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The LRB Podcast

The LRB Podcast

By: The London Review of Books
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 The LRB Podcast brings you weekly conversations from Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas, hosted by Thomas Jones and Malin Hay, and featuring our fortnightly 'On Politics' podcast hosted by James Butler. From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk© LRB (London) Ltd 1980 - 2021 Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Caravaggio’s Bodies

    Caravaggio’s Bodies
    Mar 4 2026
    In the 1590s, Caravaggio was one of ‘the swaggering, violent young men who terrorised Romans’, Erin Maglaque wrote recently in the LRB, and he ‘made his name by painting this violent, chaotic world’. On this episode, Erin joins Thomas Jones to discuss the ways that Caravaggio represented his models' bodies on canvas – their muscles, skin, hair, clothing and dirty toenails – and what makes his paintings so unnerving that even the people who commissioned them sometimes got rid of them as soon as they could. Find the article and further reading and listening on the episode page: https://lrb.me/caravaggiopod From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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    44 mins
  • On Politics: The Rearmament Consensus

    On Politics: The Rearmament Consensus
    Feb 25 2026
    ‘We must build our hard power because that is the currency of the age,’ Keir Starmer declared to the Munich Security Conference earlier this month. It’s a sentiment shared across Europe, where leaders have cited Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the rise of Chinese power and US instability to justify substantially increased defence spending. But the rearmament consensus has so far not been accompanied by much detail on where the money needs to go or what accountability there will be for the use of this ‘hard power’. To discuss the origins and implications of Europe's militarisation, James is joined by Sam Jones, European security correspondent at the Financial Times, and Anna Stavrianakis, professor of international relations at the University of Sussex. Read more on politics in the LRB: ⁠https://lrb.me/lrbpolitics⁠ From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Early Modern News

    Early Modern News
    Feb 18 2026
    ‘Information in the early modern world could move no faster than the bodies that carried it,’ John Gallagher wrote recently in the LRB. For a horse and rider, that was just under fifteen kilometres per hour. Yet postal systems, as pioneered by the enterprising Tassis family, were becoming ever more reliable and efficient, at first in northern Italy and then across much of Europe – despite plague, war and the efforts of bandits and spies to intercept the mail. If the post was highly organised, news spread more organically, whether in the form of manuscript newsletters, printed pamphlets or word of mouth, at the local barbershop, from a ballad singer on a street corner, on the Rialto bridge in Venice or in the nave of St Paul's Cathedral in London. On this episode of the LRB podcast, John joins Thomas Jones to discuss how information (and disinformation) circulated in early modern Europe, and whether our predecessors were any better than we are at sifting fake news from fact. Read John Gallagher’s piece: https://lrb.me/earlymodernnewspod From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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    45 mins
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Great content but over time vocal fry, verbal filler ("like", "kind of") and up-speak are taking over this podcast more & more. It's hard to listen to, in a way that it never was before. A real⬆️, like, shame⬆️

LRB Podcast

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