The empire that once controlled all or part of forty modern European, Asian, and African countries no longer exists. Rome didn’t fall all at once, and it didn’t fall for any one simple reason. But it did fall. And people down the centuries have been drawn to the story of Rome’s decline and fall with a mixture of fear, curiosity, and an irresistible desire to draw parallels between the fate of the Roman Empire and the present day.

Today I’m joined by Edward J. Watts, professor of history at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of many books, including ‘The Final Pagan Generation’ and ‘The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome.’

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Alec Ryrie argues that the age of Hitler is not the 1930s and 1940s, it is our own lifetimes. As the influence of Christianity receded from the 1960s onwards, the figure of Hitler stepped into the breach – the most potent possible symbol of evil, around whom the Western moral imagination was structured.

But as the Second World War recedes into history, this anti-Nazi moral consensus is unravelling, which means that our whole system of morality is coming under pressure. What happens when the Age of Hitler comes to an end? 

Alec Ryrie is Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University and author of ‘The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It’.

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The science of sex differences is intensely political. Traditionalists tend to exaggerate the innate differences between men and women, while progressives tend to minimise them, arguing that the behavioural differences we see between the sexes are a product of nurture, rather than nature. 

Steve Stewart-Williams wants to offer a more cautious assessment. There are a lot of average differences between the sexes, some of them very pronounced. There are also a lot of small to moderate differences that are visible at the population level, but not necessarily at the individual level. This is a controversial subject, but also an enormously interesting one, with obvious relevance to all of our lives. 

Steve Stewart-Williams is a professor of psychology at the University of Nottingham Malaysia and author of books including 'Darwin, God, and the Meaning of Life' and 'The Ape That Understood the Universe.' His latest book is titled 'A Billion Years of Sex Differences: How Evolution Shaped the Minds of Men and Women.'

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Western elites tend to be xenophilic. They love the cultural other, and they abhor the dullness and small mindedness they see in their own countrymen. But, as Chris Bayliss points out, this is typically combined with what he describes as a “studiously parochial” attitude towards what the cultural other is actually like.

In his writing for The Critic Magazine, Chris often draws from his experiences of living and working overseas, including as a diplomat. Today we discuss the many areas of British public life that have been radically transformed by mass immigration from parts of the world in which very different cultural assumptions prevail. What happens when one of the most individualistic cultures in the history of the world invites large numbers of immigrants from some of the least individualistic cultures?

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The institution of marriage has changed a lot over the last few centuries. As Eli Finkel explains in ‘The All of Nothing Marriage’ – truly one of my favourite social science books – Americans of the early nineteenth century would look with confusion on our modern attitudes towards what a spouse ought to be. An economic partner, sure. A co-parent, obviously. But a best friend, even a soul mate?

Today, Eli and I track these changes across American history, and we ask whether our modern attitudes towards marriage have some significant downsides. It seems that the best marriages are now better than ever. But it also seems that the institution as a whole has become more fragile.

Eli is a social psychologist at Northwestern University and also the co-host – along with Paul Eastwick, another MMM guest – of the podcast ‘Love Factually’, which analyses movies through the lens of relationship science.

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