In Conversation with Jack Jacobs

Feb 28 2025 20 ep. 54 mins 10
In Conversation with Jack Jacobs Podcast artwork

How can we keep our institutions alive and healthy in times of cultural change? In conversation with a range of leaders, academics, writers and artists I’m going to consider how we might renew our cultural life through ideas and imagination.

  Society & Culture
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#20 The Milk Tea Alliance Inside Asia's Struggle Against Autocracy with Prof. Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Feb 28 2025 54 mins  
In this conversation I speak with Prof. Jeffrey Wasserstrom about his upcoming book The Milk Tea Alliance: Inside Asia's Struggle Against Autocracy and Beijing (June, 2025). We discuss his current work on Orwell and Asia, Orwell's essay on Gandhi, the new democratic solidarity movements arising across Asia in resistance to authoritarianism in Thailand, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and th

#18 The Call to Repair with Dr Iain McGilchrist

Nov 14 2023 53 mins  
In this podcast, Dr Iain McGilchrist and I speak about themes from his book The Matter with Things. We discuss the collapse of Western civilisation’s spiritual life, the hemisphere hypothesis as Dr McGilchrist presents it in his neuroscientific research and his philosophical investigations, his sense of the Sacred, the unknown of the All, and how we might find a space for silence

#17 The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptation of Violence with Professor Faisal Devji

Nov 14 2023 47 mins  
In this podcast, I speak with Professor Faisal Devji from St Antony’s College, Oxford, about Mahatma Gandhi’s complex relationship with violence, revolution, and reform.

#16 The Untold Stories of Leonard Cohen with Michael Posner

Nov 14 2023 48 mins  
Taking a (well-earned!) pause on politics and reform, in this episode of Beaconsfield podcast I speak with Michael Posner, author of a three-part oral history of Leonard Cohen: the songwriter and poet who has meant more to me in my life than perhaps any other. We discuss Leonard’s character from the perspective of those who knew him best, his relationships with those he loved and

#15 Re-discovering the ”Empirical” Burke: Commerce and Manners with Gregory Collins

Nov 14 2023 66 mins  
It was a joy to speak with Yale's Gregory Collins about his book, Commerce and Manners in Edmund Burke’s Political Economy. The Burke that emerges is one not immediately familiar to us: a principled reformer with powers of imaginative eloquence, yes; yet one with an equally deep appreciation of empirical data and its ability to inform sound political decision making.

#14 The Gun, The Ship and The Pen: On Written Constitutions with Professor Linda Colley

Nov 14 2023 49 mins  
Linda Colley is one of the world's most eminent scholars of global and imperial history. Professor of History at Princeton, she is a highly respected contributor to public debates around constitutionalism in the United Kingdom, and the recent author of The Gun, The Ship and The Pen: Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World. In this conversation, we reflect on writt

#13 Our Human Tradition: On Consolation with Professor Michael Ignatieff

Feb 28 2022 52 mins  
What do failure, loss, and tragedy have to teach us about being human? How might we live in hope and truth despite our wounds? Why must we venture beyond ourselves to console others? In this podcast, it is an honour to speak with Professor Michael Ignatieff about the human tradition of consolation. We explore what religious traditions, the lives of past thinkers and statesmen, and

#12 Lessons in Reform Leadership with Professor the Hon Bob Carr

Feb 18 2022 70 mins  
In the first podcast of the year, Professor the Hon Bob Carr and I reflect on the lessons for reform leadership that emerge from his time as former Premier of NSW (1995-2005) and as Australian Foreign Minister (2012-2013). We also consider: the reform tradition of the Australian Labor Party; the nature and reach of historical study; the ongoing follies of human beings; and the stat

#11 In Conversation with Professor Akeel Bilgrami: Gandhi, Modernity, and the Cultural Commons

Feb 18 2022 85 mins  
What is the Cultural Commons? Is there a tradition that links Burke with Nietzsche? What about Burke and Gandhi? What was Gandhi's critique of modernity? And what was Burke's, too, of Capital? Is there an Indian secularism? In this conversation it is my honour to speak with Professor Akeel Bilgrami about his past and present work in philosophy, political economy, and intellectual h

#10 A New Idea of Woman, but Also of Man: Wollstonecraft and Burke with Dr Sylvana Tomaselli

Feb 18 2022 50 mins  
Who are we to each other, and to ourselves? In this conversation, Sylvana Tomaselli and I explore Wollstonecraft’s visceral critique of Burke in A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790). We explore the differences between their thinking about women, men, relationships, and love; and consider some of the points on which their thoughts surprisingly align.