Episodes

  • Luke Kemp: The History and Future of Societal Collapse
    Oct 15 2025

    My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is Luke Kemp. In his new book Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse, Luke seeks lessons from prehistory to understand how societies grow and flourish, what kills them, and where we are now. He tells me what Hobbes got wrong, why ‘civilisation’ isn’t always the boon we have been taught to think it is, and why societal collapse might have been a good thing in the past but could be a very bad thing in the future.

    Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.


    For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts


    Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk

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    49 mins
  • Ben Schott: An Unexpectedly Essential Guide to Language
    Oct 7 2025

    his week’s Book Club podcast is Ben Schott. The author of the world- (or downstairs-loo-) conquering Schott’s Original Miscellany returns with Schott’s Significa, a deeply reported and constantly surprising book in which he uses the private languages of various communities – from gondoliers to graffiti writers and from Swifties to sommeliers – as a way of understanding their worlds. Ben tells me about how the project came together, how he was inspired by the folklorists Iona and Peter Opie pinning the butterfly of playground games – and why doing the shoe-leather reporting yields results that you could never get from Google or ChatGPT.

    Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.


    For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts


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    38 mins
  • Speaker series: Jeffrey Archer – End Game
    Oct 5 2025

    Michael Gove speaks to Jeffrey Archer about his life, career and his new novel End Game, which marks the gripping finale of the William Warwick series.


    This discussion was part of the Spectator's speaker series. To see more on our upcoming events – including with Charles Moore and with Bernard Cornwell – go to events.spectator.co.uk

    Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.


    For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts


    Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk

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    51 mins
  • Philippa Gregory: Boleyn Traitor
    Oct 1 2025

    Sam Leith's guest on this week's Book Club podcast is the historical novelist Philippa Gregory. In her gripping new book Boleyn Traitor, Philippa seeks to rescue Jane Boleyn from the vast condescension of history. She tells Sam how fiction allows her to make plausible speculations about the gaps in the record, how she works to make the Tudors speak to us in language we can recognise, where Henry VIII went wrong — and what the Tudor court's descent into tyranny has to say to us about our own age.


    Produced by James Lewis.

    Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.


    For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts


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    39 mins
  • Sudhir Hazareesingh: Daring to be Free
    Sep 24 2025

    Sam's guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is the historian Sudhir Hazareesingh, whose new book Daring to Be Free: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World reframes the story of Atlantic slavery. He explains why the familiar tale of enlightened Europeans bringing about abolition leaves out the most important voices of all – the enslaved themselves – and how from Africa to Haiti and beyond, traditions of rebellion, resistance and spiritual resilience shaped the struggle for freedom long before Wilberforce or Clarkson entered the picture.

    Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.


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    43 mins
  • Roger Lewis: The Life and Death of Peter Sellers
    Sep 17 2025

    Sam Leith's guest in this week's Book Club podcast is Roger Lewis, whose book The Life and Death of Peter Sellers has been republished to mark 100 years since the comedian's birth. Roger tells Sam about the difference between Sellers's public persona and private life, plus his influence on comedy today. They also discuss how Roger reinvented the way biographies were written, and whether the view he had of Sellers as a teenager changed through writing the book.


    Produced by James Lewis.

    Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.


    For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts


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    38 mins
  • Andrew Bayliss: Sparta – The Rise and Fall of An Ancient Superpower
    Sep 10 2025

    Sam Leith’s guest in this week's Book Club podcast is Andrew Bayliss, author of Sparta: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Superpower. Andrew tells Sam what we know — and don't know – about these much-mythologised figures from the Ancient world and tells the story of how a tiny city-state punched above its weight, until it didn't. This is Sparta.


    Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

    Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.


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    43 mins
  • Lea Ypi: Indignity
    Sep 3 2025

    My guest in this week's Book Club podcast is the Albanian-born political philosopher Lea Ypi, whose new book Indignity: A Life Reimagined reconstructs the story of her grandmother's early life amid the turbulence of the early and mid twentieth century. She talks to me about using the techniques of fiction to supply the gaps in the archive, about Albania's troubling position as a tiny power among great ones, why the fight between Kant and Nietzsche remains a live one — and how online trolls sparked her quest for a restorative account of her beloved grandmother's life.

    Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.


    For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts


    Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk

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    48 mins