The 10 Best Start the Week Podcast Episodes
1) From Sapiens to AI
Yuval Noah Harari’s best-selling Sapiens explored human’s extraordinary progress alongside the capacity to spin stories. In Nexus he focuses on how those stories have been shared and manipulated, and ...Show More
2) Justice, war crimes and targeted killings
Linda Kinstler’s Latvian grandfather disappeared after WWII and the family never spoke about him. But as she delved into Boris Kinstler’s life she found he had been a member of a killing brigade in th...Show More
3) Witches
The acclaimed actor Kathryn Hunter plays all three witches in the forthcoming Hollywood adaptation of The Tragedy of Macbeth. The film is directed by Joel Coen and starring Denzel Washington and Franc...Show More
4) Defining mental illness
Reports of a mental health epidemic among young people both leading up to and during the pandemic are now widespread. Sally Holland is the Children’s Commissioner for Wales and a former social worker....Show More
5) Fake news and data lies: how to win an election
Fake news, conspiracy theories, and weaponising data to influence elections are all aspects of contemporary politics. But Amol Rajan explores their historical roots with two eminent historians, Jill L...Show More
6) Contested histories
Europeans and Africans have been encountering one another since as early as the 3rd century, according to the historian Olivette Otele. In her new book, African Europeans: An Untold History, she trace...Show More
7) Medical controversies
Dr Joshua Mezrich is a leading transplant surgeon. He tells Andrew Marr how death and life are intimately connected in his field of expertise. And he explains the extraordinary breakthroughs that have...Show More
8) Freedom: From Kierkegaard to Black Lives Matter
'Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced', wrote the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. His new biographer, Clare Carlisle, explores the life experiences that moulded Kierkegaa...Show More
9) Language and Culture
Andrew Marr discusses the complex interplay between language and culture. The prize-winning American author Jhumpa Lahiri has spent many years living in Italy immersing herself in the language. She h...Show More
10) The mind unravelling
How far does evolution explain mental health? The psychiatrist Randolph Nesse tells Kirsty Wark that negative emotions make sense in certain situations but can become excessive. He argues that positio...Show More