Pick of the weekReconstruction: The Unfinished PromiseWho would have thought, back in 2008, that Barack Obama (pictured above) would become one of podcasting’s biggest movers and shakers? The former president is front and centre of this series on the post-slavery period in the US, a collaboration with Malcolm Gladwell for Audible and the History Channel. It’s slick and excellently researched, but it’s the calibre of conversation and careful dot-joining that make it so compelling. Hannah J Davies
Widely available, episodes weeklyTocqueville Road TripJohn Prideaux, the Economist’s US editor, embarks on a road trip to assess America’s democracy on its 250th anniversary. He’s following the 1831 tour of French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, whose book is “the single most insightful thing ever written about the United States”. It’s a colourful way to wrestle with anxieties over whether it can survive Trump. Alexi Duggins
Widely available, episodes weeklySwingersJournalist Catrin Nye tells the tale of a woman who joined a swinging website to please her husband – and says she had non-consensual sex with more than 100 men. It’s graphic, troubling and spares no detail, as Nye looks into swinging, including interviews with the men who do it. What she uncovers is not easy listening. Alexi Duggins BBC Sounds, all episodes available nowHere for the HistoryDon’t be chai … Alice Loxton talks tea and other British traditions in Here for the History. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PAAccording to legend, a leaf drifted into Chinese emperor Shen Nung’s drink of boiling water in 2737BC and the cuppa was born. Tea is just one British tradition that historian Alice Loxton and the BBC’s Ben Henderson explore in this podcast – though the conversation soon turns to the violence and smuggling it provoked. HJD
