Francis Pike is a historian and author of Hirohito’s War, The Pacific War 1941-1945 and Empires at War: A Short History of Modern Asia Since World War II.
37 min listen
In this second round of restrictions, the lockdown is no longer national. But a regional approach is full of political perils (00:45). Plus, the real reason to be disappointed in Aung San Suu Kyi (12:50) and is Sally Rooney’s Normal People just overrated (26:15). With The Spectator’s political editor James Forsyth; Middlesbrough mayor Andrew Preston;
As Perseus was flying along the coast on his winged horse Pegasus, he spotted Andromeda tied to a rock as a sacrifice to Poseidon’s sea monster Cetus. It was love at first sight. Perseus slew Cetus and married Andromeda. Thus began the damsel-in-distress archetype that has been a mainstay of western culture ever since. Riffs
32 min listen
On this week’s episode, Douglas Murray asks – why would anyone want to be a government adviser, given what’s happened to Tony Abbott? The historian Francis Pike reads his piece on Thailand’s Caligula; and Philip Hensher reviews a new book on Wagner. Spectator Out Loud is a weekly audio collection of three Spectator writers reading
34 min listen
Vaccines are normally in the realm of scientists; but not this time as world leaders race to be the first. (00:50) Brexit is heating up, but is the government in a stronger position than it seems? (13:35) And a modern day Caligula – the life and times of the Thai king Rama X. (22:40) With
The Roman emperor Caligula was renowned for his extravagance, capricious cruelty, sexual deviancy and temper bordering on insanity. Most famously, before he was assassinated, he planned to appoint his favourite horse as a consul. This is probably a legend. But King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who ascended the Thai throne in 2016, adopted Caligula’s playbook for real.
This month the global media marked the 75th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The cities’ destructions were momentous indeed, but the coverage has squeezed out other memories of the Pacific War. Who remembers Japan’s genocidal campaign in China that killed more than 20 million people — thousands of them
44 min listen
London is the motor to Britain’s economy, so how can it rebuild after the pandemic? (00:55) How can the new Tory leader in Scotland, Douglas Ross, keep the United Kingdom together? (17:50) And why the looming conflict between India and China isn’t in Kashmir, but rather in the Bay of Bengal. (29:33) With economist Gerard
Pangong Lake is the most unlikely of places for a naval conflict between two of the world’s nuclear-powers, India and China, with a third, Pakistan, looking on with not a little interest. Lying some 280 miles east of Islamabad, 360 miles north of New Delhi and 2,170 miles west of Beijing, Pangong Lake is in