This week, a chapter from a new LRB audiobook, Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre by Jonathan Rée. This collection of ten biographical pieces, read by Rée, describes the lives of some of most influential thinkers of the past four hundred years and the radical and sometimes bizarre ideas that emerged from them. The audiobook also includes an introductory conversation between Rée and Thomas Jones, host of the LRB Podcast. In this free chapter, Rée looks at the life of Jean-Paul Sartre up to the publication of his first major philosophical work, Being and Nothingness, in 1943.

Podcast listeners can get 20% off using the code POD20 at checkout.

Buy the audiobook here and listen in your preferred podcast app: https://lrb.me/audio

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The great auk was a flightless, populous and reportedly delicious bird, once found widely across the rocky outcrops of the North Atlantic. By the 1860s it was extinct, its decline sharpened by specimen collectors and at least one volcanic eruption. Human-driven extinction was ‘almost unthinkable’ until the auk’s disappearance, Liam Shaw writes. He joins Tom to discuss when, where and why the great auk died out.

Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/aukspod

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Michael Wood talks to Malin Hay about the recent list from Sight and Sound of the ‘greatest films of all time’ (in which he voted), and what considerations could, or should, go into compiling such a chart. They also discuss Wood’s most recent review for the LRB, of Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, and whether there is such a thing as a Christmas movie.

Find more from Michael Wood in the LRB on the episode page: https://lrb.me/greatestfilmpod

Sign up to our Close Readings podcast subscription: https://lrb.me/closereadingspod

Get in touch! Email us at podcasts@lrb.co.uk

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Alan Bennett reads his 2022 diary (with some extra bits), in which he buys his dad a violin, goes to Venice with a goat, and tries to make the queen laugh.

Listen without ads, and find more from Alan Bennett, on the LRB website: https://lrb.me/2022diarypod

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Get in touch! Email us at podcasts@lrb.co.uk

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Thomas B. Edsall, a columnist for the New York Times, talks to Adam Shatz about the landscape of US politics following the recent elections. They consider some of the historic causes for the apparent polarisation of today’s electorate, and look ahead to the vote in 2024. Will Biden be a credible candidate for re-election? And what would a Trump or DeSantis (or even a Youngkin) candidacy mean for both the Republican and Democratic parties?

Sign up to our Close Readings podcast subscription: https://lrb.me/closereadingspod

Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b

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Listen to a sample from the first episode of our twelve-part Close Readings series, Among the Ancients, with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones, which we'll be re-running from January next year. With a new episode each month, Among the Ancients will consider some of the greatest works of Ancient Greek and Roman literature, from Homer to Horace. In this sample Emily and Tom discuss the Iliad.

Sign up to all our Close Readings series here: https://lrb.me/closereadingspod

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Roald Dahl's key skill, as Colin Burrow puts it, 'was his ability to repress nastiness while keeping it visible'. 

Following his review of a new biography, Burrow talks to Tom Jones about Dahl’s limitations, his successes, and his 'marvellous medicine' approach to fiction.

Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/dahl

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Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley return with a new twelve-part Close Readings series, Medieval Beginnings, exploring the strange and wonderful literary landscape of the Middle Ages. Starting in January 2023, the series will consider well-known works such as Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as well as many lesser-known texts, from across the European continent, that have all helped to lay the foundations of English literature. Listen to a sample here from their first episode, on Beowulf.

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Jane Stanford, the co-founder of Stanford University, was murdered with strychnine in 1905. Her killer was never discovered – until now (perhaps). James Lasdun talks to Malin Hay about a new book by Richard White that investigates the story and looks into the extraordinary history of the Stanford family.

Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/stanfordpod

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Seamus Perry and Mark Ford return with a new twelve-part Close Readings series, The Long and Short, taking a fresh look at 19th and 20th-century literature through the lens of short stories and long poems. Starting in January 2023, the series will look at twelve writers, from Tennyson and Henry James to Elizabeth Bowen and Alice Oswald, with a new episode appearing each month. This sample is from the first episode, on Tennyson’s ‘Maud’.

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Katherine Rundell has been writing about endangered animals in the LRB since 2018. Her new book, The Golden Mole, gathers those essays and new pieces into a bestiary of unusual and underappreciated creatures.

Katherine was joined by LRB editor Alice Spawls in a discussion touching on Elizabethan celebrity bears, Amelia Earhart’s bones, and the greatest lie we’ve ever told: that the world is ours for the taking.

You can read Katherine’s work in the LRB archives: lrb.me/rundell

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Corals have held our fascination for thousands of years, but much of what we know about them has only been discovered recently. Liam Shaw talks to Tom about what corals are and how they form, and their extraordinary variety (over two thousand species have so far been described). They look at some of the milestones in our knowledge of this flower-animal, including Darwin’s account of coral atoll formation, and the importance of the oral history of Indigenous peoples around the coast of Australia in understanding the development of the Great Barrier Reef. As coral reefs now face almost total destruction from climate change, they also consider some of the fixes people have come up with to protect them, and whether it’s possible to put a monetary value on such natural phenomena.

Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/coralpod

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The worst thing you can say to anyone who works in hospitality, Mendez writes, is ‘Maybe you’ll meet someone!’ But a chance encounter while waiting tables lead to their new niche. In this episode, Mendez reads their recent piece about the art of audiobook narration and how they became the voice of Pelé.

Find the original piece and further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/mendezpod

Learn more about the Charleston Trust: https://www.charleston.org.uk/exhibition/anne-rothenstein/

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The writer and human rights lawyer Raja Shehadeh talks to Adam Shatz about his recent memoir, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I, which reflects on Shehadeh’s relationship with his father, Aziz, a lawyer who, before his murder in 1985, fought numerous cases for Palestinian rights and was one of the first to advocate a two-state solution.

Find pieces by Raja Shehadeh for the LRB on the episode page: https://lrb.me/shehadehpod

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Azadeh Moaveni talks to Tom about the demonstrations in Iran following the killingof Mahsa Amini in September. They discuss the degree to which the protesters have a shared purpose, the history and significance of the veil in Iranian state policy, the effects of government oppression in the border areas of the country, and how Iran might change after Ayatollah Khamenei.

Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/iranprotestspod

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Sheila Fitzpatrick talks to Tom about the perils of doing archive research in the Soviet Union, how she used Moscow telephone directories to investigate Stalin’s purges, and the multiple passports and identities she’s gone through in her academic career.

Find further reading in the LRB on the episode page: https://lrb.me/fitzpatrickpod

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Following Nasa’s Dart mission, which successfully fired a spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos last month, Chris Lintott talks to Tom about what asteroids can tell us about the history of our planet, how scared we should be of them, and why you should be grateful if one hits your car (so long as you aren’t inside it at the time).

Find further reading, or listen ad-free, on the episode page: https://lrb.me/asteroidpod

Sign up to our Close Readings podcast subscription: https://lrb.me/closereadingspod

More information about the Nine Dots Prize: https://ninedotsprize.org

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Forrest Hylton talks to Tom about the presidential elections in Brazil, where former president Lula faces the incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, in the final round of voting. They consider the history of both candidates, their supporters and campaigns, and what’s at stake in the contest.

Find further reading, and listen ad-free, on the episode page: https://lrb.me/brazilpod

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Daniel Soar talks to Tom about Ian McEwan’s latest novel, Lessons – how it fits with his earlier fiction, the relationship between world events and private histories, and McEwan’s addiction to ‘moments of maximum thrill’.

Find further reading, and listen ad-free, on the episode page: https://lrb.me/mcewanpod

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Claire Denis and J. Hoberman join Adam Shatz to talk about the work and legacy of Jean-Luc Godard. They discuss Godard’s early fascination with American cinema, his extraordinary run of films in the 1960s from À bout de souffle to Week-end, and subsequent periods of restless experimentation which continued to confound both audiences and critics until his death this month.

Find further reading on Godard in the LRB on the episode page: https://lrb.me/godardpod

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Writer and filmmaker Jonathan Meades introduces and reads his review of Tina Brown's book about the royal family, The Palace Papers, from April this year.

Read the piece here: https://lrb.me/meadespod

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As Britain acquires a new king and new prime minister, and ordinary people are arrested for expressing dislike of the royal family, James Butler and Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite join Tom to consider whether this might be a perilous time for the monarchy, and how the Truss government will go about selling its old-fashioned Thatcherite vision in an era of increasing demands on the state.

Find James's and Florence's pieces via the episode page: https://lrb.me/griefpod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Zoe Kilbourn and Anthony Wilks

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Jon Day talks to Tom about the history and psychology of the accumulation of objects, from Anglo-Saxon treasure to the Collyer twins of Harlem, by way of Freud, Marie Kondo and Day’s own father. When does clutter become a hoard? Are we all digital hoarders now? And should we worry about it?

Read Jon Day's diary, and see the Clutter Image Rating, here: lrb.me/hoardingpod

Sign up to our Close Readings podcast subscription: https://lrb.me/closereadingspod

Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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John Lanchester, Tom Crewe and Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite join James Butler to dissect Keir Starmer's victory and the historic collapse of the Conservative Party. They discuss what the result tells us about the needs and frustrations of the country, the ways in which the new Labour government might achieve some of the things it’s promised and why comparisons with Harold Wilson have been so prevalent.

Read Tom Crewe on fourteen years of the Tories:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n12/tom-crewe/carnival-of-self-harm

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In the 20th century, the pursuit of economic growth became central to political decision making. As the environmental consequences of this obsession have become increasingly clear, ideas of ‘green growth’ and ‘degrowth’ have emerged as ways of re-organising economies to try to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. Geoff Mann talks to James Butler about these related but often competing approaches, and whether the political structures exist for them to be implemented.

Find further reading, and listen ad free, on our website: lrb.me/degrowthpod

Sign up to our Close Readings podcast subscription: https://lrb.me/closereadingspod

Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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This week, a guest episode from the London Review Bookshop Podcast, featuring Elif Batuman talking to Merve Emre about her latest book, Either/Or. The London Review Bookshop podcast comes out every week and has hundreds of events in its archive. Find it wherever you get your podcast.

Some events from the London Review Bookshop are broadcast online as well as in person, so you can watch live from anywhere in the world. On Wednesday this week, you can watch food writers Rebecca May Johnson and Jonathan Nunn.

Buy tickets here: https://lrb.me/eventspod

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James Meek, recently returned from Mykolaiv, talks to Tom about the area of southern Ukraine that has become a crucial battleground in the war, as Russian forces seek to maintain control of the land they’ve occupied west of the Dnieper, and the Ukrainians try to push them back across the river.

Read James's report from Mykolaiv here: https://lrb.me/mykolaivpod

Watch the short film here: https://lrb.me/mykolaivfilmpod

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John Lanchester talks to Tom about the recent scandals involving two DAX-listed companies, Volkswagen and Wirecard, and the ways in which they challenge the stereotypes of German business.

Find further reading, and listen ad free, on our website: lrb.me/fraudpod

Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b

Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Emma John and Natasha Chahal join Tom to discuss England’s victory in Euro 2022, the long history of women’s football – mentioned in a poem by Philip Sidney in the 16th century, banned by the FA for half of the 20th – and what may happen next.

Find further reading, and listen ad free, on the episode page: https://lrb.me/euro22pod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Miranda Carter talks to Tom about the history of the world’s longest-running interview show, Desert Island Discs, from its early scripted days on the BBC Forces Programme in the 1940s, in the hands of its creator, Roy Plomley, to the more probing and revealing styles of Sue Lawley and Kirsty Young. They also consider some of its more memorable guests, including Marlene Dietrich, Tony Blair, Enoch Powell, Hugh Grant and Margaret Thatcher.

Find further reading and a list of LRB castaways here: https://lrb.me/carterpod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Andrew Liu talks to Tom about the Chinese workers who followed the gold rush to California, Australia and South Africa, the racial stereotypes about them promoted by local politicians, and their role in the huge economic shifts of the late 19th century, as described in a new book by Mae Ngai, The Chinese Question.

Find further reading, and listen ad free, on the episode page: https://lrb.me/goldrushpod

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Find Andrew's piece in n+1 here.

Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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James Butler joins Tom to consider the fall of Boris Johnson, the candidates hoping to replace him, and what the next few years of British politics might look like.

Find more pieces on Boris Johnson in the LRB here: https://lrb.me/afterjohnsonpod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Laura Beers and Deborah Friedell talk to Tom about the recent decision by the US Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson, which removed the constitutional right to abortion. They consider the history of Roe v. Wade and its legal arguments, how abortion became such a partisan issue, and the possible consequences both of the ruling itself and the willingness of the current court to overturn precedent.

Find further reading, and listen ad free, on the episode page: https://lrb.me/roevwadepod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Bee Wilson talks to Tom about palm oil, which can be found in everything from pot noodles to shaving foam. In its purest state, squeezed from the fruit and kernels of the oil palm, it has a deep red colour and rich fragrance. By the time it reaches our supermarkets, in ultra-processed foods and cosmetics, it’s been refined, bleached, deodorised and relabelled, appearing in multiple different forms. Bee and Tom look at the reasons for its ubiquity, the consequences for those involved in its production and whether a sustainable palm oil industry is possible.

Find more to read on the episode page: https://lrb.me/palmoilpod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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The day before the election, James Butler is joined by William Davies to talk about something everyone seems to agree on: the very poor state of the UK’s public finances. The past fourteen years of Conservative rule began with the technocratic austerity of George Osborne and ended with the return of the ‘grown-ups’, Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak, to inflict more pain. In between came the chaos of Brexit and the Truss-Kwarteng ‘mini-budget’. What will a likely Labour government pick up from this? Are we still stuck in the age of Osborne, or will something resembling the public investment strategy of Bidenomics emerge through initiatives such as the National Wealth Fund and Great British Energy, as Rachel Reeves has promised?

Read Will's latest LRB piece: https://lrb.me/davieselectionpod

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Adam Shatz, the LRB’s US editor, talks to Sindre Bangstad and Reza Zia-Ebrahimi about the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, from its origins in the high tide of French colonial expansionism in the 19th century and propagation through writers such as Jean Raspail and Renaud Camus, to its influence on mass murderers in Norway, New Zealand and the United States.

Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/grtheorypod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Madeleine Schwartz talks to Tom about the trial of twenty men accused of involvement in the Paris terrorist attacks of 13 November 2015, which left 130 dead. It’s the largest criminal trial France has ever seen, and its scope has ranged far beyond the guilt or innocence of the accused. With thousands of plaintiffs, and witnesses including the former president François Hollande, are expectations for what the proceedings might achieve realistic? And how have the attacks, and the trial, changed French politics?

Find further readings and listening here: https://lrb.me/bataclanpod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Ahead of the NBA finals next month, LRB contributor, novelist and former basketball player Benjamin Markovits talks to sports journalists Ben Cohen and Kevin Arnovitz about the role of data in the game. Why did it take teams so long to realise the value of the three-point shot? What's the difference between a 32% shooter and a 37% shooter? And is there anything more exciting in sport than watching Steph Curry’s pre-game warm-up?

Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/nbapod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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James Romm talks to Tom about the site of the Ancient Greek games, the subject of a new book by Judith Berringer, Olympia: A Cultural History. They discuss the various contests in which athletes competed, the punishment for those found cheating, the importance of the games as a political platform, and the colossal statue of Zeus in whose honour they were held.

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Rupert Beale returns to the podcast to talk to Tom about the current state of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK. They discuss what ‘living with Covid’ means, the chances of future waves and lockdowns, the different experiences of long Covid, and whether we’re better placed to tackle another pandemic.

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Azadeh Moaveni talks to Tom about the situation on the Polish border, where women and children fleeing Ukraine face numerous dangers, including kidnapping, trafficking and forced labour. Moaveni describes the way social media has changed the way traffickers work, the dramatic range of conditions refugees face in Poland, and how this displacement crisis compares to others she’s seen.

Read Azadeh's piece: https://lrb.me/moavenipod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Julian Barnes reads his memoir about a lifetime of reading Flaubert.

Read the piece, and listen to the reading without ads, here: https://lrb.me/flaubertpod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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In the final episode in our series looking at the way history was transformed in the Romantic period, Neil MacGregor joins Rosemary Hill to discuss the circulation of artefacts throughout Europe in the years after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, and the growth of public collections. They consider how the questions that museums grapple with today – concerning ownership, restitution and the role ordinary people should play in the stories they tell – were inherent in their creation in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Buy Rosemary Hill's book, Time's Witness, from the London Review Bookshop here: https://lrb.me/hill

Subscribe to the LRB and get 79% off the cover price plus a free tote bag: https://lrb.me/history

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Andrew O’Hagan talks to Tom about the power of defunct objects, from the life-enhancing gadgets of his childhood to Seamus Heaney’s fax machine, and the role lost things play in fiction.

Find Andrew O'Hagan's pieces mentioned in this episode here: https://lrb.me/mixtapespod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Who put the arrow in Harold’s eye? Why did Dick Whittington have a cat? Where did the pointed arch come from? These are all questions that the curious and energetic antiquarians of the late 18th and early 19th centuries asked, and often managed to answer.

In the third episode of her series looking at the way history was transformed in the Romantic period, Rosemary Hill talks to Roey Sweet about the new breed of multi-disciplinary investigators, who, in the years after the French Revolution, studied everything from woollen threads to tombstones in their efforts to imagine the past.

Buy Rosemary Hill's book, Time's Witness, from the London Review Bookshop here: https://lrb.me/hill

Subscribe to the LRB and get 79% off the cover price plus a free tote bag: https://lrb.me/history

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‘The world is growing more dangerous’ warns the Conservative manifesto, which puts security at the heart of its pitch. The Labour manifesto, on the other hand, doesn’t mention the world beyond the UK at all in its five ‘missions’. Are the Tories simply being honest with voters, or trying to distract from their domestic record? In this episode, James Butler is joined by Tom Stevenson and Iona Craig to discuss the challenges facing the next foreign secretary, from Gaza to the pressures of a possible Trump presidency. Labour’s current approach seems to promise ‘Blair without the Iraq War’, but how far will this allow UK foreign policy to depart from its normal attitude of subservience to the United States?

Read more in the LRB:

Tom Stevenson on diplomacy: https://lrb.me/stevensonelectionpod

James Butler's latest election post: https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/june/new-order

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Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite talks to Tom about how events in the 1960s, including the Aberfan disaster and a shift in strategy by the Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru, helped pave the way for devolution in Wales, where the Labour-led administration now has one of the most progressive policy agendas in the world.

Read Florence's piece here: https://lrb.me/walespod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Tom Stevenson talks to Thomas Jones about the situation in Ukraine, the effectiveness of some of the weapons in use, from anti-tank missiles to economic sanctions, and the risk of nuclear escalation.

Find Tom Stevenson's recent pieces for the LRB here: https://lrb.me/stevensonpod

Listen to this podcast ad free on our website: https://lrb.me/weaponsofwar

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In the 1740s the Scots were invading England and the wearing of tartan was banned. By the 1850s, Queen Victoria had built her Gothic fantasy in Aberdeenshire and tartan was everywhere. What happened in between?

In the second episode of her series on Romantic history, Rosemary Hill talks to Colin Kidd about the myths and traditions of Scottish history created in the 19th century, and the central role of Walter Scott in forging his country’s identity.

Buy Rosemary Hill's book, Time's Witness, from the London Review Bookshop here: https://lrb.me/hill

Subscribe to the LRB and get 79% off the cover price plus a free tote bag: https://lrb.me/history

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