Meritocracy Week

It’s Meritocracy Week on Engelsberg Ideas. Leading writers explore the global history of merit in culture and politics. Do meritocracies deliver on their promise? Is meritocracy working? Can the concept be fixed?

Podcast episodes

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence was the subject of a watershed obscenity trial. Credit: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo.

EI Weekly Podcast: Episode 204

EI Weekly Listen — Alexander McCall Smith on the writer’s right to speak freely

While we may think we have moved beyond the censorship of the past, writers’ artistic free…

December 20, 2024

Photograph of American troops running towards a chopper during the Vietnam War.

EI Talks… Podcast: Episode 58

EI Talks… the Vietnam War with Fredrik Logevall

EI’s Angus Reilly discusses the history and legacy of the Vietnam War with Fredrik Logeval…

December 19, 2024

The Freedom is Our Religion banner in Maidan Square, Kyiv.

EI Weekly Podcast: Episode 203

EI Weekly Listen — Kori Schake on the price of freedom

The arc of history only bends towards justice when people of goodwill grab hold of it and …

December 13, 2024

Title Page from Thomas Gage's The English-American his travail by sea and land

EI Portraits Podcast: Episode 21

EI Portraits — Paul Lay on Thomas Gage, a man of unintended consequences

His intense faith led Thomas Gage to switch his religious allegiance during the tumultuous…

December 12, 2024

A statue of Romulus and Remus on the Capitoline Hill in Rome.

EI Weekly Podcast: Episode 202

EI Weekly Listen — David Butterfield on Epicurus, Lucretius, and the myth of mythlessness

Myths frame and tailor the past in a way that can ground and stabilise a community, howeve…

December 6, 2024

Crystal Palace Fans hold up a banner to protest against VAR.

EI Talks… Podcast: Episode 57

EI Talks… the problem with VAR with Daisy Christodoulou

Alastair Benn discusses how technology is transforming the world of sport with Daisy Chris…

December 5, 2024