Reading Our Times
Episode Archive
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Bookends: Unpacking Series 9 of Reading Our Times
With series 9 of Reading Our Times coming to an end, Nick Spencer takes a look back on the series and shares his thoughts on the ideas espoused by the various guests.
Should Britain pay ...
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How has our evolutionary past shaped us? In conversation with Harvey Whitehouse
The claim that evolution can help us understand, even explain, the modern world and modern mind has not always had a happy history, veering between overclaim and catastrophe. But the opposite id...
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What is (The) Enlightenment? In conversation with Jonathan Clark
The Enlightenment has become weaponised over recent years. Numerous public figures, not all of them historians, have lined up to state defiantly that it needs protecting from... postmodernity? p...
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Should Britain pay reparations for slavery? In conversation with Michael Banner
The demand for post-colonial nations to pay reparations to, and for their treatment of, their former colonies has grown increasingly loud over recent years. And although many dismiss the idea as...
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What is "woke"? In conversation with Susan Neiman
Depending on who you are, you might understand “woke” to mean “concerned with fundamental human justice”. Alternatively, you might think its means obsessed with identity politics, tribal, angry,...
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Assisted Dying: What's really at stake? In conversation with Ilora Finlay and Julian Hughes
Assisted Dying is back on the legislative agenda, with parliament voting on it this autumn. It is a profound and contentious debate about which good and well-meaning people can and do disagree d...
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Can poetry save us? In conversation with Charles Taylor
For many people, many of whom would not call themselves religious or even spiritual, poetry is somehow able to enchant, to inspire, to heal– to give them a glimpse of connection, of transcendenc...
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How Did the World Make the West? In conversation with Josephine Quinn
About 30 years ago, the American political philosopher Samuel Huntington wrote a hugely influential book entitled The clash of civilizations in which he predicted that the ideological wars of th...
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Books and the Future of Civilisation live from How The Light Gets In
We are emerging from the so-called “Gutenberg Parenthesis”, the 500 years in which the printed word dominated society, and embracing a new age of screens, images, and tweets. Or so it is claimed...
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The History of Science and Religion with Tom Holland
Science and religion have a long history. According to some, it's a history of warfare; to others they are (or at least should be) non-overlapping.
Joining Nick Spencer at the @chalkehi...