Andrew O’Hagan talks to Tom about the power of defunct objects, from the life-enhancing gadgets of his childhood to Seamus Heaney’s fax machine, and the role lost things play in fiction.

Find Andrew O'Hagan's pieces mentioned in this episode here: https://lrb.me/mixtapespod

Subscribe to the LRB and save 79% off the cover price: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b

Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Who put the arrow in Harold’s eye? Why did Dick Whittington have a cat? Where did the pointed arch come from? These are all questions that the curious and energetic antiquarians of the late 18th and early 19th centuries asked, and often managed to answer.

In the third episode of her series looking at the way history was transformed in the Romantic period, Rosemary Hill talks to Roey Sweet about the new breed of multi-disciplinary investigators, who, in the years after the French Revolution, studied everything from woollen threads to tombstones in their efforts to imagine the past.

Buy Rosemary Hill's book, Time's Witness, from the London Review Bookshop here: https://lrb.me/hill

Subscribe to the LRB and get 79% off the cover price plus a free tote bag: https://lrb.me/history

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Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite talks to Tom about how events in the 1960s, including the Aberfan disaster and a shift in strategy by the Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru, helped pave the way for devolution in Wales, where the Labour-led administration now has one of the most progressive policy agendas in the world.

Read Florence's piece here: https://lrb.me/walespod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Tom Stevenson talks to Thomas Jones about the situation in Ukraine, the effectiveness of some of the weapons in use, from anti-tank missiles to economic sanctions, and the risk of nuclear escalation.

Find Tom Stevenson's recent pieces for the LRB here: https://lrb.me/stevensonpod

Listen to this podcast ad free on our website: https://lrb.me/weaponsofwar

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In the 1740s the Scots were invading England and the wearing of tartan was banned. By the 1850s, Queen Victoria had built her Gothic fantasy in Aberdeenshire and tartan was everywhere. What happened in between?

In the second episode of her series on Romantic history, Rosemary Hill talks to Colin Kidd about the myths and traditions of Scottish history created in the 19th century, and the central role of Walter Scott in forging his country’s identity.

Buy Rosemary Hill's book, Time's Witness, from the London Review Bookshop here: https://lrb.me/hill

Subscribe to the LRB and get 79% off the cover price plus a free tote bag: https://lrb.me/history

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In the first episode of a new four-part series looking at the way history was transformed in the Romantic period, Rosemary Hill is joined by Tom Stammers to consider how an argument over the ‘improvement’ of Salisbury Cathedral in 1789 launched a new attitude to the past and its artefacts. Those sentiments were echoed in revolutionary France, where antiquarians risked the guillotine to preserve the monuments of the Ancien Régime.

Buy Rosemary Hill's book, Time's Witness, from the London Review Bookshop here: https://lrb.me/hill

Subscribe to the LRB and get 79% off the cover price plus a free tote bag: https://lrb.me/history

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James Meek talks to Tom about the events leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, from the fall of Yanukovych to the wars in the Donbas and Nagorno-Karabakh, and considers what may happen next.

Read more by James Meek here: https://lrb.me/jamesmeekpod

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Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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Laleh Khalili talks to Tom about the mythology of covert military operatives, through romance novels, self-help books and, more recently, the business guru, in the form of retired US army general Stanley McChrystal, who earns millions writing books and advising boards on how to inject warlike thinking into their business plans.

Find pieces mentioned in this episode here: https://lrb.me/khalili

Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b

Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks

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This week's discussion, with Laleh Khalili, will be out on Thursday. In the meantime, here's Jorie Graham reading her latest poem for the LRB, 'One the Last Day'. 

Find more readings of poems and pieces here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/lrb-readings

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Geoff Mann talks to James Butler about the economic models developed by William Nordhaus and others, widely used by governments around the world as a tool to tackle climate change. They discuss the moral and practical limitations of Nordhaus’s methods, the danger of relying on their predictions, and whether the use of such models is even an appropriate way of confronting environmental crisis.

Read Geoff Mann's piece here: https://lrb.me/mannpod

Read two pieces from the next issue early:

Laleh Khalili on Stanley McChrystal's business guide: https://lrb.me/khalilipod

Paul Theroux on V.S. Naipaul: https://lrb.me/therouxpod

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