has always been about national identity, even in an era of globalisation. Perhaps it always will be. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image description: The Marine Corps War Memorial, also known as Iwo Jima Memorial. Credit: DeAgostini/Getty Images

Navigating politico-religious disagreements in a spirit of civility is nigh-on impossible in eras in which the meaning of civility itself is contested. How do we speak to each other civilly in a time of incivility?  Read by Leighton Pugh.  Image description: Girolamo Savonarola's execution on the Piazza della Signoria in Florence in 1498. Credit: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo.