The Book Club | 8 February 2023 | 0h 28m | Listen Later 
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Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Robert Kaplan about his book The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate and the Burden of Power. Argues that Greek tragedy has important lessons about how to navigate the 21st century. Reflects on how the book arose from his remorse at having influenced the Bush administration with his support for the Iraq War; why it still makes sense to think about ‘fate’ in a world without gods; and why George H W Bush was a paragon of the tragic mindset while his son George W Bush was a tragic hero.
Tag: The Book Club
Tom Holland on Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind
The Book Club | 4 December 2019 | 0h 45m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Tom Holland about his book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. Explains the myriad ways, many of them invisible to us, that Christianity has shaped and continues to shape Western culture. Argues that there is a single distinctive Christian way of thinking.
I mistakenly triaged this out in 2019 but returned to the episode after reading Misha Saul’s excellent review.
Tania Branigan: Red Memory
The Book Club | 1 February 2023 | 0h 56m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Tania Branigan about her book Red Memory: The Afterlives of China’s Cultural Revolution. Argues the trauma of the Cultural Revolution is the story behind the story that makes sense of modern China. Explores how the memory of that bloody decade, and the drive to forget or ignore it, shapes the high politics and daily lives of the Chinese nation. Explains why official amnesia on the subject is a surprisingly recent development, how 1989’s Tiananmen Square protests changed the course of the country, and why so many ordinary Chinese people still pine for the days of Mao.
Thomas Penn: The Brothers York
The Book Club | 30 October 2022 | 0h 34m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Thomas Penn about his book The Brothers York: An English Tragedy. Tells the story of three brothers – Edward IV; George, Duke of Clarence; and Richard III. Argues that the ‘Wars of the Roses’ weren’t determined by a struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster so much as by the catastrophic white-on-white conflict that caused the House of York to implode.
Allan Mallinson: The Shape of Battle
The Book Club | 21 July 2022 | 0h 49m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Allan Mallinson about his book The Shape of Battle: Six Campaigns from Hastings to Helmand. Discusses why everyone should take an interest in warfare – as being the most complex of all human interactions; whether war is always “hell” for everyone involved; and how while the technology may change, the essentials remain the same.
Kavita Puri: Partition Voices
The Book Club | 13 July 2022 | 0h 39m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Kavita Puri about her book Partition Voices: Untold British Stories. Excavates often traumatic memories of the mass migration and bloody violence of the partition of India. Explains why the story has been so shrouded in silence – there isn’t a memorial to Partition, anywhere on earth – and yet how it has shaped the UK’s population and politics ever since. Argues that it’s vital that empire and the end-of-empire be taught in every British school.
Andrea Elliott: Invisible Child
The Book Club | 15 June 2022 | 0h 39m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Andrea Elliott about her book Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in New York City. Discusses how she came to spend seven years reporting on a single, homeless family in Brooklyn, how she negotiated her duty to observe rather than participate – and what their telenovela-like experiences tell us about American history.
Simon Kuper: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK
The Book Club | 4 May 2022 | 0h 46m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Simon Kuper about his book Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK. Backgrounds how the social and psychological dynamics of the UK’s present government were shaped by 1980s Oxford University where many of those now in power first met. Argues that Boris Johnson’s love of winging it was nurtured in the tutorial culture of his Balliol days; that the dynamics of Tory leadership contests are throwbacks to the Oxford Union; that Brexit was a jobs-protection scheme for the old-fashioned ruling class; and that argues for being more like Germany, with less emphasis on rhetorical skills.
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