How To Academy Podcast

Gary Lightbody - On Grief, Love, and the Power of Music

28 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How do we comprehend the depths of love in hindsight, and the immensity of grief? How can we say 'I love you' to a listener who is no longer alive? An...

Kenneth Roth - Fighting for Humanity: Three Decades of Leading Human Rights Watch

25 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch for three decades, Kenneth Roth has dedicated his life to investigating and uncovering abuses across t...

Assyriologist Selena Wisnom - Mesopotamia and the Making of History

21 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Mesopotamian civilisation filled more than half of human history: a culture with advanced mathematics and astronomy, a religion that influenced both a...

Agnes Callard - Socratic Wisdom for Our Modern Times

18 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Across the headlines, we appear to be falling into a post-truth world. But the questions that most resonate with humanity—on life, death, love, and ...

Psychologist to the Lionesses Kate Hays - How to Win

14 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Whether its the football pitch of the FIFA Women’s World Cup or the diving board of the Olympics, Dr Kate Hays is a woman who knows how to win. Now...

Courtney Love and Todd Almond - The Legend of Bob Dylan

11 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After Kurt Cobain, Bob Dylan is Courtney Love’s all-time rock’n’roll hero. Todd Almond performed Dylan’s songbook on Broadway. They join us fo...

Sumit Paul-Choudhury - Why You Should Be an Optimist

07 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Optimism, irrational though it might be, is central to the human psyche: it gives us an advantage both in everyday life and in the evolutionary race. ...

George Osborne Meets Tom Holland - The Lives of the Caesars

04 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tom Holland is a storyteller whose range and erudition seem to be as unbounded as history itself. Now he brings us closer than ever to the lives of th...

Andrew Brodsky - The Secrets of Successful Virtual Communication

28 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Yes, that meeting could have been an email. And that email? Maybe it should have been a voice memo. The hidden secrets of virtual communication are ma...

Sahil Bloom - How to Design Your Dream Life

25 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’re constantly told that money is the shortcut to a good life, the only type of wealth worth pursuing. But what would it mean to lead a truly weal...

Historian and Novelist Ada Palmer - Was the Renaissance Really a Golden Age?

22 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We remember the Renaissance as an age of human flourishing: a rebirth after centuries of misery, a return to the glories of antiquity where the cultur...

Sunita Sah - The Power of No in a World that Demands Yes

18 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How can we say 'no' when it matters most? Cornell University's Dr Sunita Sah joins us to share the radical need for each of us to rediscover our core ...

Anna Sulan Masing - Chinese and Any Other Asian

14 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

'Chinese and Any Other Asian.' On official documents, a vast range of identities in the East and South East Asian (ESEA) population in the UK is reduc...

Neal Stephenson – Dawn of the Atomic Age

12 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

History and geopolitical intrigue meet fiction under the masterful skill of #1 New York Times bestselling author Neal Stephenson. He joins us with a n...

Activist, Actor and Baroness Lola Young - Defying The Odds

07 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Lola Young has been an actress, an academic, an activist and campaigner, well known for her work on modern slavery and climate justice. But from the a...

Frankie Boyle Meets George Monbiot - The Fight Against Neoliberalism

04 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why are are the rich getting richer? Why is prosperity moving further and further out of reach for most people? An iconoclast unafraid to speak truth ...

Neuroscientist Adam Zeman - The New Science of Imagination

31 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We live in the here and now much less than we tend to think. Imagination isn’t the exception in our daily lives; it’s our default setting. Far fro...

Novelist and Activist Cory Doctorow - Fear and Loathing in Silicon Valley

28 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Whether anticipating the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in his short story Radicalised, helping the world to wake up to the grif...

Caitlin Moran Meets Alex James - Cocaine, Crash Diets and the Return of Blur

21 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

One winter’s night, Alex James received an unexpected call. Blur had been invited to play their biggest gig ever: Wembley Stadium. The only trouble ...

Yanis Varoufakis Meets Slavoj Žižek

17 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Erudite and comic, ironic and profound, philosopher Slavoj Žižek has travelled into territory where few of us dare to tread – and aged 75 he shows...

Cosmologist Roberto Trotta - How the Stars Shaped Civilisation

10 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Both infinitely larger than ourselves and one of humanity's greatest commonalities, the night sky has shaped millennia of human history. Cosmologist R...

Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk – A Life in Writing

07 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Orhan Pamuk has traveled far and wide, around the world, across the page, and in the landscapes of his mind. Now he joins Erica Wagner to illuminate h...

Neuroscientist Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston - How and Why We Should Abolish Death

17 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Can scientists now preserve human minds beyond death - and if so, should they? Australian neuroscientist and science communicator Ariel Zeleznikow-Joh...

Vanity Fair’s Lili Anolik - Joan Didion v. Eve Babitz

13 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

‘Could you write what you write if you weren’t so tiny, Joan?’ -Eve Babitz, in a letter to Joan Didion, 1972 One was the New York name on litera...

Lucy Hughes-Hallett - The Brief & Brilliant Life of the Duke of Buckingham

10 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham: never had King James I's court seen a man of such exquisite beauty. Capturing the heart of the King, becoming his...

Andrew Roberts - 150 Years of Winston Churchill

06 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Few historical figures in the British political landscape have been as monumental as Winston Churchill. By the time of his death at the age of 90 in 1...

Dr Guy Leschziner - A Neuroscientist's Guide to the Seven Deadly Sins

03 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The seven deadly sins are the vices of humankind that define immorality, the roots of all evil in the world. But do these sins really represent moral ...

Rory Stewart Meets Saad Mohseni - The Fight for a Free Press in Kabul

29 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the Kabul offices of Moby Group, Afghanistan's largest media company, hundreds of men and women continue to bring programmes and news to the countr...

Dr Mithu Storoni - How To Transform the Way You Work

26 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We are expected to operate with industrial-era efficiency at work. But creativity and high-quality ideas can't be generated on the assembly line. So h...

Cambridge Professor David Spiegelhalter - How to Navigate Change, Ignorance, Risk and Luck

22 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We live in a world where uncertainty is inevitable. How should we deal with what we don’t know? And what role do chance, luck and coincidence play i...

Psychologist Alison Fragale - How Women Can Get the Success They Deserve

18 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do you balance kindness and competence in the workplace? How can you get the success you deserve, earn credit for your accomplishments, and naviga...

WATCHMEN author Alan Moore - Twenty Six Letters, Infinite Worlds

14 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

“With just 26 letters, you can create any conceivable universe.” - Alan Moore With the rise of new technology, from artificial intelligence to vi...

SAPIENS author Yuval Noah Harari - Humanity in the Age of AI

14 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Long gone are the days when pigeons relayed our messages; now we have a flood of information at all times, from social media to artificial intelligenc...

Robyn Davidson - Journeys of a Lifetime

09 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Best-known for her journey trekking across the Australian desert, Robyn Davidson joins us to reveal a new expedition, this time into the past. From th...

Award winning novelist Rebecca Kuang - Yellowface

01 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Aged 27, Rebecca F. Kuang is already a New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling, multiple-prize winning author of five novels, a graduate of both...

Historian of Science Natalie Lawrence - Why Monsters Matter

01 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Since the dawn of humanity monsters have loomed large in our collective imagination. But why do frightening beasts hold such a powerful grip on us? N...

Yale Historian Sunil Amrith - How Humanity Reshaped the Planet

29 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the last five centuries, humankind has brought change to every inch of the Earth, in a story of environment and empire, of genocide and ecocide, of...

Harvard Historian Serhii Plokhy - Chernobyl Under Russian Occupation

21 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Harvard Professor and Ukrainian-born historian Serhii Plokhy joins the podcast to reveal the resilience and courage of the Ukrainian workers held host...

Pulitzer Prize winners Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig - How Donald Trump Squandered His Fortune

15 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Soon after announcing his first campaign for presidency, Donald J. Trump declared that life “had not been easy for me”, delivering a campaign narr...

Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk - When the Body Keeps the Score

11 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Traumatic experiences leave their imprint on the body as well as the mind, but they need not define us. Fusing insights from thirty years at the cutti...

Anthropologist Webb Keane - Animals, Robots, Gods

07 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Since the dawn of humanity, our sense of ourselves has been shaped by things that seem human - or nearly human - but are not. From sacrificial animals...

Psychologist Mary Anderson - How to be a Happy High-Achiever

04 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ambitious yet anxious? Harvard-trained clinical psychologist Dr Mary E. Anderson joined us with an actionable guide to maintaining your edge all while...

David Olusoga and Alan Lester - The Truth About the British Empire

03 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In our turbulent times, how do we grapple with our past? Are we capable of grappling with Britain's imperial history without whitewashing? David Oluso...

Psychotherapist and Bestselling Author Anna Mathur - How to Tame Your Mind's Greatest Fears

28 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Psychotherapist and Sunday Times bestselling author Anna Mathur joins the podcast to debunk traditional strategies to manage common worries and introd...

Sam Leith and Amy Jeffs - Tales of Wonder, Myth and Magic

24 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Longtime listeners will remember the artist and folklorist Amy Jeffs from her episode exploring the medieval wilderness; her latest book Saints return...

Oliver Burkeman - How to Live a Meaningful Life in an Age of Bewilderment

20 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Oliver Burkeman’s global bestseller Four Thousand Weeks was a reflection upon our brief time on earth that changed lives and inspired thousands. Now...

Novelist Rumaan Alam - on Wealth, Power, and Entitlement

16 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Barrack and Michele Obama loved Rumaan Alam's apocalyptic third novel, Leave the World Behind, so much they helped turn it into a wildly successful Ne...

Superstar election forecaster Nate Silver - The Art of Risking Everything

10 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Nate Silver's remarkable career has seen him conquer many seemingly unrelated worlds: professional poker, sports journalism, and the political forecas...

Stefan Stern - The Lady Macbeth Guide to Ambition

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Many of us wrestle with daunting life-choice questions from time to time: what should I be aiming for? Am I being ambitious enough? Has an excess of a...

Mark Galeotti - Putin, Prigozhin and the Future of Russia

03 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Yevgeny Prigozhin emerged as one of the most dangerous warlords in the world and as one of Vladimir Putin’s chief rivals in Russia’s tumultuous po...

Senior Jewellery Curator at the V&A Helen Molesworth - The Dazzling History of Gems

30 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From ancient thrones to Hollywood stars, gems have not only adorned humanity but also shaped its history. How did emeralds and rubies etch our origin ...

Philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith - How Animal Minds Transformed Planet Earth

27 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Traditional stories of the evolution of life on our planet tell us that we and all other creatures on Earth were shaped by evolution. But how do minds...

Yuval Noah Harari Meets Katherine Rundell - Unstoppable Us (Summer Repeat)

22 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever wondered how we got here? From hunting mammoths, to flying to the moon? Historian Yuval Noah Harari introduced millions of readers to t...

Fern Academy Prize winner Gabriela Denise Frank - Fear and Loathing in White Collar America

20 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Created in collaboration with Fern Press and Tortoise Media, the Fern Academy Prize was created to discover and nurture unpublished writers who shine ...

Dr Emily Leeming - The Life Changing Science of Gut Health

16 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A healthy gut functions like a successful company, with different roles and employees. So how do we keep these employees happy? In this episode of t...

William Dalrymple and Sathnam Sanghera – British Imperialism in India (Summer Repeat)

13 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How did the Mughal empire – which then generated just under half the world’s wealth – come to be replaced by the first global corporate power –...

Henry Oliver - How To Find Success in Midlife

09 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We're told repeatedly that if we’re going to achieve anything, we’d better do it while we’re young. But society is wrong. With armfuls of exampl...

Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum - The Dictators Who Want to Run the World

06 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For the first time in history, autocracies are working together to stay in power. Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad actor, but by sophisti...

World Record Breaking Mountaineer Lhakpa Sherpa and Filmmaker Lucy Walker

31 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Lhakpa Sherpa broke a record: she was the first Nepali woman to climb and descend Everest. Then she broke another: summiting for the tenth time, she h...

Neuroscientist Patrick House - How to Make Sense of Consciousness

29 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Stanford neuroscientist Patrick House joins us with an introduction to the best of our current paradigms for making sense of consciousness. In convers...

Pioneering Biologist J Craig Venter - The Future of Life on Earth

23 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A household name following both the mapping of the human genome and, in 2010, the creation of the first synthetic organism, J Craig Venter is a singul...

New York Times Bestseller Paolo Bacigalupi - Money and Power in the Fantasy Renaissance

19 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Renowned as a pioneer of climate fiction, Paolo Bacigalupi's novels The Windup Girl and The Water Knife earned him a reputation as one of the esse...

Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell - When the Wild Things Returned

16 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After years of running a failing farm in West Sussex, Isabella Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell decided to hand back control to nature. Slowly but...

Neuroscientist Kelly Clancy - How Games Change Reality

12 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Kelly Clancy is both a neuroscientist and a physicist, and has held positions at MIT and DeepMind. She's also the author of Playing With Reality, a ne...

Bestselling Sociologist Sarah Thornton - Why Breasts Matter

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After years of biopsies, best-selling author Sarah Thornton made the difficult decision to have a double mastectomy. But, after her reconstructive sur...

Stephanie Harrison - How to Get Happiness Right in a World That’s Got it Wrong

05 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In a society where stress and competition run rampant, how can we find a more fulfilling sense of happiness? Well-being expert and founder of The New ...

Ruchir Sharma - How Capitalism Went Wrong

02 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What went wrong with capitalism? Drawing on his decades of experience as a world-leading investor and FT columnist, leading financial analyst Ruchir...

Olympic Gold medallist and entrepreneur Mark Tuitert – How Stoic Philosophy Can Change Your Life

28 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For twenty years, Mark Tuitert has used the principles of Stoic philosophy to become a gold-medal winning Olympic champion athlete, successful entrepr...

Yanis Varoufakis - The Rise of Technofeudalism

25 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to technofeudalism. The owners of big tech have become the world’s feudal overlords—replacing capitalism with a new system that defies dem...

Bestselling Science Writer David Robson - The Laws of Social Connection

21 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Social connection is essential to our wellbeing, not only fuelling creativity and enriching our sense of meaning in life, but also adding years to our...

Naomi Klein - The Mirror World of Conspiracists and the Far-Right

19 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When Naomi Klein discovered that a woman who shared her first name, but had radically different, harmful views, was getting chronically mistaken for h...

Clover Stroud - On Home, Belonging, and Letting Go

14 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When her husband's work required journalist Clover Stroud to uproot from Oxfordshire to Washington DC, she began a deep and profound reflection on the...

Anna Funder - Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life

11 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If you read the major biographies of George Orwell you would be hard-pressed to know that his wife Eileen shaped his life and writing in profoundly si...

Booker Prize winner Richard Flanagan - On Love, Memory, and History

07 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

One of Australia's leading authors, Richard Flanagan won the Booker for The Narrow Road to the Deep North, a novel informed by his father's experience...

My Octopus Teacher star Craig Foster - How to be Wild

05 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A decade ago, living in a city and feeling exhausted and empty, Craig Foster decided to return to his birthplace—the Cape of Good Hope—and dive in...

Charles Duhigg - How to be a Supercommunicator

31 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Who and what are supercommunicators? They’re the people who can steer a conversation to a successful conclusion. They are able to talk about difficu...

George Monbiot Meets Nish Kumar - The Secret History of Neoliberalism

28 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An iconoclast unafraid to speak truth to power, George Monbiot has been fighting for a better future for our planet for decades. In this episode, he j...

Africa Brooke and Jameela Jamil - How To Break Free From Self-Sabotage

23 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do we build authentic relationships with others and with ourselves when we feel like we're walking on eggshells so much of the time? In our deeply...

Haemin Sunim - When Things Don't Go Your Way

21 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What do we do when 'we are given too many lemons to make into lemonade'? Zen Buddhist teacher and international bestseller Haemin Sunim joins us with ...

Mo Gawdat & Alice Law - A Guide to Stress-Free Living

17 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After spending decades as a leader in tech, Mo Gawdat turned his brilliant mind towards human flourishing, and showed how we can grow from our lives' ...

James O'Brien Meets Ian Dunt - How They Broke Britain

14 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this spirited and candid episode, the incisive LBC presenter and bestselling author James O'Brien addresses the state of the nation. In conversatio...

Slavoj Zizek Meets Ash Sarkar - A 75th Birthday Celebration

10 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Erudite and comic, ironic and profound, philosopher Slavoj Žižek has travelled into territory where few of us dare to tread – and at 75 he shows n...

Robin Sharma Meets Ali Abdaal - How to Be Truly Wealthy

07 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In a world fixated on the conventional notion of success – marked by relentless hustle, sacrificing wellbeing and missing out on cherished moments w...

George the Poet - Me Music and the War on Blackness

03 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

George the Poet knows better than anybody the importance of understanding your surroundings. Born to Ugandan parents on the St Raphael’s Estate in N...

Economist Andrew Scott — How We Can Sustain Longer, Healthier Lives

30 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

With the majority of today's youths in the UK having more than a 50% change of living past 90, the key question becomes: how do we live well for longe...

Rebecca Boyle - The Story of Our Moon

26 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The moon is more than a source of majesty and wonder; it has profoundly shaped the course of life on planet Earth. Children know the moon is a source ...

Neuroscientist Clayton Page Aldern and Dr Xand van Tulleken - How the Climate Crisis Affects Our Brains and Bodies

24 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The very real consequences of climate change are taking a toll on our humanity from the inside out: and climate anxiety is just the tip of the iceberg...

Psychotherapist Emma Reed Turrell - How to Overcome Your Blind Spots

19 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After 15 years of treating clients as a psychotherapist, Emma Reed Turrell has observed one recurring factor that plagues her patients: blind spots. T...

Christiana Figueres - Our Story of Nature

17 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Christiana Figueres' podcast Outrage + Optimism is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand the complexity of the climate situation. Thi...

Philip Ball – How Life Works

12 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Philip Ball returns to the How To Academy Podcast to share the extraordinary revelations of contemporary science and make us think again about what we...

Gary Stevenson – Confessions of a Trader

09 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Gary Stevenson was the youngest trader in the whole city, and became the most profitable one too at his bank after betting against the economy. But wh...

Classicists Mary Beard and Jo Quinn - Who Made The West?

05 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We think we know what it was like to rule – and be ruled – in the Ancient Roman world. We think we know that Roman values and ideas formed the cor...

Neuroscientist Charan Ranganath meets Robin Ince - Why We Remember

02 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over twenty-five years, neuroscientist Charan Ranganath has studied the flawed, incomplete and purposefully inaccurate nature of memory to find that o...

Harvard's Christopher Palmer - Metabolism and Mental Health

26 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dr Christopher Palmer advocates a metabolic approach to mental health, focussing on the the things we put in our body as the key to how they function....

Diplomat Christiana Figueres and former Unilever CEO Paul Polman - How to Fight the Climate Crisis

22 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A household name in the climate movement, Costa Rican diplomat Christiana Figueres was Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention ...

Justin Webb Meets Brian Klaas - Why Everything We Do Matters

20 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What if, by exploding our illusion of control, we can make better decisions and live happy, fulfilling lives? Offering an entirely new perspective, my...

Neuroscientist Tali Sharot - How to See the World Anew

15 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We get used to dirty air, people grow to accept authoritarianism, take foolish risks, and we are more liable to believe misinformation than ever befor...

Philosopher Tom Chatfield - How Technology Changes Humanity, From Fire to AI

12 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Philosophy Tom Chatfield loves technology and the humanities with equal passion, and has spent a lifetime thinking about our relationship to the devic...

Novelist Kiley Reid - Come and Get It

08 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The author of the New York Times bestseller Such a Fun Age returns with a tale of campus politics, desire, and bad behaviour. How much of yourself are...

Neuroscientist Dr Richard Restak – How To Prevent Dementia

05 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Neurologist and professor Richard Restak has dedicated his life to the science of brain health. Now he returns to How To Academy to share more ways to...