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The subject of this week\u2019s Holy Smoke is charisma, which you might think is one of the most hackneyed and devalued words in the language. But its popularity is no accident. \u2018Charisma\u2019 is shorthand for one of the most revolutionary \u2013 and useful \u2013 concepts in intellectual history.\n
\n\nThe word \u2018charisma\u2019 is taken from St Paul, who employed it to describe the gifts that descended on the first Christians at Pentecost. Indeed, Paul may have invented the word. But it was the tortured polymath Weber who suggested that the sudden appearance of men and women who can apparently perform miracles, real or metaphorical, has transformed almost every human society.\n
\n\nMy guest today is the diplomatic historian Professor John Charmley, whose unflattering biography of Winston Churchill divided opinion when it was published in 1993 \u2013 as it was intended to. Professor Charmley is now Pro-Vice Chancellor for academic strategy at St Mary's University, Twickenham, a Catholic university which he wants to root even more firmly in its faith and heritage. He\u2019s certainly not the sort of hand-wringing academic paralysed by colonial guilt. I think you\u2019ll enjoy this episode.