Control of maritime chokepoints helped decide conflicts like the Gallipoli Campaign and the Suez Crisis; now, renewed tensions and shipping disruptions in Hormuz, show the same logic still holds. What once shaped empires now drives energy security, making even small disruptions capable of sending shockwaves through the global economy.

• Guest: Dr. Damian Valdez, lecturer in 19th and 20th century political and economic history at the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
• Producer: Ali Benton

US President Donald Trump has continued to threaten an American invasion of Cuba, telling reporters that US forces 'may stop by Cuba' after they deal with the current quagmire in the Strait of Hormuz. Writer for the New Yorker Jon Lee Anderson has reported from Cuba many times, including recently during America's latest blockade. But how likely really, is a US intervention in Cuba?

• Guest: Jon Lee Anderson, Staff writer at The New Yorker, author of the acclaimed biography Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
• Producer: Julie Street

Last month, US and Israel bombing of Iran caused significant damage to cultural heritage sites - the most serious confirmed damage has been to Tehran’s Golestan Palace, dating to the 14th century, and the 17th-century Chehel Sotoon Palace in Isfahan. Australian archaeologist and tour leader Dr John Tidmarsh knows the region well and is dismayed at the impacts of successive wars on cultural sites across the Middle East. 

Guest: 

• Dr John Tidmarsh, archaeologist at the University of Sydney and tour leader for Academy Travel

The Log Cabin Republicans is a group of LGBTQ+ conservatives in the United States who support Republican policies while also advocating for LGBTQ+ inclusion within the party. Founded in 1977, it often sits at the centre of debate because it represents the tension between conservative politics and LGBTQ+ rights.

Guest: Ed Williams, Executive Director of the Log Cabin Republicans

Producer: Ali Benton

The Albanese government is seeking to reassure Australians of the nation's fuel security, with multiple supply missions to Asia, and a new $20m ad campaign offering fuel-saving advice.  Journalist and ANU Professor Mark Kenny reflects on Australia's long-standing fuel import dependency, now painfully exposed.

Guest:

• Professor Mark Kenny, former journalist for the Age and Sydney Morning Herald, Director of the Australian Studies Institute

Alec Derwent Hope (1907–2000) was one of Australia's most acclaimed poets. His first collection was not published until he was 48 years old, but its release cemented his reputation as the pre-eminent Australian poet of his time. The literary scholar Susan Lever knew Hope, and has written the first biography of his life - from rural Tasmania, to the halls of Oxford, and the heights of Australia's literary scene.

• Guest: Susan Lever, author of A.D. Hope - A life, published by LaTrobe

Susan's recommended reading:

• The Coast of Cerigo
• Moschus Moschiferus. A Song for St Cecilia's Day
• An Epistle: Edward Sackville to Venetia Digby
• Imperial Adam
• The Death of the Bird
• Inscription for a War
• The Return of Persephone 

Daniel Defoe, the writer of 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'Moll Flanders', was a spy in Scotland in the early 1700s, sending information to England, to help England end Scottish independence, and form a parliamentary union. 

The spy craft he used was possibly the first known example of deploying surveillance, espionage and propaganda to achieve political outcomes. 

• Guest: Marc Mierowsky, author of 'A spy amongst us: Daniel Defoe's Secret Service and the plot to end Scottish Independence' (Yale University Press)   

             Lecturer in English at the University of Melbourne, where he researches seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature and intellectual history.  

• Producer: Ann Arnold

Not much has remained untouched in Trump’s second term: the East Wing of the White House torn down, the Kennedy Center board stripped back—the list goes on. Cultural institutions, in particular, have found themselves in the firing line, reshaped by political pressure and an ever-narrowing space for dissent. 

• Guest: Sebastian Smee, Pulitzer Prize winning art critic, formerly of the Washington Post
• Producer: Ali Benton 

Peter Marralwanga was a leading figure in traditional  bark paintings from Western Arnhem Land which depicted important ceremonies and creation stories like the Rainbow Serpent (called Bolung or Ngalyod) and the mermaid-like Yawkyawk. The creation spirits in his paintings were the Djang who made his country and placed the spirits of people within it. While many people from his generation were forced into missions, Peter insisted on staying on country where he was entrusted with the songs, dances and rituals of many different cultural groups. Through his paintings he wanted to share those stories and his work now lives on through his children and the many artists he taught and influenced. 

• Guest: Luke Taylor, anthropologist and co-author (with Ivan Namirrkki) of “Peter Marralwanga: Painter of the Djang of western Arnhem Land” published by ANU Press
• Producer: Catherine Zengerer

India is the world's biggest exporter of, and consumer of, antibiotics. Their overuse and misuse is on the brink of triggering systemic failures across food production, health care, and public welfare. It is part of a wider threat to the world at large, from antimicrobial resistance, when antibiotics no longer work against bacteria.

Guest: Assa Doron, co-author with Alex Broom, of ‘World of Resistance: India and the global antibiotic crisis’ (Harvard University Press)Professor of Anthropology and South Asia at the Australian National University.  

Producer: Ann Arnold