How To Academy Podcast

How To Academy is London's home of big thinking. From Nobel laureates to Pulitzer Prize winners, we invite the world’s most influential voices to share new ideas for changing ourselves, our communities, and the world. Our biweekly podcast is your chance to hear in-depth from the most exciting thinkers in global culture.

Society & Culture
Science
Self-Improvement
276
Jon Ronson and Brian Klaas - On Psychopaths and...
Why do bad people disproportionately rise to power? Do broken systems produce authoritarian leaders, and if so - what can we do about it?
59 min
277
Salena Godden Meets Yrsa Daley-Ward - How to Kn...
Shot to fame in her early twenties as model and actor, Yrsa Daley-Ward quickly established a reputation as a poet and storyteller of rare honesty, vulnerability, and emotional power.
51 min
278
Jameela Jamil and Michael Schur - How to be Per...
Jameela Jamil and Michael Schur join us to explore the question of their hit series The Good Place: how can we live a more ethical life?
60 min
279
Adam Rutherford - The Troubling History of Euge...
Eugenics remains one of the most destructive ideas of the 20th century. Today, politicians and scientists alike threaten to build on the legacy of this dangerous ideology.
45 min
280
William Dalrymple and Sathnam Sanghera - Britis...
A story of powerful empires, covert political machinations and bloody resistance, Sathnam Sanghera and William Dalrymple join us with the history of the world’s first corporate power.
60 min
281
Fi Glover and Jane Garvey - Did I Say That Out ...
64 min
282
John Preston - The Rise and Fall of Robert Maxwell
Media moghul Robert Maxwell was a war hero who embodied Britain's post-war boom: but within days of mysterious death, he was already reviled as the embodiment of greed and corruption. What went so wrong?
50 min
283
Claire Fuller - Unsettled Ground
Claire Fuller, author of the Costa Novel Award 2021 winner Unsettled Ground, explores folk music, memory, and the surreal everyday in this week’s episode of the How To Academy Podcast.
33 min
284
Marcus du Sautoy Meets Steven Pinker - Why Rati...
World-renowned public intellectuals Marcus du Sautoy and Steven Pinker offer a guide to rationality during an epidemic of unreason.
57 min
285
Bexy Cameron - How to Escape a Cult
Filmmaker Bexy Cameron was born into the Children of God, one of the world's most notorious cults. She joins us to share the story of her upbringing and escape.
44 min
286
Pandora Sykes Meets Emily Ratajkowski
What does it mean to be a woman today? Pandora Sykes meets model, entrepreneur and activist Emily Ratajkowski for an investigation into feminism, sexuality and power.
65 min
287
Paul Bloom - The Surprising Secret of Happiness
'Paul Bloom can always be counted on to take your confident assumptions about humanity and turn them upside down' (SUSAN CAIN, author of Quiet).
60 min
288
Philip Pullman Meets Iain McGilchrist - The Mea...
The award-winning novelist and acclaimed neuroscientist join us with a profound new story of what the world is and who we are.
62 min
289
Fatima Bhutto Meets Noam Chomsky
The legendary philosopher and activists explores the challenges of our age with author Fatima Bhutto.
57 min
290
Robin DiAngelo and Beverly Daniel Tatum - Conve...
Two of the most influential contemporary thinkers on race and racism join us to explore how we can move forward.
53 min
291
Greg Jenner - How to Find the Comedy in History
What was the first recorded joke? When were Mondays invented? Who, or what, is "mellefied man"? In this week's show we discover the answer to all of these questions from public historian and podcaster Greg Jenner.
45 min
292
Jane Goodall - A Survival Guide for an Endandge...
The world needs a manifesto of hope now more than ever. Jane Goodall joins us to show that even in the face of great adversity, we can find hope in human nature, and in nature itself.
53 min
293
Richard Powers - Why Stories Matter
The Booker Prize 2021 shortlisted author of Bewilderment and The Overstory explores the power of fiction to change our future.
67 min
294
Bernard-Henri Lévy - Dispatches from a World of...
For fifty years philosopher and activist Bernard-Henri Lévy has reported on the world’s most urgent and overlooked humanitarian crises and human rights abuses.
58 min
295
Kate Bowler - The Meaning of Life
52 min
296
Stephen Fry Meets Steven Pinker - The Case for ...
In anticipation of Steven Pinker's return to How To Academy later this month, this episode of the podcast revisits his conversation with Stephen Fry on stage in London in 2018.
76 min
297
James Nestor - the Art and Science of Breathing
The Sunday Times bestselling author James Nestor joins us with a guide that will forever change the way you think about health and wellbeing.
56 min
298
Bonus Episode: With Reason - Learning from our ...
In this special bonus episode by our friends at New Humanist magazine and the Rationalist Association, Professor Alice Roberts takes us through important archaeological discoveries to help us better understand life today.
47 min
299
Fiona Shaw - A Life on Stage and Screen
The BAFTA and Olivier award-winning Irish actor and director explores her life and career on stage and screen.
59 min
300
Rutger Bregman and Philippe Sands - Are Humans ...
Philippe Sands meets Rutger Bregman, one of the greatest young thinkers of our time, to hear a new story of human nature that places our capacity for kindness, not selfishness, at its heart.
61 min