Rebecca Solnit is an award-winning American writer and activist whose incisive work explores feminism, democracy, climate change and social justice.

In this episode, she joins Mythili Rao to argue that, despite today's anxieties about democratic backsliding, technological disruption and environm...

In September 2022, a series of underwater explosions tore through the Nord Stream pipelines beneath the Baltic Sea. The destruction of this $20 billion pipeline severed a major artery of Russian gas supplies to Europe, disrupted economies and triggered a manhunt that strained relations within the...

Long before Putin's invasion of Ukraine, conflict was simmering on Europe's borders. In overlooked territories in eastern Europe, the eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus –from the Balkans and Cyprus to Abkhazia on the fringes of Georgia – local disputes spiral into regional crises, global alli...

As the main intelligence and security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991, the KGB instilled fear across Russia and sought to sow discord abroad.

This network of government spies was notorious for the often brutal methods it used to keep enemies, loyalists and common people under the ...

From cannabis legalisation in the United States to the rise of psychedelics as wellness and productivity tools, the global politics of drugs is being rapidly transformed. But who really benefits from the legalisation of recreational drugs?

In this episode, journalist and author Atossa Araxia Abr...

In this episode, science broadcaster Dr Güneş Taylor speaks with endocrinologist Dr Saira Hameed about her new book Signals: The Inside Story of Our Hormones. From exhaustion and infertility to appetite, mood and libido, Hameed explores the vast and often misunderstood hormonal system that regula...

This debate was part of the ‘Think Again’ series in which two leading thinkers present alternative answers to a difficult societal question. The book and series published by The Bodley Head.

What happens when life becomes unbearable — when suffering is unrelenting, dignity is stripped away, and...

Douglas Stuart is one of the most successful writers in Britain today. He is celebrated globally for his honest portrayals of human relationships and working-class life. In 2020 he won the Booker Prize for his debut novel Shuggie Bain, a searingly honest novel set in 1980s Glasgow about a boy nam...

Patrick Radden Keefe is an award winning writer known for his ability to tell complex stories in ways that are compelling and revealing. 

Author of the bestsellers Empire of Pain—a shocking exposé of the Sackler family and their involvement in the opioid crisis—and Say Nothing, his award-winning...

What do our Google searches reveal about who we really are?

For a new book, What We Ask Google, data analyst Simon Rogers explores the world’s biggest dataset - billions of searches carried out over two decades - to provide a revealing portrait of our collective brain.

In this episode, he speak...

AI models now advise on everything from war, crop output, and marriages. Algorithms determine whether we can get a loan, a job, an apartment, or an organ transplant.

Carissa Véliz, Associate Professor at the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford, argues that today’s computer sci...

The town of Weimar looms large in German history. This ancient town nestled in the heart of the country was home to some of Europe's greatest thinkers, Goethe and Schiller, Liszt and Nietzsche among them. It gave its name to the ambitious Weimar Republic crafted in the aftermath of the First Worl...

Kae Tempest is widely regarded as one of Britain’s greatest wordsmiths. In a career of ferocious creativity, he has received multiple prizes and critical recognition across the many forms he works in.

Beginning as a lyricist and songwriter in his teens, Tempest threw himself fully into whicheve...

How close are we to a new global conflict?

In this episode, journalist Hannah Lucinda Smith speaks with global defence commentator Peter Apps about his new book The Next World War: The New Age of Global Conflict and the Fight to Stop It. From Ukraine to Taiwan, and from cyber warfare to space, A...