The LRB Podcast
Where it charts
Today’s combined position on our country charts.
Ranking history
View as table
| Date | Combined Rank | Apple Podcasts |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 7 | #148 | #148 |
About the show
Latest episodes
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Fascism in a time of AI
October 6, 2026 · 54 minSince Trump first took office in 2016 there has been a debate on the left as to whether he and other authoritarian right-wing leaders, such as Viktor Orbán and Narendra Modi, should be described as fascist. Some have dismissed the label as…
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An Alternative History of the Microphone
October 1, 2026 · 47 minThe first microphones were invented in the 1870s as components for telephones. By the 1930s, politicians as unalike as FDR and Hitler were using microphones as both audio devices and visual props for projecting power. The history of the…
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On Politics: What happened to the intellectual?
September 23, 2026 · 1 hr 7 minWilliam Davies joins James to consider what distinguishes intellectuals from the technocrats, academics, experts, polemicists, thought leaders, gurus and utopians who compete for our attention, and to ask whether there’s still a role for…
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What’s the point of literary criticism?
September 18, 2026 · 37 minAs universities are cutting English degree programmes and ever fewer people are taking English A-level, Colin Burrow isn't the only one asking ‘what’s the point of literary criticism?’ But he has several answers, and in this episode he…
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On Politics: Germany's Far-Right Future?
September 10, 2026 · 1 hr 4 minOn Sunday, the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won the state election in Saxony-Anhalt with 44 per cent of the vote, the highest share for any far-right party in post-1945 Germany. Among the many surprising aspects of the…
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The Romantic History of the Bayeux Tapestry
September 6, 2026 · 60 minThe story of why, and how, an arrow ended up in Harold's eye in the Bayeux Tapestry is tied to the politics of the early 19th century, to Napoleon's ambitions and Britain's national pride, and the work of two antiquaries, Anne and Charles…
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Roman Scandinavia
September 3, 2026 · 35 minIn the late 160s AD, the Roman armies of Marcus Aurelius recruited large numbers of troops from the islands east of Jutland, in what is now Denmark. After Marcus’ death in 180, his German campaigns were abandoned and the Romans withdrew to…
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Travel with Close Readings: ‘Invisible Cities’ by Italo Calvino
August 30, 2026 · 1 hr 37 minItalo Calvino’s novella Invisible Cities is a hypnagogic reimagining of Marco Polo’s time in the court of Kublai Khan. Polo describes 55 impossible places – cities made of plumbing, free-floating, overwhelmed by rubbish, buried underground…