The Chatterbox

With moves to fast-track research into psychedelics to treat serious mental health conditions in the US and a flurry of new scientific studies, we look at the issue here.

How convincing is the evidence that drugs like psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, can help with treatment-resistant depression - and after decades of research, are we on the cusp of seeing these treatments in the UK?

Claudia discusses the science with Dr James Rucker, consultant psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, and she chats with Raya, who took part in one of Dr Rucker's studies to hear about what she experienced.

And why do we often miss what’s right in front of us?

We hear about inattentional blindness and what we miss from the world around us with mathematician Kit Yates.

And Dr Peter Olusoga, senior lecturer in psychology from Sheffield Hallam University, joins us in the studio with a surprise test of attention for our listeners - and brings with him an intriguing new study about why you think your phone is vibrating…

...when it isn’t.

Presenter: Claudia Hammond

Details of organisations offering support with mental health, or feelings of despair are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline.

Kohei Saito, Christoph Sorg and Jan Groos discuss democratic planning in the 21st century. 

Future Histories LIVE.

This episode is part of the ‘Future Histories LIVE’ format. For this, individual episodes are recorded live – that is, in front of an audience – at irregular intervals. This episode is the live recording of a book launch and discussion event that took place on June 11, 2026 at the NACHTASYL Hamburg: 

https://www.thalia-theater.de/de/stuecke/creative-construction-and-the-struggle-over-progress-democratic-planning-in-the-21st-century/361

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfRFz38oh9RH73-pWcME6yw

https://brumaireverlag.myshopify.com/products/creative-construction

https://www.dtv.de/buch/am-ende-des-fortschritts-28534

http://nachtasyl.de/

https://www.thalia-theater.de/de

https://geschichte.univie.ac.at/de/personen/friedrich-august-von-hayek

https://www.dtv.de/buch/systemsturz-28369

https://www.unige.ch/sciences-societe/dehes/membres/cedric-durand

https://www.sowi.hu-berlin.de/de/lehrbereiche/zukunftarbeit/mitarbeiter_innen/pstaab

https://criticaltheoryinberlin.de/people/jacob-blumenfeld/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment

https://www.populismstudies.org/Vocabulary/dark-enlightenment/

Curtis Yarvin coined the term as Blogger under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin

Nick Land summarised Yarvin's theories in a book: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Land

https://linuswestheuser.com/

Westheuser, L. & Siebert, J. (2025). Warum wir Klimapopulismus brauchen. Surplus.  

https://www.surplusmagazin.de/warum-wir-einen-klimapopulismus-brauchen/

https://brumaireverlag.myshopify.com/products/creative-construction

International Karl Polanyi Institute (2019). Karl Polanyi. Life and Works of an Epochal Thinker. Falter. 

https://www.karlpolanyisociety.com/

https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii153/articles/aaron-benanav-beyond-capitalism-1

https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii154/articles/aaron-benanav-beyond-capitalism-2

https://www.kiwi-verlag.de/buch/ulrike-herrmann-das-ende-des-kapitalismus-9783462007015

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362107108_Infrastruktursozialismus_Die_Bedeutung_der_Fundamentalokonomie

Offe, C. (1986). Strukturprobleme des kapitalistischen Staates: Aufsätze zur Politischen Soziologie. Suhrkamp.

https://www.amazon.de/Strukturprobleme-kapitalistischen-Staates-Politischen-Soziologie/dp/3518105493

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674066199

https://www.penguin.co.in/book/planning-democracy/

https://www.academia.edu/121062536/Managing_Decline

https://www.versobooks.com/products/2759-mute-compulsion?srsltid=AfmBOooxWbwMWcWT7UUqrlpAT2yXYPK6B5TSR59_IAoxYR_lp_wpSTgf

https://www.verbrecherverlag.de/shop/totalitaet/

Fraser, N. (2005). Reframing Justice in a Globalizing World. New Left Review. 

https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii36/articles/nancy-fraser-reframing-justice-in-a-globalizing-world

https://feps-europe.eu/publication/a-progressive-roadmap-for-expanding-european-digital-sovereignty/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e59-cedric-durand-on-ecological-planning/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e53-philipp-staab-zur-systemkrise/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e15-jakob-heyer-zu-grundproblemen-einer-postkapitalistischen-produktionsweise-teil-2/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e14-jakob-heyer-zu-grundproblemen-einer-postkapitalistischen-produktionsweise-teil-1/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e51-aaron-benanav-beyond-capitalism-ii/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e50-aaron-benanav-beyond-capitalism-i/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e58-soren-mau-on-planning-and-freedom/

If you like Future Histories, please consider supporting us on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/join/FutureHistories

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English webpage: https://futurehistories-international.com

Episode Keywords

#KoheiSaito, #ChristophSorg, #JanGroos, #Interview, #BookEvent, #FutureHistories, #Hamburg, #Planning, #Capitalism, #Socialism, #DarkSocialism, #Economics, #ClimateChange, #ClimateBreakdown, #Democracy, #BigTech, #WartimePlanning, #DemocraticPlanning, #State, #Collapse, #Market, #Investment, #Progress, #Future, #FutureHistoriesInternational

Alan and Jem discuss the role that images of total catastrophe play in our culture and our politics: from fears of nuclear war to visions of environmental and social breakdown. We talk about, among many other things, the post-war peace movement, Hobbes’ vision of society and The Lord of the Rings. (Jem also misremembers the plot of Silent Running, but gets the general vibe right).

Some books that helped us with this one:

The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture by Mark Bould

(Eco)Anxiety in Nuclear Holocaust Fiction and Climate Fiction: Doomsday Clock Narratives by Dominika Oramus

Nuclear Fictions :Violence and the Narration of the Anglosphere by Michael Gardiner

For more information about Culture, Power, Politics, including information about live events, see culturepowerpolitics.org

If you can support us with a small regular donation, please do so here: https://patreon.com/culturepowerpolitics.

If you’d like to make a one-time donation, please do so here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/xu2grba5tt

Btc donations: bc1q64590fsdzxe7rmfgp7f2jc97v7rp8fr4n0lspf

In this final bonus season episode, Kate and Tim reflect on the morality of focusing on the "co-benefits" of war, and whether they are techno-optimists or techno-pessimists. 

Hosted by energy and climate finance expert Kate Mackenzie, and Tim Sahay from the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University. They co-author The Polycrisis newsletter, which explores connections between energy, geopolitics, climate change, finance and industry. 

• Produced by Sarah Allely
• Original music by Russell Stapleton
• Mixed by Bethany Stewart

Contact us at: [email protected]

Links:

Prisoners of the Wrong Dilemma: Why Distributive Conflict, Not Collective Action, Characterizes the Politics of Climate Change - (Global Environmental Politics, Nov 2020 edition)

Chartbook - Adam Tooze on Substack. Tooze has a new book coming out soon, Carbon, which Tim refers to in this episode. Tooze holds the Shelby Cullom Davis chair of History at Columbia University and serves as Director of the European Institute. 

This week, we're chatting with Anupama Ranawana, author of the book Liberation for the Earth: Climate, Race and Cross from SCM press. In the episode, we talk about Tissa Balasuriya, global solidarity and Scottish politics. 

Buy Anu's book: https://scmpress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780334061267/liberation-for-the-earth

Order our book
https://themagnificast.wordpress.com/pre-order-now-enough-is-enough-degrowth-capitalism-and-liberation-theology/

Get our Winstanley Zine
https://themagnificast.wordpress.com/zines/

Join our patreon
http://patreon.com/themagnificast

Music by Amaryah Armstrong and theillalogicalspoon

Today, when you think of a dollar, the US dollar probably comes to mind first. But that hasn’t always been the case. In this episode of The Story of Money, Brendan Greeley, the author of The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World's Most Powerful Money, explains the origins of the world’s first dollar, the Joachimstaler, and the hapless Bohemian count who played a role in its creation. Greeley, and hosts Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth discuss the dollar’s evolution, and whether it may even outlive the current US dollar system. 

Further reading:

The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World's Most Powerful Money, by Brendan Greeley (2026)  

Credits: Getty Images, Brendan Greeley 

To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@FTTheStoryOfMoney 

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth

Producer: Lulu Smyth

Senior Producers: Michela Tindera and Laurence Knight 

Executive Producer: Manuela Saragosa

Original music and sound design: Breen Turner

Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Giuompasis

Podcast Development: Laura Clarke

FT Global Head of Audio: Flo Phillips 

Video editor: Josh Divney and Kristen Kenyon at Podcast Discovery

Learn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at [email protected].

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rebecca Earle on potato history, Latin America, and Ireland

You can read about her work here:

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/people/staff_index/earle/

https://rebeccaearle.co.uk/

How is value constructed and contested in the wine industry? What is the significance of place and nature? What does the win industry tell us about capitalist production in general?

Stefano Ponte is Professor of International Political Economy at Copenhagen Business School. He joins Josh White to discuss his book Value Struggles: Looking at Capitalism through the Wine Glass (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) which is available as open access. The conversation includes definitions of value and the role of determining it in capitalist production; the significance of terroir and tradition in valuing wine; the institutional politics of prosecco; the ecological consequences of wine production and contestation over sustainability certification; and the racialised contingencies of labour and investment in South Africa.

'New Thinking in Political Economy' is a monthly podcast showcasing cutting-edge political economy research that helps us to understand the world around us.

The series is produced by Chris Saltmarsh and Josh White. This episode was edited by Josh White with support from Chris Saltmarsh. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building loom large in the American imagination, symbolizing the conflicting ideas of liberty and empire; their meanings and characters have shifted over time as the American ethos has shifted. Joining me in this episode is writer, historian, and freelance editor, Dr. Vaneesa Cook, author of Empire and Liberty: The Tied Histories of Two American Landmarks.

Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is “Hail to the spirit of liberty,” composed by John Philip Sousa and performed by Prince’s Orchestra in New York City on January 11, 1912; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a photograph of NASA’s prototype space shuttle Enterprise, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft 905, during a flyover of New York City on Friday, April 27, 2012; the photographer was Bill Ingalls, and the government image is in the public domain.

Additional Sources:

• “Body of Iron, Soul of Fire: The Statue of Liberty,” by Jessie Kratz, National Archive Pieces of History, October 14, 2024.
• “Liberty Island Chronology,” Statue of Liberty, National Park Service.
• “Letter from Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (1834–1904) to his mother, June 24, 1871,” Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library.
• “Édouard Laboulaye and the Statue of Liberty: Forging the Democratic Experience,” by Stephen W. Sawyer, La lettre du Collège de France, 4, 2008-2009.
• “Gov. Alfred Emanuel Smith,” National Governors Association.
• “Oral history interviews with John J. Raskob family,” Hagley Digital Archives.
• “John J. Raskob Dies of a Heart Attack,” New York Times, October 16, 1950.
• “How the Empire State Building Was Built in Record Time,” by Tim Ott, History.com, Originally published October 10, 2024 and updated November 03, 2025.

On writing the history of capitalism.

Political theorist Corey Robin talks to Alex H and Alex G about what is wrong with Sven Beckert's monumental new Capitalism: A Global History.

Have historians returned to writing about big themes and grand narratives?

Why does Beckert date capitalism's emergence to 12th century Arabia?

Is capitalism essentially about free markets and free trade – or about the state, coercion, violence?

If capitalism has no beginning and no end, then does that mean we're still at the end of History?

Links:

The Long Revolution, Corey Robin (review of Sven Beckert), The Nation

/481/ Everything is Plausible: Oligarchy – or Worse ft. Corey Robin