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

A new Iron Curtain in Europe.

EI Talks… Podcast: Episode 55

EI Talks… how to deter Russia with Kristjan Prikk and Eitvydas Bajarūnas

EI’s Paul Lay discusses how the Baltic states have survived, and thrived, in the shadow of…

November 21, 2024

Two US Air Force B-2 Spirits fly alongside four Royal Australian Air Force EA-18G Growlers and a RAAF E-7A Wedgetail, August 2022.

EI Weekly Podcast: Episode 199

EI Weekly Listen — Rory Medcalf on the Australian way of war and peace

Australia stands at the forefront of democratic resistance against China’s expanding influ…

November 15, 2024

The fall of the Berlin Wall.

EI Talks… Podcast: Episode 54

EI Talks… the making of the post-Wall world with Mary Elise Sarotte

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 offered opportunities to reset relations between East …

November 14, 2024

German statesman Konrad Adenauer depicted on a coin.

EI Weekly Podcast: Episode 198

EI Weekly Listen — Andreas Rödder on Konrad Adenauer and the German realignment

Konrad Adenauer combined Realpolitik and German values and interests with international co…

November 8, 2024

Wildlife photographer Carl Ethan Akeley photographed in 1926. Credit: Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery / Public Domain

EI Portraits Podcast: Episode 19

EI Portraits — Maria Golia on Carl Akeley, early pioneer of wildlife photography

Maria Golia profiles Carl Akeley, an inventor, sculptor, and taxidermist. His life’s lesso…

November 7, 2024

Television presenter Frank Reynolds covering the 1968 election.

EI Talks… Podcast: Episode 53

EI Talks… the lessons of the 1968 presidential election with Luke A. Nichter

EI’s Angus Reilly is joined by Luke A. Nichter, author of The Year that Broke Politics: Co…

November 4, 2024