{"podcast":{"title":"How To Academy Podcast","slug":"how-to-academy-podcast-460186","podcast_index_feed_id":460186,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/NSR3811872066","website_url":"http://www.howtoacademy.com","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/88d11174-a83f-11eb-9eac-4b3226c749ec/image/New_Series_Image_2.jpg?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"How To Academy","episode_count":530,"summary":"How To Academy is London's home of big thinking. From Nobel laureates to Pulitzer Prize winners, we invite the world’s most influential voices to share new ideas for changing ourselves, our communities, and the world. Our biweekly podcast is your chance to hear in-depth from the most exciting thinkers in global culture.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-22T04:18:57.196930+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-to-academy-podcast-460186"},"episode":{"title":"Antonia Senior – The Cambridge Five and the Making of The Soviet Empire","slug":"antonia-senior-the-cambridge-five-and-the-making-of-the-soviet-empire","published_at":"2026-06-23T17:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-to-academy-podcast-460186/antonia-senior-the-cambridge-five-and-the-making-of-the-soviet-empire","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-to-academy-podcast-460186","url":"https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NSR1585004723.mp3","audio_url":"https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NSR1585004723.mp3","summary":"Why did five gilded, charming men, blessed with brains, beauty, and opportunity, choose to betray their country? During their time at Cambridge University in the 1930s, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, John Cairncross and Keeper of the Queen's Pictures Anthony Blunt undertook a clandestine regime to supply British and US intelligence material to the Soviets. Thanks to his Cambridge spies, until the implosion of the spy ring in May 1951, there was barely a secret, and barely a decision made that Stalin did not know about. Using recently declassified files, Antonia Senior will explore how The Five became tools in Stalin's imperial scheme, and responsible– directly and indirectly– for the deaths of thousands of men and women fighting against Soviet domination. Antonia will also uncover how The Five were shielded by the British establishment, exposed as much by their own incompetence as by forensic investigation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices","meta_description":"Why did five gilded, charming men, blessed with brains, beauty, and opportunity, choose to betray their country? During their time at Cambridge University…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3353,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/how-to-academy-podcast-460186/episodes/antonia-senior-the-cambridge-five-and-the-making-of-the-soviet-empire/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-to-academy-podcast-460186/antonia-senior-the-cambridge-five-and-the-making-of-the-soviet-empire.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}