The EI Podcast

EI's Alastair Benn discusses the condition of Classical music today with Richard Bratby, chief Classical music critic of The Spectator. Image: Music scores. Credit: Tim Gainey / Alamy Stock Photo 

Part statesman, part prophet, Charles de Gaulle knew instinctively that political success and failure are inevitably interlinked, and that history would be the ultimate judge of both. Read by Helen Lloyd. Image: The President of France Charles de Gaulle marches through the streets under the Arc de Triomphe in 1944. Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo 

EI's Iain Martin is joined by Kwasi Kwarteng, historian and former Chancellor of the Exchequer, to discuss the turbulent life of the 18th-century financial speculator John Law, whose innovative ideas were credited with bringing Ancien Régime France to the brink of ruin. There are echoes of what happened when the Truss government tried its own financial experiment, he acknowledges. Image: A cartoon of John Law (1671–1729), the Scottish economist who was appointed Controller General of Finances of France under King Louis XV. Credit: PRISMA ARCHIVO / Alamy Stock Photo 

Laura Freeman profiles Helen Sutherland, an isolated, austere, and fastidious heiress who dedicated herself to art. Read by Sebastian Brown. Image: Woman Playing a Piano, by Winifred Nicholson. Her work was championed by Helen Sutherland. Credit: Paul Quezada-Neiman / Alamy Stock Photo 

Celebrated as predestined shepherd in the glory days of Angela Merkel, Germany in the 2020s is an uncertain giant who has defied expectations, good or bad. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: The top of the Reichstag Building. Credit: Artur Bogacki / Alamy Stock Photo 

The leading classicist Daisy Dunn joins EI's Paul Lay to discuss her new book, The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It. Image: Nikolaos Gyzis, a 19th Century painter, depicts Sappho playing the lyre. Credit: Photo 12 / Alamy Stock Photo 

We cannot afford not to rediscover the fine art, nowadays almost forgotten, of learning from history. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: 16th Century engraving by Theodoor Galle, titled The Printing of Books. Credit: The Granger Collection / Alamy Stock Photo 

James Barr profiles the debonair and open-faced diplomat, George McGhee, whose shuttle diplomacy helped accelerate Britain's decline as a player in the Middle East. Read by Sebastian Brown. Image: President John F. Kennedy (left, in rocking chair) meets the newly-appointed US Ambassador to West Germany, George McGhee. Credit: Gibson Moss / Alamy Stock Photo

A new constitutional order is coming. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: The Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. Credit: Lane Erickson / Alamy Stock Photo 

Erica Benner applies ancient wisdom to modern problems in her new book Adventures in Democracy: The Turbulent World of People Power. She shares her insights with EI's Deputy Editor, Alastair Benn. Image: Gathering of the Areopagus, a deliberative court that met in the open air in ancient Athens. Credit: North Wind Picture Archives / Alamy Stock Photo