The EI Podcast

This year marks the centenary of the publication of Franz Kafka’s novel, The Trial - a seminal work that continues to captivate and unsettle its readers. EI’s Alastair Benn and Paul Lay are joined by Karolina Watroba, author of Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka, to discuss Josef K’s tragic entanglement with a suffocating bureaucracy. Image: Portrait of Franz Kafka. Credit: history_docu_photo / Alamy Stock Photo 

Historian Nicholas Morton explores how a miracle of marketing brought the Knights Templars to prominence. Read by Leighton Pugh. FURTHER READING: The Knights Templars and the pursuit of Christendom | Nicholas Morton Image: A Victorian illustration of the Knights Templars. Credit: Glasshouse Images / Alamy Stock Photo

The writer Josh Mcloughlin reflects on the art of chorography, one of English literature’s most eccentric and mercurial forms. Read by Leighton Pugh. FURTHER READING: The lost art of chorography | Josh Mcloughlin Image: Renaissance map of Europe showing England. Credit: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Phot

Historian Damian Valdez reflects on the meaning of 1975, a fateful year for the international order. Read by Leighton Pugh. FURTHER READING: 1975, the year that made the modern world | Damian Valdez Image: A helicopter is pushed off the overcrowded deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hancock (CV-19) off the coast of South Vietnam during the fall of Saigon. Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo

EI’s Paul Lay joins historian Tim Bouverie to discuss ‘Allies at War’, his gripping new book on how Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin’s uneasy alliance led to the end of the Second World War – and reshaped the global order in ways that are still felt today. Image: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta. Credit: Niday Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo

Writer Luka Ivan Jukic laments the all-but-total disappearance of facial hair from politics. Read by Leighton Pugh. FURTHER READING: What happened to the politician’s moustache? | Luka Ivan Jukic Image: A double portrait of Mozaffar al-Din Shah, the fifth Qajar shah of Iran. Credit: Penta Springs Limited / Alamy Stock Photo

Journalist and author Jenny McCartney celebrates the magic of squalor, and explores how generations of artists have seen the sublime in slime. Read by Leighton Pugh. FURTHER READING: On squalor | Jenny McCartney Image: Walter Sickert's Easter Monday. Credit: Logic Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Geopolitical analyst Charly Salonius-Pasternak examines Finland's long journey to full membership of the Western alliance, and explores how the Nordic nation could play a leading role in its future. FURTHER READING: Why Finns joined the fight | Charly Salonius-Pasternak Image: During the Soviet-Finnish war (1939-1940) skiers of the Finnish army in white camouflage made lightning and effective attacks on units of the Red Army. Credit: World of Triss / Alamy Stock Photo

The late Christopher Coker, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics for almost 40 years, explains why, although the love of liberty is not unique to the West, the lust for liberty is. Read by Helen Lloyd. FURTHER READING: The West’s lust for liberty | Christopher Coker Image: Leonidas at Thermopylae, by Jacques-Louis David, 1814. Credit: Peter Horree / Alamy Stock Photo

In this episode of The EI Podcast, the historian Bijan Omrani is joined by EI's Paul Lay to explore the indelible mark Christianity has left on England’s identity and culture. FURTHER READING: The tragic decline of Christian rituals | Bijan Omrani Image: South View of Salisbury Cathedral, JMW Turner. Credit: Penta Springs Limited / Alamy Stock Photo