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
326
Sam Knight - The Premonitions Bureau
Join legendary journalist Sam Knight for the true story of a strange experiment - a journey into the oddest corners of 60s Britain and the outer edges of science and reason.
57 min
327
John Cleese Meets Iain McGilchrist - On Conscio...
John Cleese meets preeminent neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist to explore the science of human consciousness and creativity.
70 min
328
Minnie Driver - Managing Expectations
As one of our most loved actors, Minnie Driver has spent her life mostly telling other people’s stories. Until now.
65 min
329
Owen Jones Meets Michael Lewis - The Fifth Risk
'I read Michael Lewis for the same reasons I watch Tiger Woods. I'll never play like that. But it's good to be reminded every now and again what genius looks like' - Malcolm Gladwell
74 min
330
Robin Ince Meets Neal Stephenson - Termination ...
'Sometimes when you're reading Neal Stephenson, he doesn't just seem like one of the best novelists writing in English right now; he seems like the only one.' - TIME magazine
50 min
331
Eliot Higgins - We Are Bellingcat
'Taking on the Kremlin from his couch . . . Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat are fighting Vladimir Putin and his ilk, using little more than computers and smartphones' (Foreign Policy).
55 min
332
The Metaverse - Hype or Hyperreality?
Take a trip into the Metaverse in the latest episode of Found in Conversation, the monthly ideas show we co-produce with Pictet.
43 min
333
Ann Patchett - These Precious Days
‘I don’t think that there’s a book of hers that I haven’t put down at the end and been haunted by for weeks after’ (Gillian Anderson).
56 min
334
Robin Ince Meets Richard Dawkins
“My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence... That's never far from my thoughts, that sense of amazement.” – Richard Dawkins
59 min
335
Ed Miliband - How to Fix Our World
A better world is possible; the solutions are out there. We can all make a difference. We just need to know where to look - and have the courage to think big.
54 min
336
Dispatches from Afghanistan
What does the future hold for the people of Afghanistan in the wake of America’s withdrawal and the Taliban’s return to power?
52 min
337
Matthew Green - A Journey Into the Shadowlands
33 min
338
Julia Samuel - Every Family Has a Story
What predicts family breakdown? Why do our families drive us mad? What is it the enables some families to thrive despite enormous adversity, when others fragment?
53 min
339
Philip Oltermann - The Stasi Poetry Circle
The Guardian's Berlin bureau chief reveals the strange but true story of the book club that tried to win the Cold War through lyrical verse.
28 min
340
Simon Sebag Montefiore and Luke Harding - The H...
Prizewinning historian Simon Sebag Montefiore and former Guardian Moscow bureau chief Luke Harding look at the deep history behind the headlines.
37 min
341
Max Porter - Why Art Should Challenge Us
The genre-defying author joins us to explore his lifelong obsession with Francis Bacon, the undefinable magic of language, and pushing readers outside their comfort zones.
40 min
342
Alan Moore and B. Catling - The Power of Imagin...
The comics legend and Oxford sculptor turned literary novelist come together to explore humanity’s greatest superpower: imagination.
58 min
343
Olia Hercules and Alissa Timoshkina - #CookForU...
Join us for a special episode in support of #CookForUkraine, a campaign organised by two food writers, Ukrainian Olia Hercules and Russia Alissa Timoshkina, to support children and families affected by the war.
40 min
344
Yanis Varoufakis Meets David Wengrow - The Dawn...
The collaborator of the late, legendary anthropologist David Graeber joins Yanis Varoufakis to overturn everything you think you know about the history of human civilisation.
55 min
345
Paul Craddock - The Surprising History of Organ...
We think of transplant surgery as one of the medical wonders of the modern world. But the true history of transplants is more ancient, and far stranger, than we could ever imagine.
31 min
346
Suzanne Simard - Finding the Mother Tree
World-leading scientist of plant communication and intelligence Suzanne Simard reveals how she discovered the secrets of the forest.
61 min
347
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
348
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
349
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
350
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