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

An electronics recycling facility in Shanghai, China.
Isabelle Huppert, Madame Bovary 1991. Credit: Collection Christophel / Alamy Stock Photo
CONGRESS OF VIENNA (1814-1815) Napoleon watching the Tsar, the Emperor of Austria and King of Prussia dividing up Europe
Donald Trump poses for photos above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange after taking his Trump Plaza Casino public in New York on June 7, 1995.
Street art in Tbilisi of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin playing chess.
Second world war propaganda poster.