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

Rudolph Müller, View of the Acropolis from the Pynx (1863).
A painting displaying the splendour of the Neapolitan fleet.
High-rise buildings in Hong Kong.
Lafcadio Hearn photographed with his wife, Setsuko Koizumi, and their son.
A city speculator trying to sell his car for $100 cash after having lost everything on the stock market (1929).
Mexican general Agustín de Iturbide rides through a ceremonial arch to welcoming officials in Mexico City on September 27, 1821 after decisively winning independence for Mexico.