How To Academy Podcast

Today's computer scientists play the same role as the oracles of the ancient world and the astrologers of the Middle Ages. Modern predictions not only advise on war, crop output, and marriages, algorithms and statisticians now determine whether we can get a loan, a job, an apartment, or an organ transplant. And when we cede ground to these predictions, we lose control of our own lives. In this powerful reassessment of the ways prediction shapes our everyday lives, Oxford professor Carissa Véliz will explain how putting too much stock in others' predictions makes us vulnerable to charlatans, con artists, dubious technology, and self-deception. Carissa will outline how a free and robust society requires not more prediction, but better preparation. Join us to explore the hidden dangers of prediction in the age of AI, and what we must do to reclaim control of our lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, in our clock-bound, screen-immersed world, most of us rely on machines to mark the hours. Past generations, however, would tell time by shadows shrinking, the midday glow over a mountaintop, the crowing of the rooster in the darkness. They noticed the flowers that close at noon, sensed how the quality of light changes at dusk, and marked time at night by the motion of the stars. Artist and educator Cathy Haynes uncovers the patterns that once shaped the rhythm of our days, showing us how devoting an evening to tracing the stars might help us savour the fullness of the moment, how noticing the daily routines of swallows and blackbirds might bring us forms of companionship that lift us out of narrow human concerns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank Miller transformed the way comics are told and reshaped popular culture in America and the world. In this episode of the podcast, we’ll hear about his struggles as a fresh faced seventeen year-old kid in seedy 1970s New York and his transformation of Batman from a childish has-been into the gritty, noirish hero we love. We’ll head to Hollywood, hear about how the Sin City comics became a blockbuster movie, and find out what he's working on next. In conversation with fellow comics legend and horror novelist, Joe Hill, Frank will share insights into his artistic process, offering lessons for aspiring writers and artists drawn from a lifetime at the summit of popular storytelling. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rising from provincial obscurity to the highest elected office in Rome, Cicero became the greatest orator of his age. Yet Cicero was far more than a master of rhetoric. His long and turbulent life unfolded alongside the collapse of the Roman Republic. Catharine Edwards, one of the world’s foremost experts on Roman history, joins bestselling novelist Robert Harris to trace the many facets of Cicero’s life and legacy – his phenomenal oratory, his political ambitions, his philosophical undertakings, and his ultimate demise. Together, they explore how his uneasy response to the rise of autocratic power continues to provoke admiration and debate today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the midst of a world in upheaval, Erdoğan has remade Turkey in his own image. Once a shining portal that straddled East and West, Istanbul's streets now teem with nationalistic fervour, political repression and rampant corruption. In the old Ottoman neighbourhood of Karagumruk, journalist Suzy Hansen goes looking for the truth about modern Turkey. In this episode of the podcast, Suzy will show how– through the lives of local inhabitants–  conflicts are spiralling into regional crises, deepening the fault lines now fracturing Europe and the Middle East. Join us for an eye-opening account of a nation on the frontlines of history– the rise of an autocrat, the resurrection of an empire, and the human stories unfolding in its shadow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

America’s most celebrated living classicist, Daniel Mendelsohn’s new translation of Homer’s Odyssey has been universally acclaimed as the greatest and most authentic ever to appear in English; capturing both the music and archaic grandeur of Homer while bringing to vivid life the gripping adventure, profound human insight, and powerful themes that ensure this epic poem will continue to be celebrated and loved as one of the greatest works of culture for as long as there are humans alive to hear it. As Christopher Nolan’s new film guarantees a surge of new excitement to this timeless tale of monsters and men, of grief and homecoming, Daniel offers his personal reflections on the meaning of the poem both now and across the ages, and explore the challenges and particularities of translating the Greek of Homer the into modern English. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Beliefs change how we see the world, how we experience suffering, and change what we are able to achieve. The defining characteristics of people who achieve their goals are persistence and the belief that they are capable of reaching what they set out to do. Drawing on neuroscience, psychology, and unforgettable case studies, behavioural expert Nir Eyal reveals how the hidden assumptions we carry shape what we see, how we feel, and what we do—and how to replace them with beliefs that expand what’s possible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Over the course of a fifty-year career, Sir Roger Deakins has proven to be the greatest artist and visionary that the craft of cinematography has ever known. In conversation with James Ellis Deakins and George MacKay, Roger shares the stories behind crafting some of the most iconic and beloved films of all time, from 1917 to No Country For Old Men. From the uniting nature of the film set to the artistic process encompassing conception and technical craft, Roger illuminates the enduring power of cinematography and shares his creative vision from behind the lens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We associate the Romans with majesty and greatness: we marvel at their straight roads and innovative underfloor heating, at the dominance of their army and navy, at the grandeur of their palaces and temples. But the Romans were also enslavers. Acclaimed historian Emma Southon reveals why we have long perpetuated such a limited view of Roman history, one that has effectively erased slaves and their humanity. In this groundbreaking exploration spanning the Empire's homes, theatres and circuses, its fields, markets, and roads, Emma challenges us to take away a more human image of the Roman Empire, in all its harrowing reality, and restores a deeply human understanding of the brutality that built the Empire and which underlay almost every aspect of Roman life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Video games are far more than an entertainment product: they connect people across the globe, creating digital communities capable of shaping reality. And bad actors across the world are keenly aware of their power. Saudi Arabia is spending tens of billions of dollars acquiring video games businesses to wash its reputation. Russia has funded video game development to help spread disinformation about the war in Ukraine. Steve Bannon utilised tactics deployed by online video game communities to propel Donald Trump into the White House. In this episode of the podcast, industry insider George Osborn joins us to highlight what democracies must do to protect and harness the immense power of play before the essential battle for digital influence is lost for good. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How can we find our own direction and purpose in a world of endless possibilities? When life feels too much, is it possible to free ourselves from the concerns that weigh us down? Psychotherapist and psychologist Emmy van Deurzen looks to philosophy to offer a guide to the everyday challenges of living, providing a lifeline for rebuilding trust in the world through existentialism. In this illuminating conversation, Emmy will invite you to step back and discover what really matters. By considering each of the four key aspects of our experience: physical, social, personal and spiritual, Emmy will reveal that freedom starts when you decide to cease letting your life be a thoughtless accident. Harnessing over fifty years' experience in psychology and philosophy, Emmy will show us how to deal with dilemmas and difficulties of every kind, so that even when survival takes all you have, you can rekindle confidence in your own abilities and revitalise your capacity to relate to others. Join us to discover a more engaged way of living that is purposeful, deliberate and buoyant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Neither Bill Browder, a hedge fund manager, nor Jamison Firestone, a corporate lawyer ever intended to become activists fighting the Russian government.  Both were building businesses in Moscow, great believers in Russia, and had front-row seats as Russia’s nascent disorderly democracy gave way to Putin’s initially stable but ultimately corrupt dictatorship. Bill’s Hermitage Capital was the largest foreign portfolio investor in post-Soviet Russia; Jamison was the founder of the country’s first independent foreign law firm. In the Yeltsin years when Bill launched his investment fund, Jamison found himself defending himself and his clients from mafia attacks, dealing with corrupt police officers, and much more. When Putin came to power, the bandits disappeared, but over time the State became the new Mafia and eventually destroyed rule of law. The turning point for both men was when their offices were raided by the police and the registration documents for Hermitage confiscated, Bill and Jamison found themselves at the centre of the biggest tax theft in Russian history: and their lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was assassinated for uncovering the truth. In an attempt to get justice for Magnitsky they ended up going to war with the entire Russian Government, working with Alexei Navalny to expose corruption and lobbying governments across the globe to pass the Magnitsky Acts, sanctioning Russia’s most powerful people. Bill and Jamison join us to share the deeply moving and ultimately chilling story of their time in Russia and fighting Putin from abroad.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How did a country go from joining the Common Market in 1973, only to leave the European Union in an explosive referendum a little over forty years later? Acclaimed political writer Tom McTague chronicles the battle of ideas, events, and personalities that led to the decision which shocked the nation. Drawing on unpublished sources and exclusive interviews, Tom will unearth the roots of ideological conflict that raged between the leading politicians of the twentieth century as they fought for the future of Europe – Charles de Gaulle, Harold Macmillan, Jean Monnet, Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher. Alongside these famous figures, he will uncover the lesser-known actors in Britain’s great post-war drama – the Eurosceptic student radicals, Cold Warriors, eccentric billionaires, and political strategists – who turned the tide of history. Join us for a riveting story of the clashing ideals that have pulled at Britain’s public imagination for more than seven decades, raising that most elemental of questions: who are we? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thrust onto the public stage at just fifteen years old after the Taliban’s brutal attack on her life, Malala quickly became an international icon — but away from the cameras and crowds, she was a young woman struggling to find her place in a world that was telling her the role she had to play. She joins Pandora Sykes to share her extraordinary story: not the one you think you know, but the one she has been waiting to tell. From transformative friendships and first love, to courage, fear, and her enduring commitment to education for girls around the world, Malala reveals an honest and deeply empowering portrait of her journey to finding her way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why did five gilded, charming men, blessed with brains, beauty, and opportunity, choose to betray their country? During their time at Cambridge University in the 1930s, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, John Cairncross and Keeper of the Queen's Pictures Anthony Blunt undertook a clandestine regime to supply British and US intelligence material to the Soviets. Thanks to his Cambridge spies, until the implosion of the spy ring in May 1951, there was barely a secret, and barely a decision made that Stalin did not know about. Using recently declassified files, Antonia Senior will explore how The Five became tools in Stalin's imperial scheme, and responsible– directly and indirectly– for the deaths of thousands of men and women fighting against Soviet domination. Antonia will also uncover how The Five were shielded by the British establishment, exposed as much by their own incompetence as by forensic investigation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of the leaders of British science fiction's 1960s New Wave, M. John Harrison has spent the subsequent five decades inventing new and exhilarating literary worlds that push against the boundaries of genre and expectations of the novel form. Now he returns to the post-apocalyptic milieu with The End of Everything: the story of an artist and her nephew eking out a life in a fictional Kent seaside town where reality itself has collapsed. Offering an oblique satire of life in contemporary Britain and the chaos of our post-truth age, the novel is as strange, demanding, and frightening as the times we live in. In this episode of the podcast, Harrison shares his thoughts on the purpose and value of imaginative fiction, the convergence of his real and authorial selves, and the freedom he has found in old age to write exactly what he wants without compromise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does it mean to be happy? Whilst it’s not always possible to change our circumstances, Action for Happiness founder Mark Williamson believes that we all have the potential to take action to feel better. Blending scientific insights with years of real-world experience, Mark will offer much-needed practical ways to make life happier beyond typical self-help advice, covering a wide range of themes which contribute to lifelong wellbeing. Mark’s guide to happiness will help shift our values from what we can get to what we can give; from seeking validation to finding connection; and from just surviving to actively thriving. Rather than focussing on an unrealistic end point of complete happiness, Mark will reveal that happiness is not just a personal quest, but a gift that can enrich our communities and our world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Karen Hao joins The Nerve's Carole Cadwalladr for an eye-watering insider account of Sam Altman’s Open AI and the burgeoning resistance against it. When it comes to Artificial Intelligence, what do we really have to be afraid of? When long-time AI expert and award-winning journalist Karen Hao began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, it was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely market forces. But the mask quickly fell. She witnessed the company’s meteoric rise first-hand, and as the company came to abandon its founding principles, she sounded the alarm about the sinister impact the company and the wider industry is having on society. As Artificial Intelligence becomes a common enemy, creatives, protesters, labourers, and researchers across the world are fighting back; and Karen is at the heart of documenting this burgeoning global movement. An unmissable listen for anyone concerned with the seismic impacts of this new technology and the motives of the people who make it. This episode is presented in partnership with The Nerve. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Boudicca had two daughters, but history records their existence and nothing more. Sunday Times bestselling author Elodie Harper joins us to discuss her latest novel, Boudicca's Daughters, which reimagines Boudicca and her daughters from the colonised side of history, and explores the inner lives of two young women caught inside a revolution they did not choose. In this episode of the podcast, Elodie will discuss the challenge of writing characters from the historical margins, the hidden Roman Britain her research uncovered, and the moral complexity at the heart of Boudicca's story. She will ask: what does it truly mean to be on the right side of history? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Caroline Sylge reminds us to press pause on the daily overwhelm of modern life by bringing the magic and solace of retreating into your every day. What comes into your mind when you hear the word 'retreat'? Meditation at a mountain monastery, or a trip to far-flung places? While ‘retreats’ can be misconceived as expensive, time-consuming or inaccessible, Caroline Sylge shows us that they don’t have to be. Whether it's for a long weekend, a day, or even an hour, Caroline will help you retreat whoever you are, and whatever your budget or schedule. In this practical guide, Caroline will offer realistic activities to bring the magic of retreating into your life, including how to create a retreat space, and how to retreat with friends and family as well as alone. Using the seasons as an optional guide, Caroline will take us through a range of activities to help you find and sustain a happier version of yourself. From decluttering, to coaching your own life, from finding your flow, to learning how to say no, Caroline will enable you to restore, repair and rejuvenate. Whether you are managing stress and overwhelm, in need of a life change, want to kickstart your creativity or find deep rest and sanctuary, join us for a guide to reconnecting with yourself in sustainable and meaningful ways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Erica Wagner may be the first ever author to write both a landmark biography and a historial novel about the same person. The engineer Washington Roebling took up residence in her head when she was sixteen years old and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time; her 2017 book Chief Engineer was a cradle-to-the-grave biography giving us the facts of his life, and her new novel Wash boldly imagines his interior life, moving freely across time, space and memory to replicate the experience of selfhood. In this episode of the podcast, she shares her insights into the mind of an extraordinary man and the art of life writing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Neurologist Majid Fotuhi is leading the charge in revolutionising how we understand human intelligence, brain health and age-related cognitive decline. By uncovering the true wonder of how the brain works and its infinite potential for growth and change, Majid will reveal how targeted lifestyle changes can prevent, treat, and even reverse cognitive decline. Following Majid’s 12-week programme, more than 80% of patients achieve exceptional improvements in memory, focus and other cognitive functions. In elderly patients with mild cognitive impairment, MRIs show a 3% increase in the volume of the hippocampus, the key brain region for learning and memory. Drawing on these clinical trials, Majid will provide essential strategies to optimize brain health through diet, sleep, and managing stress. Majid will also offer practical, scalable techniques to enhance memory, problem-solving, and focus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A great thinning of the skies is underway. Dusk and dawn are growing quiet as birdlife faces a rapid decline across the world. It does not have to be this way — but we will not save what we do not love. From how sparrowhawks' eyes change colour throughout the bird's life, to how cuckoo birds use surprising stealth as mothers, the creators of The Lost Words Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris illuminate the miracle that is birdlife, and reveal the threats which shadow these extraordinary creatures. With warmth and urgency, they call upon us to remember how birds have long intersected with the histories of our ancestors, and how we can fight for a future where these wild lives continue to interweave with our own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thinking about your life is a normal part of being human.  Often, it is helpful to analyse a situation or revisit a problem in your mind, but if you find yourself constantly dwelling on your thoughts – with no sign of resolution – then it becomes a problem. In this episode of the podcast, acclaimed clinical psychologist Dr Jessamy Hibberd will show you how to break free from the cycle of overthinking. Through expert advice, and real-life examples from her clinic, Jessamy will reveal the reasons behind why we get stuck in overthinking patterns. Dr Jessamy will offer practical tips to increase your awareness of your overthinking habits, identify your doom spirals, and help you find healthier coping strategies that redirect your thoughts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How did a 1960s spoof of Cold War technocracy become a bible for far-right militias in the present? Political journalist Phil Tinline traces the strange journey of the Report from Iron Mountain. In the mid 1960s, a group of New York satirists conceived of an ingenious hoax; a report purportedly written by government technocrats, planning for an unprecedented economic and political catastrophe: what if world peace broke out? The Report from Iron Mountain became an bestseller, its scathing indictment of the military industrial complex taken seriously even by those who correctly identified the document as a work of satire. Not everyone was so astute. Long after the Report was revealed to be a spoof, conspiracists refused to accept its inauthenticity, and the document mutated into a cornerstone of the far-right ideology that threatens American democracy today. In this episode of the podcast, political journalist Phil Tinline dives into the bizarre and frightening legacy of a satire that might just have been too clever for its own good. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tom Holland is a storyteller whose range and erudition seem to be as unbounded as history himself. Already a wildly acclaimed bestselling author, his chart-topping podcast The Rest is History, the third most downloaded podcast globally, made superstars of Tom and his co-host Dominic Sandbrook. Now he shares with us his passion: Ancient Rome. The ancient Roman empire was the supreme arena, where emperors had no choice but to fight, to thrill, to dazzle. To rule as a Caesar was to stand as an actor upon the great stage of the world. It was a world both familiar and utterly alien to our own. In this episode of the podcast he shares a glimpse into the inner worlds of the first twelve Roman emperors with legendary writer and director Armando Iannucci. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming of age has always been a time of angst and inner turmoil, especially for girls. But today, those worries exist in a world of AR filters, TikTok “plastic surgeons,” dating apps, hookup culture, online porn, profit-driven therapy apps, and even fully customizable AI girlfriends. All of it is personalized by algorithms designed to prey on their deepest insecurities and delivered on platforms engineered to be addictive. While previous generations of women were relentlessly sold products and procedures, girls today have become the product. In this episode of the podcast, Freya India will explore how technological and cultural shifts over the past decade have shaped the inner lives of young women and girls—from anxieties about appearance and reputation to the dynamics of friendships and romantic relationships. She will expose the ruthless commercialization of girlhood—an exploitation corporations are all too eager to profit from. Freya will also share ways for girls to reclaim their privacy, protect their dignity, and, above all, rediscover what it means to be people rather than products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We all carry the imprint of our earliest years. Childhood is brief, yet its impact is lifelong. Some parts of us were met with love while other parts were met with silence, criticism, or disapproval. Many of us still protect the parts of ourselves that once felt unsafe. As adults, we often fall into patterns that feel irrational or out of character – shutting down, lashing out, people-pleasing, or self-sabotaging. Beneath those reactions lies our inner child, a younger part of us still trying to get its needs met the only way it knows how. While we can't change what happened, we can change how it lives within us and impacts our lives today. In this episode of the podcast, Cornell trained holistic psychologist Nicole LePera will guide us through how we can meet our inner child to begin repairing our oldest wounds, and to question the stories we've long believed about who we have to be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Born into an upper-middle class family and raised in colonial Shanghai, JG Ballard's worldview was profoundly shaped by his internment by the occupying Japanese army in the Second World War — an experience that formed the basis of Empire of the Sun, the novel that brought him international fame. For his countless devoted fans his genius lies not only in this singular semi-autobiographical novel but in his outrageous, nihilistic, bravura works where cutting-edge technologies, social pathologies, and human nature collide — from 1973's Crash to his final novel Kingdom Come, which depicts the rise of the far-right in the UK. The novelist Christopher Priest began a biography of Ballard before his passing in 2024; his wife Nina Allan completed the work, in the process turning a book about Ballard's life into a tribute to both Ballard and Christopher. In this episode of the podcast, she shares her insights into both authors' lives and works and explores what they have to say to us in 2026. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Russia's Dowager Empress was pregnant with the future Tsar, she dreamed that a peasant would one day kill her son. The idea terrified her, and for the rest of her days she 'lived under the pressure of the prophecy'. Grigori Rasputin had no official position. A barely literate moujhik from Siberia, he had no forces at his command. He was a devoted monarchist, not a revolutionary. And yet, through his uncanny seduction of the imperial household, he contributed more than any other individual to the collapse of the greatest autocracy in the world. Now one of our foremost historians, Sir Antony Beevor, joins us to pierce the fog of fantasy and reveal an unparalleled portrait of one of history’s greatest masterminds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices