{"podcast":{"title":"Understand","slug":"understand-5784160","podcast_index_feed_id":5784160,"rss_url":"https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/m001dwr7.rss","website_url":"http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001dwr7","image_url":"http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/3000x3000/p0ntv0rd.jpg","author":"BBC","episode_count":103,"summary":"New in Understand: Ten Fights That Made The Green Movement The modern green movement has been shaped not only by protest, but by conflict within the ranks. Shared ideas are forged through friction - battles over tactics, solutions, or who gets a voice. Justin Rowlatt goes to the heart of these battles - to learn about these dramatic moments from the people who were there. Friends, or sometimes enemies, hashing out big ideas that help define what it means to be green. Understand from BBC Radio 4 - unravelling the complexities of the biggest stories and subjects that really matter right now.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-20T12:20:32.451435+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/understand-5784160"},"episode":{"title":"How Reading Made Us: 3. How Reading Made Our Politics","slug":"how-reading-made-us-3-how-reading-made-our-politics","published_at":"2026-03-30T08:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/understand-5784160/how-reading-made-us-3-how-reading-made-our-politics","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/understand-5784160","url":"http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002t1dj","audio_url":"http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-rss/proto/http/vpid/p0n88gsz.mp3","summary":"Learning to read permanently alters your brain. It changes the emotions you experience and the way you relate to others. When a society learns to read the consequences are dramatic: wars break out, revolutions erupt and new political systems spring into being. Reading made us who we are. With time spent reading - and even reading ability - starting to nosedive, Times writer James Marriott explores how reading changed humanity, and what might happen if we stop. In this episode James digs into the question of whether literacy led to the invention of democracy, asks whether reading helps us proof ourselves against misinformation, and asks what happens to our politics if reading dies out? Contributors include - Jung Chang, author - Robert Darnton, historian - Steven Pinker, professor of psychology at Harvard University - Naomi Alderman, writer and presenter - John Burn-Murdoch, chief data reporter for the Financial Times - Nick Harris, ideas editor at the New Statesman - Professor Maryanne Wolf, Director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at UCLA Producer - Beth Sagar-Fenton Editors - Chris Ledgard & Alasdair Cross","meta_description":"Learning to read permanently alters your brain. It changes the emotions you experience and the way you relate to others. When a society learns to read the…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2521,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/understand-5784160/episodes/how-reading-made-us-3-how-reading-made-our-politics/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/understand-5784160/how-reading-made-us-3-how-reading-made-our-politics.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}