Just how much difference — or not — do the quirks of an individual make to the tide of history? In this month’s episode we welcome historian-turned-Cabinet minister Andrew Adonis, who claims every election is won by the more talented leader. We hear from Wittgenstein's biographer, Ray Monk, who argues that one of the greatest philosophical minds of the lot—Gottlob Frege—lived in a husk of a man. Finally, the globe-trotting journalist, Wendell Steavenson, who followed a refugee family from Syria to the US, describes the heartening signs that America’s open-armed tradition towards immigrants surviving the personality of Donald J Trump.

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