Podcasts by Category
- 969 - Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the German physicist who, at the age of 23 and while still a student, effectively created quantum mechanics for which he later won the Nobel Prize. Werner Heisenberg made this breakthrough in a paper in 1925 when, rather than starting with an idea of where atomic particles were at any one time, he worked backwards from what he observed of atoms and their particles and the light they emitted, doing away with the idea of their continuous orbit of the nucleus and replacing this with equations. This was momentous and from this flowed what’s known as his Uncertainty Principle, the idea that, for example, you can accurately measure the position of an atomic particle or its momentum, but not both.
With
Fay Dowker Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London
Harry Cliff Research Fellow in Particle Physics at the University of Cambridge
And
Frank Close Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics and Fellow Emeritus at Exeter College at the University of Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Philip Ball, Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different (Vintage, 2018)
John Bell, ‘Against 'measurement'’ (Physics World, Vol 3, No 8, 1990)
Mara Beller, Quantum Dialogue: The Making of a Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2001)
David C. Cassidy, Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, And The Bomb (Bellevue Literary Press, 2010)
Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (first published 1958; Penguin Classics, 2000)
Carlo Rovelli, Helgoland: The Strange and Beautiful Story of Quantum Physics (Penguin, 2022)
Thu, 28 Mar 2024 - 968 - The Sack of Rome 1527
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the infamous assault of an army of the Holy Roman Emperor on the city of Rome in 1527. The troops soon broke through the walls of this holy city and, with their leader shot dead early on, they brought death and destruction to the city on an epic scale. Later writers compared it to the fall of Carthage or Jerusalem and soon the mass murder, torture, rape and looting were followed by disease which was worsened by starvation and opened graves. It has been called the end of the High Renaissance, a conflict between north and south, between Lutherans and Catholics, and a fulfilment of prophecy of divine vengeance and, perhaps more persuasively, a consequence of military leaders not feeding or paying their soldiers other than by looting.
With
Stephen Bowd Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Edinburgh
Jessica Goethals Associate Professor of Italian at the University of Alabama
And
Catherine Fletcher Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Stephen Bowd, Renaissance Mass Murder: Civilians and Soldiers during the Italian Wars (Oxford University Press, 2018)
Benvenuto Cellini, Autobiography (Penguin Classics, 1999)
Benvenuto Cellini (trans. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella), My Life (Oxford University Press, 2009)
André Chastel (trans. Beth Archer), The Sack of Rome 1527 (Princeton University Press, 1983
Catherine Fletcher, The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance (Bodley Head, 2020)
Kenneth Gouwens and Sheryl E. Reiss (eds), The Pontificate of Clement VII: History, Politics, Culture (Routledge, 2005)
Francesco Guicciardini (trans. Sidney Alexander), The History of Italy (first published 1561; Princeton University Press, 2020)
Luigi Guicciardini (trans. James H. McGregor), The Sack of Rome (first published 1537; Italica Press, 2008)
Judith Hook, The Sack of Rome (2nd edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)
Geoffrey Parker, Emperor: A New Life of Charles V (Yale University Press, 2019)
Thu, 21 Mar 2024 - 967 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Lewis Carroll's book which first appeared in print in 1865 with illustrations by John Tenniel. It has since become one of the best known works in English, captivating readers who follow young Alice as she chases a white rabbit, pink eyed, in a waistcoat with pocket watch, down a rabbit hole that becomes a well and into wonderland. There she meets the Cheshire Cat, the Hatter, the March Hare, the Mock Turtle and more, all the while growing smaller and larger, finally outgrowing everyone at the trial of Who Stole the Tarts from the Queen of Hearts and exclaiming 'Who cares for you? You’re nothing but a pack of cards!'
With
Franziska Kohlt Leverhulme Research Fellow in the History of Science at the University of Leeds and the Inaugural Carrollian Fellow of the University of Southern California
Kiera Vaclavik Professor of Children’s Literature and Childhood Culture at Queen Mary, University of London
And
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst Professor of English Literature at Magdalen College, University of Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Kate Bailey and Simon Sladen (eds), Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser (V&A Publishing, 2021)
Gillian Beer, Alice in Space: The Sideways Victorian World of Lewis Carroll (University of Chicago Press, 2016)
Will Brooker, Alice's Adventures: Lewis Carroll and Alice in Popular Culture (Continuum, 2004)
Humphrey Carpenter, Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Children’s Literature (first published 1985; Faber and Faber, 2009)
Lewis Carroll (introduced by Martin Gardner), The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, (W. W. Norton & Company, 2000)
Gavin Delahunty and Christoph Benjamin Schulz (eds), Alice in Wonderland Through the Visual Arts (Tate Publishing, 2011)
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland (Harvill Secker, 2015)
Colleen Hill, Fairy Tale Fashion (Yale University Press, 2016)
Franziska Kohlt, Alice through the Wonderglass: The Surprising Histories of a Children's Classic (Reaktion, forthcoming 2025) Franziska Kohlt and Justine Houyaux (eds.), Alice: Through the Looking-Glass: A Companion (Peter Lang, forthcoming 2024)
Charlie Lovett, Lewis Carroll: Formed by Faith (University of Virginia Press, 2022)
Elizabeth Sewell, The Field of Nonsense (first published 1952; Dalkey Archive Press, 2016)
Kiera Vaclavik, 'Listening to the Alice books' (Journal of Victorian Culture, Volume 26, Issue 1, January 2021)
Diane Waggoner, Lewis Carroll's Photography and Modern Childhood (Princeton University Press 2020)
Edward Wakeling, The Man and his Circle (IB Tauris, 2014)
Edward Wakeling, The Photographs of Lewis Carroll: A Catalogue Raisonné (University of Texas Press, 2015)
Thu, 14 Mar 2024 - 966 - Hormones
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss some of the chemical signals coursing through our bodies throughout our lives, produced in separate areas and spreading via the bloodstream. We call these 'hormones' and we produce more than 80 of them of which the best known are arguably oestrogen, testosterone, adrenalin, insulin and cortisol. On the whole hormones operate without us being immediately conscious of them as their goal is homeostasis, maintaining the levels of everything in the body as required without us having to think about them first. Their actions are vital for our health and wellbeing and influence many different aspects of the way our bodies work.
With
Sadaf Farooqi Professor of Metabolism and Medicine at the University of Cambridge
Rebecca Reynolds Professor of Metabolic Medicine at the University of Edinburgh
And
Andrew Bicknell Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading
Produced by Victoria Brignell
Reading list:
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (first published 1962; Penguin Classics, 2000)
Stephen Nussey and Saffron Whitehead, Endocrinology: An Integrated Approach (BIOS Scientific Publishers; 2001)
Aylinr Y. Yilmaz, Comprehensive Introduction to Endocrinology for Novices (Independently published, 2023)
Thu, 07 Mar 2024 - 965 - The Hanseatic League
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Hanseatic League or Hansa which dominated North European trade in the medieval period. With a trading network that stretched from Iceland to Novgorod via London and Bruges, these German-speaking Hansa merchants benefitted from tax exemptions and monopolies. Over time, the Hansa became immensely influential as rulers felt the need to treat it well. Kings and princes sometimes relied on loans from the Hansa to finance their wars and an embargo by the Hansa could lead to famine. Eventually, though, the Hansa went into decline with the rise in the nation state’s power, greater competition from other merchants and the development of trade across the Atlantic.
With
Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz Associate Professor of Medieval History at the University of Amsterdam
Georg Christ Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Manchester
And
Sheilagh Ogilvie Chichele Professor of Economic History at All Souls College, University of Oxford
Producer: Victoria Brignell
Reading list:
James S. Amelang and Siegfried Beer, Public Power in Europe: Studies in Historical Transformations (Plus-Pisa University Press, 2006), especially `Trade and Politics in the Medieval Baltic: English Merchants and England’s Relations to the Hanseatic League 1370–1437`
Nicholas R. Amor, Late Medieval Ipswich: Trade and Industry (Boydell & Brewer, 2011)
B. Ayers, The German Ocean: Medieval Europe around the North Sea (Equinox, 2016)
H. Brand and P. Brood, The German Hanse in Past & Present Europe: A medieval league as a model for modern interregional cooperation? (Castel International Publishers, 2007)
Wendy R. Childs, The Trade and Shipping of Hull, 1300-1500 (East Yorkshire Local History Society, 1990)
Alexander Cowan, Hanseatic League: Oxford Bibliographies (Oxford University Press, 2010)
Philippe Dollinger, The German Hansa (Macmillan, 1970)
John D. Fudge, Cargoes, Embargoes and Emissaries: The Commercial and Political Interaction of England and the German Hanse, 1450-1510 (University of Toronto Press, 1995)
Donald J. Harreld, A Companion to the Hanseatic League (Brill, 2015)
T.H. Lloyd, England and the German Hanse, 1157 – 1611: A Study of their Trade and Commercial Diplomacy (first published 1991; Cambridge University Press, 2002)
Giampiero Nigro (ed.), Maritime networks as a factor in European integration (Fondazione Istituto Internazionale Di Storia Economica “F. Datini” Prato, University of Firenze, 2019), especially ‘Maritime Networks and Premodern Conflict Management on Multiple Levels. The Example of Danzig and the Giese Family’ by Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz
Sheilagh Ogilvie, Institutions and European Trade: Merchant Guilds, 1000-1800 (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
Paul Richards (ed.), Six Essays in Hanseatic History (Poppyland Publishing, 2017)
Paul Richards, King’s Lynn and The German Hanse 1250-1550: A Study in Anglo-German Medieval Trade and Politics (Poppyland Publishing, 2022)
Stephen H. Rigby, The Overseas Trade of Boston, 1279-1548 (Böhlau Verlag, 2023)
Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz and Stuart Jenks (eds.), The Hanse in Medieval & Early Modern Europe (Brill, 2012) Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz, ‘The late medieval and early modern Hanse as an institution of conflict management’ (Continuity and Change 32/1, Cambridge University Press, 2017)
Thu, 29 Feb 2024 - 964 - Panpsychism
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that some kind of consciousness is present not just in our human brains but throughout the universe, right down to cells or even electrons. This is panpsychism and its proponents argue it offers a compelling alternative to those who say we are nothing but matter, like machines, and to those who say we are both matter and something else we might call soul. It is a third way. Critics argue panpsychism is implausible, an example of how not to approach this problem, yet interest has been growing widely in recent decades partly for the idea itself and partly in the broader context of understanding how consciousness arises.
With
Tim Crane Professor of Philosophy and Pro-Rector at the Central European University Director of Research, FWF Cluster of Excellence, Knowledge in Crisis
Joanna Leidenhag, Associate Professor in Theology and Philosophy at the University of Leeds
And
Philip Goff Professor of Philosophy at Durham University
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Anthony Freeman (ed.), Consciousness and Its Place in Nature: Does Physicalism Entail Panpsychism? (Imprint Academic, 2006), especially 'Realistic Monism' by Galen Strawson
Philip Goff, Galileo's Error: Foundations for A New Science of Consciousness (Pantheon, 2019)
Philip Goff, Why? The Purpose of the Universe (Oxford University Press, 2023)
David Ray Griffin, Unsnarling the World-Knot: Consciousness, Freedom and the Mind-Body Problem (Wipf & Stock, 2008)
Joanna Leidenhag, Minding Creation: Theological Panpsychism and the Doctrine of Creation (Bloomsbury, 2021)
Joanna Leidenhag, ‘Panpsychism and God’ (Philosophy Compass Vol 17, Is 12, e12889)
Hedda Hassel Mørch, Non-physicalist Theories of Consciousness (Cambridge University Press, 2024)
Thomas Nagel, Mortal Questions (Cambridge University Press, 2012), especially the chapter 'Panpsychism'
David Skrbina, Panpsychism in the West (MIT Press, 2007) James van Cleve, 'Mind-Dust or Magic? Panpsychism versus Emergence' (Philosophical Perspectives Vol. 4, Action Theory and Philosophy of Mind, Ridgeview Publishing Company, 1990)
Thu, 22 Feb 2024 - 963 - Nefertiti
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the woman who inspired one of the best known artefacts from ancient Egypt. The Bust of Nefertiti is multicoloured and symmetrical, about 49cm/18" high and, despite the missing left eye, still holds the gaze of onlookers below its tall, blue, flat topped headdress. Its discovery in 1912 in Amarna was kept quiet at first but its display in Berlin in the 1920s caused a sensation, with replicas sent out across the world. Ever since, as with Tutankhamun perhaps, the concrete facts about Nefertiti herself have barely kept up with the theories, the legends and the speculation, reinvigorated with each new discovery.
With
Aidan Dodson Honorary Professor of Egyptology at the University of Bristol
Joyce Tyldesley Professor of Egyptology at the University of Manchester
And
Kate Spence Senior Lecturer in Egyptian Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Emmanuel College
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Dorothea Arnold (ed.), The Royal Women of Amarna: Images of Beauty from Ancient Egypt (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996) Norman de Garis Davies, The Rock Tombs of el-Amarna (6 vols. Egypt Exploration Society, 1903-1908) Aidan Dodson, Amarna Sunset: Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb and the Egyptian Counter-reformation. (American University in Cairo Press, 2009 Aidan Dodson, Nefertiti, Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt: her life and afterlife (American University in Cairo Press, 2020)
Aidan Dodson, Tutankhamun: King of Egypt: his life and afterlife (American University in Cairo Press, 2022)
Barry Kemp, The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Amarna and Its People (Thames and Hudson, 2012)
Dominic Montserrat, Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt (Routledge, 2002)
Friederike Seyfried (ed.), In the Light of Amarna: 100 Years of the Nefertiti Discovery (Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussamlung Staatlich Museen zu Berlin/ Michael Imhof Verlag, 2013)
Joyce Tyldesley, Tutankhamun: Pharaoh, Icon, Enigma (Headline, 2022)
Joyce Tyldesley, Nefertiti’s Face: The Creation of an Icon (Profile Books, 2018)
Joyce Tyldesley, Nefertiti: Egypt’s Sun Queen (Viking, 1998)
Thu, 15 Feb 2024 - 962 - Condorcet
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-94), known as the Last of the Philosophes, the intellectuals in the French Enlightenment who sought to apply their learning to solving the problems of their world. He became a passionate believer in the progress of society, an advocate for equal rights for women and the abolition of the slave trade and for representative government. The French Revolution gave him a chance to advance those ideas and, while the Terror brought his life to an end, his wife Sophie de Grouchy 91764-1822) ensured his influence into the next century and beyond.
With
Rachel Hammersley Professor of Intellectual History at Newcastle University
Richard Whatmore Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews and Co-Director of the St Andrews Institute of Intellectual History
And
Tom Hopkins Senior Teaching Associate in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Selwyn College
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Keith Michael Baker, Condorcet: From Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics (University of Chicago Press, 1974)
Keith Michael Baker, ‘On Condorcet’s Sketch’ (Daedalus, summer 2004)
Lorraine Daston, ‘Condorcet and the Meaning of Enlightenment’ (Proceedings of the British Academy, 2009)
Dan Edelstein, The Enlightenment: A Genealogy (Chicago University Press, 2010)
Mark Goldie and Robert Wokler (eds), The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2006), especially ‘Ideology and the Origins of Social Science’ by Robert Wokler
Gary Kates, The Cercle Social, the Girondins, and the French Revolution (Princeton University Press, 1985)
Steven Lukes and Nadia Urbinati (eds.), Condorcet: Political Writings (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
Kathleen McCrudden Illert, A Republic of Sympathy: Sophie de Grouchy's Politics and Philosophy, 1785-1815 (Cambridge University Press, 2024)
Iain McLean and Fiona Hewitt (eds.), Condorcet: Foundations of Social Choice and Political Theory (Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, 1994)
Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet and the Enlightenment, (Harvard University Press, 2001)
Richard Whatmore, The End of Enlightenment (Allen Lane, 2023)
David Williams, Condorcet and Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 2004)
Thu, 08 Feb 2024 - 961 - Twelfth Night, or What You Will
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Shakespeare’s great comedies, which plays in the space between marriage, love and desire. By convention a wedding means a happy ending and here there are three, but neither Orsino nor Viola, Olivia nor Sebastian know much of each other’s true character and even the identities of the twins Viola and Sebastian have only just been revealed to their spouses to be. These twins gain some financial security but it is unclear what precisely the older Orsino and Olivia find enduringly attractive in the adolescent objects of their love. Meanwhile their hopes and illusions are framed by the fury of Malvolio, tricked into trusting his mistress Olivia loved him and who swears an undefined revenge on all those who mocked him.
With
Pascale Aebischer Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Performance Studies at the University of Exeter
Michael Dobson Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Director of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham
And
Emma Smith Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of Oxford
Produced by Simon Tillotson, Victoria Brignell and Luke Mulhall
Reading list:
C.L. Barber, Shakespeare’s Festive Comedies: A Study of Dramatic Form and Its Relation to Social Custom (first published 1959; Princeton University Press, 2011)
Simone Chess, ‘Queer Residue: Boy Actors’ Adult Careers in Early Modern England’ (Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 19.4, 2020)
Callan Davies, What is a Playhouse? England at Play, 1520-1620 (Routledge, 2023)
Frances E. Dolan, Twelfth Night: Language and Writing (Bloomsbury, 2014)
John Drakakis (ed.), Alternative Shakespeares (Psychology Press, 2002), especially ‘Disrupting Sexual Difference: Meaning and Gender in the Comedies’ by Catherine Belsey
Bart van Es, Shakespeare’s Comedies: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2016)
Sonya Freeman Loftis, Mardy Philippian and Justin P. Shaw (eds.), Inclusive Shakespeares: Identity, Pedagogy, Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), especially ‘”I am all the daughters of my father’s house, and all the brothers too”: Genderfluid Potentiality in As You Like It and Twelfth Night’ by Eric Brinkman
Ezra Horbury, ‘Transgender Reassessments of the Cross-Dressed Page in Shakespeare, Philaster, and The Honest Man’s Fortune’ (Shakespeare Quarterly 73, 2022)
Jean Howard, ‘Crossdressing, the theatre, and gender struggle in early modern England’ (Shakespeare Quarterly 39, 1988)
Harry McCarthy, Boy Actors in Early Modern England: Skill and Stagecraft in the Theatre (Cambridge University Press, 2022)
Stephen Orgel, Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare's England (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
William Shakespeare (eds. Michael Dobson and Molly Mahood), Twelfth Night (Penguin, 2005)
William Shakespeare (ed. Keir Elam), Twelfth Night (Arden Shakespeare, 2008)
Emma Smith, This is Shakespeare: How to Read the World's Greatest Playwright (Pelican, 2019)
Victoria Sparey, Shakespeare’s Adolescents: Age, Gender and the Body in Shakespearean Performance and Early Modern Culture (Manchester University Press, 2024)
Thu, 25 Jan 2024 - 956 - Vincent van Gogh
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Dutch artist famous for starry nights and sunflowers, self portraits and simple chairs. These are images known the world over, and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) painted them and around 900 others in the last decade of his short, brilliant life and, famously, in that lifetime he made only one recorded sale. Yet within a few decades after his death these extraordinary works, with all their colour and life, became the most desirable of all modern art, propelled in part by the story of Vincent van Gogh's struggle with mental health.
With
Christopher Riopelle The Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings at the National Gallery
Martin Bailey A leading Van Gogh specialist and correspondent for The Art Newspaper
And
Frances Fowle Professor of Nineteenth Century Art at the University of Edinburgh and Senior Curator at National Galleries Scotland
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Martin Bailey, Living with Vincent Van Gogh: The Homes and Landscapes that shared the Artist (White Lion Publishing, 2019)
Martin Bailey, Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln, 2021)
Martin Bailey, Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln, 2021)
Nienke Bakker and Ella Hendriks, Van Gogh and the Sunflowers: A Masterpiece Examined (Van Gogh Museum, 2019)
Nienke Bakker, Emmanuel Coquery, Teio Meedendorp and Louis van Tilborgh (eds), Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise: His Final Months (Thames & Hudson, 2023)
Frances Fowle, Van Gogh's Twin: The Scottish Art Dealer Alexander Reid, 1854-1928 (National Galleries of Scotland, 2010)
Bregje Gerritse, The Potato Eaters: Van Gogh’s First Masterpiece (Van Gogh Museum, 2021)
Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Van Gogh: The Life (Random House, 2012)
Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker (eds), Vincent van Gogh: The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2009)
Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker (eds), Vincent van Gogh, A Life in Letters (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2020)
Hans Luitjen, Jo van Gogh Bonger: The Woman who Made Vincent Famous Bloomsbury, 2022
Louis van Tilborgh, Martin Bailey, Karen Serres (ed.), Van Gogh Self-Portraits (Courtauld Institute, 2022)
Ingo F. Walther and Rainer Metzger, Van Gogh. The Complete Paintings (Taschen, 2022)
Thu, 18 Jan 2024 - 955 - Tiberius
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman emperor Tiberius. When he was born in 42BC, there was little prospect of him ever becoming Emperor of Rome. Firstly, Rome was still a Republic and there had not yet been any Emperor so that had to change and, secondly, when his stepfather Augustus became Emperor there was no precedent for who should succeed him, if anyone. It somehow fell to Tiberius to develop this Roman imperial project and by some accounts he did this well, while to others his reign was marked by cruelty and paranoia inviting comparison with Nero.
With
Matthew Nicholls Senior Tutor at St. John’s College, University of Oxford
Shushma Malik Assistant Professor of Classics and Onassis Classics Fellow at Newnham College at the University of Cambridge
And
Catherine Steel Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Edward Champlin, ‘Tiberius the Wise’ (Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 57.4, 2008)
Alison E. Cooley, ‘From the Augustan Principate to the invention of the Age of Augustus’ (Journal of Roman Studies 109, 2019)
Alison E. Cooley, The Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre: text, translation, and commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2023)
Eleanor Cowan, ‘Tiberius and Augustus in Tiberian Sources’ (Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 58.4, 2009)
Cassius Dio (trans. C. T. Mallan), Roman History: Books 57 and 58: The Reign of Tiberius (Oxford University Press, 2020)
Rebecca Edwards, ‘Tacitus, Tiberius and Capri’ (Latomus, 70.4, 2011)
A. Gibson (ed.), The Julio-Claudian Succession: Reality and Perception of the Augustan Model (Brill, 2012), especially ‘Tiberius and the invention of succession’ by C. Vout
Josephus (trans. E. Mary Smallwood and G. Williamson), The Jewish War (Penguin Classics, 1981)
Barbara Levick, Tiberius the Politician (Routledge, 1999)
E. O’Gorman, Tacitus’ History of Political Effective Speech: Truth to Power (Bloomsbury, 2019)
Velleius Paterculus (trans. J. C. Yardley and Anthony A. Barrett), Roman History: From Romulus and the Foundation of Rome to the Reign of the Emperor Tiberius (Hackett Publishing, 2011)
R. Seager, Tiberius (2nd ed., Wiley-Blackwell, 2005)
David Shotter, Tiberius Caesar (Routledge, 2005)
Suetonius (trans. Robert Graves), The Twelve Caesars (Penguin Classics, 2007)
Tacitus (trans. Michael Grant), The Annals of Imperial Rome (Penguin Classics, 2003)
Thu, 11 Jan 2024 - 954 - Karl Barth
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. Karl Barth (1886 - 1968) rejected the liberal theology of his time which, he argued, used the Bible and religion to help humans understand themselves rather than prepare them to open themselves to divine revelation. Barth's aim was to put God and especially Christ at the centre of Christianity. He was alarmed by what he saw as the dangers in a natural theology where God might be found in a rainbow or an opera by Wagner; for if you were open to finding God in German culture, you could also be open to accepting Hitler as God’s gift as many Germans did. Barth openly refused to accept Hitler's role in the Church in the 1930s on these theological grounds as well as moral, for which he was forced to leave Germany for his native Switzerland.
With
Stephen Plant Dean and Runcie Fellow at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge
Christiane Tietz Professor for Systematic Theology at the University of Zurich
And
Tom Greggs Marischal Professor of Divinity at the University of Aberdeen
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Karl Barth, God Here and Now (Routledge, 2003)
Karl Barth (trans. G. T. Thomson), Dogmatics in Outline (SCM Press, 1966)
Eberhard Busch (trans. John Bowden), Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts (Grand Rapids, 1994)
George Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology (Oxford University Press, 1993)
Joseph L. Mangina, Karl Barth: Theologian of Christian Witness (Routledge, 2004)
Paul T. Nimmo, Karl Barth: A Guide for the Perplexed (Bloomsbury, 2013)
Christiane Tietz, Karl Barth: A Life in Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2021)
John Webster, Karl Barth: Outstanding Christian Thinkers (Continuum, 2004)
Thu, 04 Jan 2024 - 953 - Edgar Allan Poe
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Poe (1809-1849), the American author who is famous for his Gothic tales of horror, madness and the dark interiors of the mind, such as The Fall of the House of Usher and The Tell-Tale Heart. As well as tapping at our deepest fears in poems such as The Raven, Poe pioneered detective fiction with his character C. Auguste Dupin in The Murders in the Rue Morgue. After his early death, a rival rushed out a biography to try to destroy Poe's reputation but he has only become more famous over the years as a cultural icon as well as an author.
With
Bridget Bennett Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Leeds
Erin Forbes Senior Lecturer in 19th-century African American and US Literature at the University of Bristol
And
Tom Wright Reader in Rhetoric at the University of Sussex
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Peter Ackroyd, Poe: A Life Cut Short (Vintage, 2009)
Amy Branam Armiento and Travis Montgomery (eds.), Poe and Women: Recognition and Revision (Lehigh University Press, 2023)
Joan Dayan, Fables of Mind: An Inquiry into Poe's Fiction (Oxford University Press, 1987)
Erin Forbes, ‘Edgar Allan Poe in the Great Dismal Swamp’ (Modern Philology, 2016)
Kevin J. Hayes (ed.), Edgar Allan Poe in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
J. Gerald Kennedy and Scott Peeples (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Edgar Allan Poe (Oxford University Press, 2018)
Jill Lepore, 'The Humbug: Poe and the Economy of Horror' (The New Yorker, April 20, 2009)
Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark (Vintage, 1993)
Scott Peeples and Michelle Van Parys, The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City (Princeton University Press, 2020)
Edgar Allan Poe, The Portable Edgar Allan Poe (Penguin, 2006)
Shawn Rosenhelm and Stephen Rachman (eds.), The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995)
Thu, 28 Dec 2023 - 952 - Marguerite de Navarre
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Marguerite, Queen of Navarre (1492 – 1549), author of the Heptaméron, a major literary landmark in the French Renaissance. Published after her death, The Heptaméron features 72 short stories, many of which explore relations between the sexes. However, Marguerite’s life was more eventful than that of many writers. Born into the French nobility, she found herself the sister of the French king when her brother Francis I came to the throne in 1515. At a time of growing religious change, Marguerite was a leading exponent of reform in the Catholic Church and translated an early work of Martin Luther into French. As the Reformation progressed, she was not afraid to take risks to protect other reformers.
With
Sara Barker Associate Professor of Early Modern History and Director of the Centre for the Comparative History of Print at the University of Leeds
Emily Butterworth Professor of Early Modern French at King’s College London
And
Emma Herdman Lecturer in French at the University of St Andrews
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Giovanni Boccaccio (trans. Wayne A. Rebhorn), The Decameron (Norton, 2013)
Emily Butterworth, Marguerite de Navarre: A Critical Companion (Boydell &Brewer, 2022)
Patricia Cholakian and Rouben Cholakian, Marguerite de Navarre: Mother of the Renaissance (Columbia University Press, 2006)
Gary Ferguson, Mirroring Belief: Marguerite de Navarre’s Devotional Poetry (Edinburgh University Press, 1992)
Gary Ferguson and Mary B. McKinley (eds.), A Companion to Marguerite de Navarre (Brill, 2013)
Mark Greengrass, The French Reformation (John Wiley & Sons, 1987)
R.J. Knecht, The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France (Fontana Press, 2008)
R.J. Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and Patron: The Reign of Francis I (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
John D. Lyons and Mary B. McKinley (eds.), Critical Tales: New Studies of the ‘Heptaméron’ and Early Modern Culture (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993)
Marguerite de Navarre (trans. Paul Chilton), The Heptameron (Penguin, 2004)
Marguerite de Navarre (trans. Rouben Cholakian and Mary Skemp), Selected Writings: A Bilingual Edition (University of Chicago Press, 2008)
Marguerite de Navarre (trans. Hilda Dale), The Coach and The Triumph of the Lamb (Elm Press, 1999)
Marguerite de Navarre (trans. Hilda Dale), The Prisons (Whiteknights, 1989)
Marguerite de Navarre (ed. Gisèle Mathieu-Castellani), L’Heptaméron (Libraririe générale française, 1999)
Jonathan A. Reid, King’s Sister – Queen of Dissent: Marguerite of Navarre (1492-1549) and her Evangelical Network (Brill, 2009)
Paula Sommers, ‘The Mirror and its Reflections: Marguerite de Navarre’s Biblical Feminism’ (Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 5, 1986)
Kathleen Wellman, Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France (Yale University Press, 2013)
Thu, 21 Dec 2023 - 951 - The Theory of the Leisure Class
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most influential work of Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929). In 1899, during America’s Gilded Age, Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class as a reminder that all that glisters is not gold. He picked on traits of the waning landed class of Americans and showed how the new moneyed class was adopting these in ways that led to greater waste throughout society. He called these conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption and he developed a critique of a system that favoured profits for owners without regard to social good. The Theory of the Leisure Class was a best seller and funded Veblen for the rest of his life, and his ideas influenced the New Deal of the 1930s. Since then, an item that becomes more desirable as it becomes more expensive is known as a Veblen good.
With
Matthew Watson Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick
Bill Waller Professor of Economics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York
And
Mary Wrenn Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of the West of England
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Charles Camic, Veblen: The Making of an Economist who Unmade Economics (Harvard University Press, 2021)
John P. Diggins, Thorstein Veblen: Theorist of the Leisure Class (Princeton University Press, 1999)
John P. Diggins, The Bard of Savagery: Thorstein Veblen and Modern Social Theory (Seabury Press, 1978)
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Penguin, 1999) Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers (Penguin, 2000), particularly the chapter ‘The Savage Society of Thorstein Veblen’
Ken McCormick, Veblen in Plain English: A Complete Introduction to Thorstein Veblen’s Economics (Cambria Press, 2006)
Sidney Plotkin and Rick Tilman, The Political Ideas of Thorstein Veblen (Yale University Press, 2012)
Juliet B. Schor, The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need (William Morrow & Company, 1999)
Juliet B. Schor, Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2005)
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (first published 1899; Oxford University Press, 2009)
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of Business Enterprise (first published 1904; Legare Street Press, 2022)
Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Learning in America (first published 2018; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015)
Thorstein Veblen, Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times: The Case of America (first published 1923; Routledge, 2017)
Thorstein Veblen, Conspicuous Consumption (Penguin, 2005)
Thorstein Veblen, The Complete Works (Musaicum Books, 2017)
Charles J. Whalen (ed.), Institutional Economics: Perspective and Methods in Pursuit of a Better World (Routledge, 2021)
Thu, 14 Dec 2023 - 950 - The Barbary Corsairs
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the North African privateers who, until their demise in the nineteenth century, were a source of great pride and wealth in their home ports, where they sold the people and goods they’d seized from Christian European ships and coastal towns. Nominally, these corsairs were from Algiers, Tunis or Tripoli, outreaches of the Ottoman empire, or Salé in neighbouring Morocco, but often their Turkish or Arabic names concealed their European birth. Murad Reis the Younger, for example, who sacked Baltimore in 1631, was the Dutchman Jan Janszoon who also had a base on Lundy in the Bristol Channel. While the European crowns negotiated treaties to try to manage relations with the corsairs, they commonly viewed these sailors as pirates who were barely tolerated and, as soon as France, Britain, Spain and later America developed enough sea power, their ships and bases were destroyed.
With
Joanna Nolan Research Associate at SOAS, University of London
Claire Norton Former Associate Professor of History at St Mary’s University, Twickenham
And Michael Talbot Associate Professor in the History of the Ottoman Empire and the Modern Middle East at the University of Greenwich
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Robert C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500-1800 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)
Peter Earle, Corsairs of Malta and Barbary (Sidgwick and Jackson, 1970)
Des Ekin, The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates (O’Brien Press, 2008)
Jacques Heers, The Barbary Corsairs: Warfare in the Mediterranean, 1450-1580 (Skyhorse Publishing, 2018)
Colin Heywood, The Ottoman World: The Mediterranean and North Africa, 1660-1760 (Routledge, 2019)
Alan Jamieson, Lords of the Sea: A History of the Barbary Corsairs (Reaktion Books, 2013)
Julie Kalman, The Kings of Algiers: How Two Jewish Families Shaped the Mediterranean World during the Napoleonic Wars and Beyond (Princeton University Press, 2023)
Stanley Lane-Poole, The Story of the Barbary Corsairs (T. Unwin, 1890)
Sally Magnusson, The Sealwoman’s Gift (A novel - Two Roads, 2018)
Philip Mansel, Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean (John Murray, 2010)
Nabil Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (Columbia University Press, 1999)
Nabil Matar, Britain and Barbary, 1589-1689 (University Press of Florida, 2005)
Giles Milton, White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa’s One Million European Slaves (Hodder and Stoughton, 2004)
Claire Norton (ed.), Conversion and Islam in the Early Modern Mediterranean: The Lure of the Other (Routledge, 2017)
Claire Norton, ‘Lust, Greed, Torture and Identity: Narrations of Conversion and the Creation of the Early Modern 'Renegade' (Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 29/2, 2009)
Daniel Panzac, The Barbary Corsairs: The End of a Legend, 1800-1820 (Brill, 2005)
Rafael Sabatini, The Sea Hawk (a novel - Vintage Books, 2011)
Adrian Tinniswood, Pirates of Barbary: Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in the 17th century (Vintage Books, 2010)
D. Vitkus (ed.), Piracy, Slavery and Redemption: Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England (Columbia University Press, 2001)
J. M. White, Piracy and Law in the Ottoman Mediterranean (Stanford University Press, 2018)
Thu, 07 Dec 2023 - 949 - Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristotle's ideas on what happiness means and how to live a good life. Aristotle (384-322BC) explored these almost two and a half thousand years ago in what became known as his Nicomachean Ethics. His audience then were the elite in Athens as, he argued, if they knew how to live their lives well then they could better rule the lives of others. While circumstances and values have changed across the centuries, Aristotle's approach to answering those questions has fascinated philosophers ever since and continues to do so.
With
Angie Hobbs Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield
Roger Crisp Director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Tutor in Philosophy at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford
And
Sophia Connell Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
J.L. Ackrill, Aristotle the Philosopher (Oxford University Press, 1981)
Aristotle (ed. and trans. Roger Crisp), Nicomachean Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Aristotle (trans. Terence Irwin), Nicomachean Ethics (Hackett Publishing Co., 2019) Aristotle (trans. H. Rackham), Nicomachean Ethics: Loeb Classical Library (William Heinemann Ltd, 1962)
Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle: Past Masters series (Oxford University Press, 1982)
Gerard J. Hughes, Routledge Guidebook to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Routledge, 2013)
Richard Kraut (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2005)
Michael Pakaluk, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2005)
A. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle's Ethics (University of California Press, 1981)
Nancy Sherman, The Fabric of Character: Aristotle's Theory of Virtue (Clarendon Press, 1989)
J.O. Urmson, Aristotle’s Ethics (John Wiley & Sons, 1988)
Thu, 30 Nov 2023 - 948 - Germinal
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emile Zola's greatest literary success, his thirteenth novel in a series exploring the extended Rougon-Macquart family. The relative here is Etienne Lantier, already known to Zola’s readers as one of the blighted branch of the family tree and his story is set in Northern France. It opens with Etienne trudging towards a coalmine at night seeking work, and soon he is caught up in a bleak world in which starving families struggle and then strike, as they try to hold on to the last scraps of their humanity and the hope of change.
With
Susan Harrow Ashley Watkins Chair of French at the University of Bristol
Kate Griffiths Professor in French and Translation at Cardiff University
And
Edmund Birch Lecturer in French Literature and Director of Studies at Churchill College & Selwyn College, University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
David Baguley, Naturalist Fiction: The Entropic Vision (Cambridge University Press, 1990)
William Burgwinkle, Nicholas Hammond and Emma Wilson (eds.), The Cambridge History of French Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2011), particularly ‘Naturalism’ by Nicholas White
Kate Griffiths, Emile Zola and the Artistry of Adaptation (Legenda, 2009)
Kate Griffiths and Andrew Watts, Adapting Nineteenth-Century France: Literature in Film, Theatre, Television, Radio, and Print (University of Wales Press, 2013)
Anna Gural-Migdal and Robert Singer (eds.), Zola and Film: Essays in the Art of Adaptation (McFarland & Co., 2005)
Susan Harrow, Zola, The Body Modern: Pressures and Prospects of Representation (Legenda, 2010)
F. W. J. Hemmings, The Life and Times of Emile Zola (first published 1977; Bloomsbury, 2013)
William Dean Howells, Emile Zola (The Floating Press, 2018)
Lida Maxwell, Public Trials: Burke, Zola, Arendt, and the Politics of Lost Causes (Oxford University Press, 2014)
Brian Nelson, Emile Zola: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2020)
Brian Nelson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Emile Zola (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
Sandy Petrey, Realism and Revolution: Balzac, Stendhal, Zola, and the Performances of History (Cornell University Press, 1988)
Arthur Rose, ‘Coal politics: receiving Emile Zola's Germinal’ (Modern & contemporary France, 2021, Vol.29, 2)
Philip D. Walker, Emile Zola (Routledge, 1969)
Emile Zola (trans. Peter Collier), Germinal (Oxford University Press, 1993)
Emile Zola (trans. Roger Pearson), Germinal (Penguin Classics, 2004)
Thu, 23 Nov 2023 - 947 - Julian of Norwich
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the anchoress and mystic who, in the late fourteenth century, wrote about her visions of Christ suffering, in a work since known as Revelations of Divine Love. She is probably the first named woman writer in English, even if questions about her name and life remain open. Her account is an exploration of the meaning of her visions and is vivid and bold, both in its imagery and theology. From her confined cell in a Norwich parish church, in a land beset with plague, she dealt with the nature of sin and with the feminine side of God, and shared the message she received that God is love and, famously, that all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.
With
Katherine Lewis Professor of Medieval History at the University of Huddersfield
Philip Sheldrake Professor of Christian Spirituality at the Oblate School of Theology, Texas and Senior Research Associate of the Von Hugel Institute, University of Cambridge
And
Laura Kalas Senior Lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Swansea University
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
John H. Arnold and Katherine Lewis (eds.), A Companion to the Book of Margery Kempe (D.S. Brewer, 2004)
Ritamary Bradley, Julian’s Way: A Practical Commentary on Julian of Norwich (Harper Collins, 1992)
E. Colledge and J. Walsh (eds.), Julian of Norwich: Showings (Classics of Western Spirituality series, Paulist Press, 1978)
Liz Herbert McAvoy (ed.), A Companion to Julian of Norwich (D.S. Brewer, 2008)
Liz Herbert McAvoy, Authority and the Female Body in the Writings of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe (D.S. Brewer, 2004)
Grace Jantzen, Julian of Norwich: Mystic and Theologian (new edition, Paulist Press, 2010)
Julian of Norwich (trans. Barry Windeatt), Revelations of Divine Love (Oxford World's Classics, 2015)
Julian of Norwich (ed. Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins), The Writings of Julian of Norwich: A Vision Showed to a Devout Woman and a Revelation of Love, (Brepols, 2006)
Laura Kalas, Margery Kempe’s Spiritual Medicine: Suffering, Transformation and the Life-Course (D.S. Brewer, 2020)
Laura Kalas and Laura Varnam (eds.), Encountering the Book of Margery Kempe (Manchester University Press, 2021)
Laura Kalas and Roberta Magnani (eds.), Women in Christianity in the Medieval Age: 1000-1500 (Routledge, forthcoming 2024)
Ken Leech and Benedicta Ward (ed.), Julian the Solitary (SLG, 1998)
Denise Nowakowski Baker and Sarah Salih (ed.), Julian of Norwich’s Legacy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
Joan M. Nuth, Wisdom’s Daughter: The Theology of Julian of Norwich (Crossroad Publishing, 1999)
Philip Sheldrake, Julian of Norwich: “In God’s Sight”: Her Theology in Context (Wiley-Blackwell, 2019)
E. Spearing (ed.), Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love (Penguin Books, 1998)
Denys Turner, Julian of Norwich, Theologian (Yale University Press, 2011) Wolfgang Riehle, The Secret Within: Hermits, Recluses and Spiritual Outsiders in Medieval England (Cornell University Press, 2014)
Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (University of California Press, 1982)
Ann Warren, Anchorites and their Patrons in Medieval England (University of California Press, 1985)
Hugh White (trans.), Ancrene Wisse: Guide for Anchoresses (Penguin Classics, 1993)
Thu, 16 Nov 2023 - 946 - The Federalist Papers
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay's essays written in 1787/8 in support of the new US Constitution. They published these anonymously in New York as 'Publius' but, when it became known that Hamilton and Madison were the main authors, the essays took on a new significance for all states. As those two men played a major part in drafting the Constitution itself, their essays have since informed debate over what the authors of that Constitution truly intended. To some, the essays have proved to be America’s greatest contribution to political thought.
With
Frank Cogliano Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh and Interim Saunders Director of the International Centre for Jefferson Studies at Monticello
Kathleen Burk Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London
And
Nicholas Guyatt Professor of North American History at the University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Bernard Bailyn, To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders (Knopf, 2003)
Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention (Harvard University Press, 2015)
Noah Feldman, The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President (Random House, 2017)
Jonathan Gienapp, The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard University Press, 2018)
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison (eds. George W. Carey and James McClellan), The Federalist: The Gideon Edition (Liberty Fund, 2001)
Alison L. LaCroix, The Ideological Origins of American Federalism (Harvard University Press, 2010)
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, The Federalist Papers (Penguin, 1987)
Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 (Simon and Schuster, 2010)
Michael I. Meyerson, Liberty's Blueprint: How Madison and Hamilton Wrote the Federalist Papers, Defined the Constitution, and Made Democracy Safe for the World (Basic Books, 2008)
Jack Rakove, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (Knopf, 1996)
Jack N. Rakove and Colleen A. Sheehan, The Cambridge Companion to The Federalist (Cambridge University Press, 2020)
Thu, 09 Nov 2023 - 945 - Plankton
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the tiny drifting organisms in the oceans that sustain the food chain for all the lifeforms in the water and so for the billions of people who, in turn, depend on the seas for their diet. In Earth's development, the plant-like ones among them, the phytoplankton, produced so much oxygen through photosynthesis that around half the oxygen we breathe today originated there. And each day as the sun rises, the animal ones, the zooplankton, sink to the depths of the seas to avoid predators in such density that they appear on ship sonars like a new seabed, only to rise again at night in the largest migration of life on this planet.
With
Carol Robinson Professor of Marine Sciences at the University of East Anglia
Abigail McQuatters-Gollop Associate Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of Plymouth
And
Christopher Lowe Lecturer in Marine Biology at Swansea University
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Juli Berwald, Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone (Riverhead Books, 2018)
Sir Alister Hardy, The Open Sea: The World of Plankton (first published 1959; Collins New Naturalist Library, 2009)
Richard Kirby, Ocean Drifters: A Secret World Beneath the Waves (Studio Cactus Ltd, 2010)
Robert Kunzig, Mapping the Deep: The Extraordinary Story of Ocean Science (Sort Of Books, 2000)
Christian Sardet, Plankton: Wonders of the Drifting World (University of Chicago Press, 2015)
Helen Scales, The Brilliant Abyss: True Tales of Exploring the Deep Sea, Discovering Hidden Life and Selling the Seabed (Bloomsbury Sigma, 2022)
Thu, 02 Nov 2023 - 944 - The Economic Consequences of the Peace
In an extended version of the programme that was broadcast, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential book John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1919 after he resigned in protest from his role at the Paris Peace Conference. There the victors of World War One were deciding the fate of the defeated, especially Germany and Austria-Hungary, and Keynes wanted the world to know his view that the economic consequences would be disastrous for all. Soon Germany used his book to support their claim that the Treaty was grossly unfair, a sentiment that fed into British appeasement in the 1930s and has since prompted debate over whether Keynes had only warned of disaster or somehow contributed to it.
With
Margaret MacMillan Emeritus Professor of International History at the University of Oxford
Michael Cox Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Founding Director of LSE IDEAS
And
Patricia Clavin Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Manfred F. Boemeke, Gerald D. Feldman and Elisabeth Glaser (eds.), The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment after 75 Years (Cambridge University Press, 1998)
Zachary D. Carter, The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy and the Life of John Maynard Keynes (Random House, 2020)
Peter Clarke, Keynes: The Twentieth Century’s Most Influential Economist (Bloomsbury, 2009)
Patricia Clavin et al (eds.), Keynes’s Economic Consequences of the Peace after 100 Years: Polemics and Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2023)
Patricia Clavin, ‘Britain and the Making of Global Order after 1919: The Ben Pimlott Memorial Lecture’ (Twentieth Century British History, Vol. 31:3, 2020)
Richard Davenport-Hines, Universal Man; The Seven Lives of John Maynard Keynes (William Collins, 2015)
R. F. Harrod, John Maynard Keynes (first published 1951; Pelican, 1972)
Jens Holscher and Matthias Klaes (eds), Keynes’s Economic Consequences of the Peace: A Reappraisal (Pickering & Chatto, 2014)
John Maynard Keynes (with an introduction by Michael Cox), The Economic Consequences of the Peace (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
Margaret MacMillan, Peacemakers: Six Months that Changed the World (John Murray Publishers, 2001)
Etienne Mantoux, The Carthaginian Peace or the Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes (Oxford University Press, 1946) D. E. Moggridge, Maynard Keynes: An Economist’s Biography (Routledge, 1992)
Alan Sharp, Versailles 1919: A Centennial Perspective (Haus Publishing Ltd, 2018)
Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes, 1883-1946 (Pan Macmillan, 2004)
Jürgen Tampke, A Perfidious Distortion of History: The Versailles Peace Treaty and the Success of the Nazis (Scribe UK, 2017)
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 (Penguin Books, 2015)
Thu, 26 Oct 2023 - 943 - The Seventh Seal
In the 1000th edition of In Our Time, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss arguably the most celebrated film of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007). It begins with an image that, once seen, stays with you for the rest of your life: the figure of Death playing chess with a Crusader on the rocky Swedish shore. The release of this film in 1957 brought Bergman fame around the world. We see Antonius Block, the Crusader, realising he can’t beat Death but wanting to prolong this final game for one last act, without yet knowing what that act might be. As he goes on a journey through a plague ridden world, his meeting with a family of jesters and their baby offers him some kind of epiphany.
With
Jan Holmberg Director of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, Stockholm
Claire Thomson Professor of Cinema History and Director of the School of European Languages, Culture and Society at University College London
And
Laura Hubner Professor of Film at the University of Winchester
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Alexander Ahndoril (trans. Sarah Death), The Director (Granta, 2008)
Ingmar Bergman (trans. Marianne Ruuth), Images: My Life in Film (Faber and Faber, 1995)
Ingmar Bergman (trans. Joan Tate), The Magic Lantern: An Autobiography (Viking, 1988)
Ingmar Bergman (trans. Joan Tate), The Best Intentions (Vintage, 2018)
Ingmar Bergman (trans. Joan Tate), Sunday’s Children (Vintage, 2018)
Ingmar Bergman (trans. Joan Tate), Private Confessions (Vintage, 2018)
Stig Björkman, Torsten Manns and Jonas Sima (trans. Paul Britten Austin), Bergman on Bergman: Interviews with Ingmar Bergman (Da Capo Press, 1993)
Melvyn Bragg, The Seventh Seal: BFI Film Classics (British Film Institute, 1993)
Paul Duncan and Bengt Wanselius (eds.), The Ingmar Bergman Archives (Taschen/Max Ström, 2018)
Erik Hedling (ed.), Ingmar Bergman: An Enduring Legacy (Lund University Press, 2021)
Laura Hubner, The Films of Ingmar Bergman: Illusions of Light and Darkness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
Daniel Humphrey, Queer Bergman: Sexuality, Gender, and the European Art Cinema (University of Texas Press, 2013)
Maaret Koskinen (ed.), Bergman Revisited: Performance, Cinema, and the Arts (Wallflower Press, 2008)
Selma Lagerlöf (trans. Peter Graves), The Phantom Carriage (Norvik Press, 2011)
Mariah Larsson and Anders Marklund (eds.), Swedish Film: An Introduction and Reader (Nordic Academic Press, 2010)
Paisley Livingston, Ingmar Bergman and the Rituals of Art (Cornell University Press, 2019)
Birgitta Steene (ed.), Focus on The Seventh Seal (Prentice Hall, 1972)
Birgitta Steene, Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide (Amsterdam University Press, 2014)
Thu, 19 Oct 2023 - 942 - Melvyn Bragg talks to Mishal HusainThu, 19 Oct 2023
- 941 - Albert Einstein
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the man who, in 1905, produced several papers that were to change the world of physics and whose name went on to become a byword for genius. This was Albert Einstein, then still a technical expert at a Swiss patent office, and that year of 1905 became known as his annus mirabilis ('miraculous year'). While Einstein came from outside the academic world, some such as Max Planck championed his theory of special relativity, his principle of mass-energy equivalence that followed, and his explanations of Brownian Motion and the photoelectric effect. Yet it was not until 1919, when a solar eclipse proved his theory that gravity would bend light, that Einstein became an international celebrity and developed into an almost mythical figure.
With
Richard Staley Professor in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and Professor in History of Science at the University of Copenhagen
Diana Kormos Buchwald Robert M. Abbey Professor of History and Director and General Editor of The Einstein Papers Project at the California Institute of Technology
And
John Heilbron Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times (first published 1971; HarperPaperbacks, 2011)
Albert Einstein (eds. Jurgen Renn and Hanoch Gutfreund), Relativity: The Special and the General Theory - 100th Anniversary Edition (Princeton University Press, 2019)
Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years (first published 1950; Citadel Press, 1974)
Albert Einstein (ed. Paul A. Schilpp), Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist: The Library of Living Philosophers Volume VII (first published 1949; Open Court, 1970)
Albert Einstein (eds. Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden), Einstein on Peace (first published 1981; Literary Licensing, 2011)
Albrecht Folsing, Albert Einstein: A Biography (Viking, 1997)
J. L. Heilbron, Niels Bohr: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2020)
Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe (Simon & Schuster, 2008)
Max Jammer, Einstein and Religion (Princeton University Press, 2002)
Michel Janssen and Christoph Lehner (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Einstein (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
Dennis Overbye, Einstein in Love: A Scientific Romance (Viking, 2000)
Abraham Pais, Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein (Oxford University Press, 1982)
David E. Rowe and Robert Schulmann (eds.), Einstein on Politics: His Private Thoughts and Public Stands on Nationalism, Zionism, War, Peace, and the Bomb (Princeton University Press, 2007)
Matthew Stanley, Einstein's War: How Relativity Triumphed Amid the Vicious Nationalism of World War I (Dutton, 2019)
Fritz Stern, Einstein’s German World (Princeton University Press, 1999)
A. Douglas Stone, Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian (Princeton University Press, 2013)
Milena Wazeck (trans. Geoffrey S. Koby), Einstein's Opponents: The Public Controversy About the Theory of Relativity in the 1920s (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
Thu, 12 Oct 2023 - 694 - Jupiter
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system, and it’s hard to imagine a world more alien and different from Earth. It’s known as a Gas Giant, and its diameter is eleven times the size of Earth’s: our planet would fit inside it one thousand three hundred times. But its mass is only three hundred and twenty times greater, suggesting that although Jupiter is much bigger than Earth, the stuff it’s made of is much, much lighter. When you look at it through a powerful telescope you see a mass of colourful bands and stripes: these are the tops of ferocious weather systems that tear around the planet, including the great Red Spot, probably the longest-lasting storm in the solar system. Jupiter is so enormous that it’s thought to have played an essential role in the distribution of matter as the solar system formed – and it plays an important role in hoovering up astral debris that might otherwise rain down on Earth. It’s almost a mini solar system in its own right, with 95 moons orbiting around it. At least two of these are places life might possibly be found.
With
Michele Dougherty, Professor of Space Physics and Head of the Department of Physics at Imperial College London, and principle investigator of the magnetometer instrument on the JUICE spacecraft (JUICE is the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, a mission launched by the European Space Agency in April 2023)
Leigh Fletcher, Professor of Planetary Science at the University of Leicester, and interdisciplinary scientist for JUICE
Carolin Crawford, Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, and Emeritus Member of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge
Thu, 27 Jul 2023 - 693 - Elizabeth Anscombe
In 1956 Oxford University awarded an honorary degree to the former US president Harry S. Truman for his role in ending the Second World War. One philosopher, Elizabeth Anscombe (1919 – 2001), objected strongly.
She argued that although dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have ended the fighting, it amounted to the murder of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. It was therefore an irredeemably immoral act. And there was something fundamentally wrong with a moral philosophy that didn’t see that.
This was the starting point for a body of work that changed the terms in which philosophers discussed moral and ethical questions in the second half of the twentieth century.
A leading student of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, Anscombe combined his insights with rejuvenated interpretations of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas that made these ancient figures speak to modern issues and concerns. Anscombe was also instrumental in making action, and the question of what it means to intend to do something, a leading area of philosophical work.
With
Rachael Wiseman, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Liverpool
Constantine Sandis, Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire, and Director of Lex Academic
Roger Teichmann, Lecturer in Philosophy at St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Thu, 20 Jul 2023 - 692 - Death in Venice
Death in Venice is Thomas Mann’s most famous – and infamous - novella. Published in 1912, it’s about the fall of the repressed writer Gustav von Aschenbach, when his supposedly objective appreciation of a young boy’s beauty becomes sexual obsession. It explores the link between creativity and self-destruction, and by the end Aschenbach’s humiliation is complete, dying on a deckchair in the act of ogling. Aschenbach's stalking of the boy and dreaming of pederasty can appal modern readers, even more than Mann expected.
With
Karolina Watroba, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Modern Languages at All Souls College, University of Oxford
Erica Wickerson, a Former Research Fellow at St Johns College, University of Cambridge
Sean Williams, Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History at the University of Sheffield
Sean Williams' series of Radio 3's The Essay, Death in Trieste, can be found here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001lzd4
Thu, 13 Jul 2023 - 691 - Oedipus Rex
Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex begins with a warning: the murderer of the old king of Thebes, Laius, has never been identified or caught, and he’s still at large in the city. Oedipus is the current king of Thebes, and he sets out to solve the crime.
His investigations lead to a devastating conclusion. Not only is Oedipus himself the killer, but Laius was his father, and Laius’ wife Jocasta, who Oedipus has married, is his mother.
Oedipus Rex was composed during the golden age of Athens, in the 5th century BC. Sophocles probably wrote it to explore the dynamics of power in an undemocratic society. It has unsettled audiences from the very start: it is the only one of Sophocles’ plays that didn’t win first prize at Athens’ annual drama festival. But it’s had exceptionally good write-ups from the critics: Aristotle called it the greatest example of the dramatic arts. Freud believed it laid bare the deepest structures of human desire.
With:
Nick Lowe, Reader in Classical Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London
Fiona Macintosh, Professor of Classical Reception and Fellow of St Hilda’s College at the University of Oxford
Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at Durham University
Thu, 06 Jul 2023 - 690 - Mitochondria
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the power-packs within cells in all complex life on Earth.
Inside each cell of every complex organism there are structures known as mitochondria. The 19th century scientists who first observed them thought they were bacteria which had somehow invaded the cells they were studying. We now understand that mitochondria take components from the food we eat and convert them into energy.
Mitochondria are essential for complex life, but as the components that run our metabolisms they can also be responsible for a range of diseases – and they probably play a role in how we age. The DNA in mitochondria is only passed down the maternal line. This means it can be used to trace population movements deep into human history, even back to an ancestor we all share: mitochondrial Eve.
With
Mike Murphy Professor of Mitochondrial Redox Biology at the University of Cambridge
Florencia Camus NERC Independent Research Fellow at University College London
and
Nick Lane Professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry at University College London
Producer Luke Mulhall
Thu, 29 Jun 2023 - 689 - Louis XIV: The Sun King
In 1661 the 23 year-old French king Louis the XIV had been on the throne for 18 years when his chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, died. Louis is reported to have said to his ministers, “It is now time that I govern my affairs myself. You will assist me with your counsels when I ask for them [but] I order you to seal no orders except by my command… I order you not to sign anything, not even a passport, without my command, and to render account to me personally each day”
So began the personal rule of Louis XIV, which lasted a further 54 years until his death in 1715. From his newly-built palace at Versailles, Louis was able to project an image of himself as the centre of gravity around which all of France revolved: it’s no accident that he became known as the Sun King. He centralized power to the extent he was able to say ‘L’etat c’est moi’: I am the state. Under his rule France became the leading diplomatic, military and cultural power in Europe.
With
Catriona Seth Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford
Guy Rowlands Professor of Early Modern History at the University of St Andrews
and
Penny Roberts Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Warwick
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Thu, 22 Jun 2023 - 688 - Virgil's Georgics
In the year 29 BC the great Roman poet Virgil published these lines: Blessed is he who has succeeded in learning the laws of nature’s working, has cast beneath his feet all fear and fate’s implacable decree, and the howl of insatiable Death. But happy too is he who knows the rural gods…
They’re from his poem the Georgics, a detailed account of farming life in the Italy of the time. ‘Georgics’ means ‘agricultural things’, and it’s often been read as a farming manual. But it was written at a moment when the Roman world was emerging from a period of civil war, and questions of land ownership and management were heavily contested. It’s also a philosophical reflection on humanity’s relationship with the natural world, the ravages of time, and the politics of Virgil’s day.
It’s exerted a profound influence on European writing about agriculture and rural life, and has much to offer environmental thinking today.
With
Katharine Earnshaw Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter;
Neville Morley Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter
and
Diana Spencer Professor of Classics at the University of Birmingham
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Thu, 15 Jun 2023 - 687 - The Shimabara Rebellion
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Christian uprising in Japan and its profound and long-term consequences.
In the 1630s, Japan was ruled by the Tokagawa Shoguns, a military dynasty who, 30 years earlier, had unified the country, ending around two centuries of civil war. In 1637 a rebellion broke out in the province of Shimabara, in the south of the country. It was a peasants’ revolt, following years of bad harvests in which the local lord had refused to lower taxes. Many of the rebels were Christians, and they fought under a Christian banner.
The central government’s response was merciless. They met the rebels with an army of 150 000 men, possibly the largest force assembled anywhere in the world during the Early Modern period. Once the rebellion had been suppressed, the Shogun enforced a ban on Christianity and expelled nearly all foreigners from the country. Japan remained more or less completely sealed off from the rest of the world for the next 250 years.
With
Satona Suzuki Lecturer in Japanese and Modern Japanese History at SOAS, University of London
Erica Baffelli Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Manchester
and
Christopher Harding Senior Lecturer in Asian History at the University of Edinburgh
Producer Luke Mulhall
Thu, 08 Jun 2023 - 686 - The Dead Sea Scrolls
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the revelatory collection of Biblical texts, legal documents, community rules and literary writings.
In 1946 a Bedouin shepherd boy was looking for a goat he’d lost in the hills above the Dead Sea. He threw a rock into a cave and heard a hollow sound. He’d hit a ceramic jar containing an ancient manuscript. This was the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of about a thousand texts dating from around 250 BC to AD 68. It is the most substantial first hand evidence we have for the beliefs and practices of Judaism in and around the lifetime of Jesus.
The Dead Sea Scrolls have transformed our understanding of how the texts that make up the Hebrew Bible were edited and collected. They also offer a tantalising window onto the world from which Christianity eventually emerged.
With
Sarah Pearce Ian Karten Professor of Jewish Studies and Head of the School of Humanities at the University of Southampton
Charlotte Hempel Professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism at the University of Birmingham
and
George Brooke Rylands Professor Emeritus of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester
Producer Luke Mulhall
Thu, 01 Jun 2023 - 685 - Walt Whitman
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the highly influential American poet Walt Whitman.
In 1855 Whitman was working as a printer, journalist and property developer when he published his first collection of poetry. It began:
I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
The book was called Leaves of Grass. In it, Whitman set out to break away from European literary forms and traditions. Using long lines written in free verse, he developed a poetry meant to express a distinctively American outlook.
Leaves of Grass is full of verse that celebrates both the sovereign individual, and the deep fellowship between individuals. Its optimism about the American experience was challenged by the Civil War and its aftermath, but Whitman emerged as a celebrity and a key figure in the development of American culture.
With
Sarah Churchwell Professor of American Literature and the Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of London
Peter Riley Lecturer in 19th Century American Literature at the University of Exeter and
Mark Ford Professor of English and American Literature at University College London
Producer Luke Mulhall
Thu, 25 May 2023 - 684 - Linnaeus
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life, ideas and legacy of the pioneering Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778). The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau once wrote: "Tell him I know no greater man on earth".
The son of a parson, Linnaeus grew up in an impoverished part of Sweden but managed to gain a place at university. He went on to transform biology by making two major innovations. He devised a simpler method of naming species and he developed a new system for classifying plants and animals, a system that became known as the Linnaean hierarchy. He was also one of the first people to grow a banana in Europe.
With
Staffan Muller-Wille University Lecturer in History of Life, Human and Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge
Stella Sandford Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, London
and
Steve Jones Senior Research Fellow in Genetics at University College, London
Producer Luke Mulhall
Thu, 18 May 2023 - 683 - The Battle of Crécy
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the brutal events of 26 August 1346, when the armies of France and England met in a funnel-shaped valley outside the town of Crécy in northern France.
Although the French, led by Philip VI, massively outnumbered the English, under the command of Edward III, the English won the battle, and French casualties were huge. The English victory is often attributed to the success of their longbowmen against the heavy cavalry of the French.
The Battle of Crécy was the result of years of simmering tension between Edward III and Philip VI, and it led to decades of further conflict between England and France, a conflict that came to be known as the Hundred Years War.
With
Anne Curry Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the University of Southampton
Andrew Ayton Senior Research Fellow in History at Keele University
and Erika Graham-Goering Lecturer in Late Medieval History at Durham University
Producer Luke Mulhall
Thu, 11 May 2023 - 682 - Cnut
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Danish prince who became a very effective King of England in 1016.
Cnut inherited a kingdom in a sorry state. The north and east coast had been harried by Viking raiders, and his predecessor King Æthelred II had struggled to maintain order amongst the Anglo-Saxon nobility too. Cnut proved to be skilful ruler. Not only did he bring stability and order to the kingdom, he exported the Anglo-Saxon style of centralised government to Denmark. Under Cnut, England became the cosmopolitan centre of a multi-national North Atlantic Empire, and a major player in European politics.
With
Erin Goeres Associate Professor of Old Norse Language and Literature at University College London
Pragya Vohra Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of York
and
Elizabeth Tyler Professor of Medieval Literature and Co-Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York
Producer Luke Mulhall
Thu, 04 May 2023 - 681 - A Room of One's Own
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Virginia Woolf's highly influential essay on women and literature, which considers both literary history and future opportunity.
In 1928 Woolf gave two lectures at Cambridge University about women and fiction. In front of an audience at Newnham College, she delivered the following words: “All I could do was offer you an opinion upon one minor point - a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved”.
These lectures formed the basis of a book she published the following year, and Woolf chose A Room Of One’s Own for its title. It is a text that set the scene for the study of women’s writing for the rest of the 20th century. Arguably, it initiated the discipline of women’s history too.
With
Hermione Lee Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford
Michele Barrett Emeritus Professor of Modern Literary and Cultural Theory at Queen Mary, University of London
and
Alexandra Harris Professor of English at the University of Birmingham
Producer Luke Mulhall
Thu, 27 Apr 2023 - 680 - Solon the Lawgiver
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Solon, who was elected archon or chief magistrate of Athens in 594 BC: some see him as the father of Athenian democracy.
In the first years of the 6th century BC, the city state of Athens was in crisis. The lower orders of society were ravaged by debt, to the point where some were being forced into slavery. An oppressive law code mandated the death penalty for everything from murder to petty theft. There was a real danger that the city could fall into either tyranny or civil war.
Solon instituted a programme of reforms that transformed Athens’ political and legal systems, its society and economy, so that later generations referred to him as Solon the Lawgiver.
With
Melissa Lane Class of 1943 Professor of Politics at Princeton University
Hans van Wees Grote Professor of Ancient History at University College London
and William Allan Professor of Greek and McConnell Laing Tutorial Fellow in Greek and Latin Languages and Literature at University College, University of Oxford
Producer Luke Mulhall
Thu, 20 Apr 2023 - 679 - Mercantilism
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how, between the 16th and 18th centuries, Europe was dominated by an economic way of thinking called mercantilism. The key idea was that exports should be as high as possible and imports minimised.
For more than 300 years, almost every ruler and political thinker was a mercantilist. Eventually, economists including Adam Smith, in his ground-breaking work of 1776 The Wealth of Nations, declared that mercantilism was a flawed concept and it became discredited. However, a mercantilist economic approach can still be found in modern times and today’s politicians sometimes still use rhetoric related to mercantilism.
With
D’Maris Coffman Professor in Economics and Finance of the Built Environment at University College London Craig Muldrew Professor of Social and Economic History at the University of Cambridge and a Member of Queens’ College
and
Helen Paul, Lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton.
Producer Luke Mulhall
Thu, 13 Apr 2023 - 678 - The Ramayana
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epic which is regarded as one of the greatest works of world literature. Its importance in Indian culture has been compared to that of the Iliad and Odyssey in the West, and it’s still seen as a sacred text by Hindus today.
Written in Sanskrit, it tells the story of the legendary prince and princess Rama and Sita, and the many challenges, misfortunes and choices that they face. About 24,000 verses long, the Ramayana is also one of the longest ancient epics. It’s a text that’s been hugely influential and it continues to be popular in India and elsewhere in Asia. With
Jessica Frazier Lecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad Distinguished Professor of Comparative Religion and Philosophy at Lancaster University
and
Naomi Appleton Senior Lecturer in Asian Religions at the University of Edinburgh
The image above shows Rama, Sita, Hanuman, Lakshmana and devotees, from the Shree Jalaram Prarthana Mandal, Leicester.
Producer Luke Mulhall
Thu, 06 Apr 2023 - 677 - Megaliths
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss megaliths - huge stones placed in the landscape, often visually striking and highly prominent.
Such stone monuments in Britain and Ireland mostly date from the Neolithic period, and the most ancient are up to 6,000 years old. In recent decades, scientific advances have enabled archaeologists to learn a large amount about megalithic structures and the people who built them, but much about these stones remains unknown and mysterious.
With
Vicki Cummings Professor of Neolithic Archaeology at the University of Central Lancashire
Julian Thomas Professor of Archaeology at the University of Manchester
and
Susan Greaney Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Exeter.
Thu, 30 Mar 2023 - 676 - Paul Erdős
Paul Erdős (1913 – 1996) is one of the most celebrated mathematicians of the 20th century. During his long career, he made a number of impressive advances in our understanding of maths and developed whole new fields in the subject.
He was born into a Jewish family in Hungary just before the outbreak of World War I, and his life was shaped by the rise of fascism in Europe, anti-Semitism and the Cold War. His reputation for mathematical problem solving is unrivalled and he was extraordinarily prolific. He produced more than 1,500 papers and collaborated with around 500 other academics.
He also had an unconventional lifestyle. Instead of having a long-term post at one university, he spent much of his life travelling around visiting other mathematicians, often staying for just a few days.
With
Colva Roney-Dougal Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of St Andrews
Timothy Gowers Professor of Mathematics at the College de France in Paris and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
and
Andrew Treglown Associate Professor in Mathematics at the University of Birmingham
The image above shows a graph occurring in Ramsey Theory. It was created by Dr Katherine Staden, lecturer in the School of Mathematics at the Open University.
Thu, 23 Mar 2023 - 675 - Stevie Smith
In 1957 Stevie Smith published a poetry collection called Not Waving But Drowning – and its title poem gave us a phrase which has entered the language.
Its success has overshadowed her wider work as the author of more than half a dozen collections of poetry and three novels, mostly written while she worked as a secretary. Her poems, printed with her pen and ink sketches, can seem simple and comical, but often beneath the surface lurk themes of melancholy, loneliness, love and death.
With Jeremy Noel-Tod Associate Professor in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia
Noreen Masud Lecturer in Twentieth Century Literature at the University of Bristol
and
Will May Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature at the University of Southampton
The photograph above shows Stevie Smith recording her story Sunday at Home, a finalist in the BBC Third Programme Short Story competition in 1949.
Thu, 16 Mar 2023 - 674 - Chartism
On 21 May 1838 an estimated 150,000 people assembled on Glasgow Green for a mass demonstration. There they witnessed the launch of the People’s Charter, a list of demands for political reform. The changes they called for included voting by secret ballot, equal-sized constituencies and, most importantly, that all men should have the vote.
The Chartists, as they came to be known, were the first national mass working-class movement. In the decade that followed, they collected six million signatures for their Petitions to Parliament: all were rejected, but their campaign had a significant and lasting impact.
With
Joan Allen Visiting Fellow in History at Newcastle University and Chair of the Society for the Study of Labour History
Emma Griffin Professor of Modern British History at the University of East Anglia and President of the Royal Historical Society
and
Robert Saunders Reader in Modern British History at Queen Mary, University of London.
The image above shows a Chartist mass meeting on Kennington Common in London in April 1848.
Thu, 09 Mar 2023 - 673 - Tycho Brahe
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546 – 1601) whose charts offered an unprecedented level of accuracy.
In 1572 Brahe's observations of a new star challenged the idea, inherited from Aristotle, that the heavens were unchanging. He went on to create his own observatory complex on the Danish island of Hven, and there, working before the invention of the telescope, he developed innovative instruments and gathered a team of assistants, taking a highly systematic approach to observation. A second, smaller source of renown was his metal prosthetic nose, which he needed after a serious injury sustained in a duel.
The image above shows Brahe aged 40, from the Atlas Major by Johann Blaeu.
With
Ole Grell Emeritus Professor in Early Modern History at the Open University
Adam Mosley Associate Professor of History at Swansea University
and
Emma Perkins Affiliate Scholar in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge.
Thu, 02 Mar 2023 - 672 - Superconductivity
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the discovery made in 1911 by the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853-1926). He came to call it Superconductivity and it is a set of physical properties that nobody predicted and that none, since, have fully explained. When he lowered the temperature of mercury close to absolute zero and ran an electrical current through it, Kamerlingh Onnes found not that it had low resistance but that it had no resistance. Later, in addition, it was noticed that a superconductor expels its magnetic field. In the century or more that has followed, superconductors have already been used to make MRI scanners and to speed particles through the Large Hadron Collider and they may perhaps bring nuclear fusion a little closer (a step that could be world changing).
The image above is from a photograph taken by Stephen Blundell of a piece of superconductor levitating above a magnet.
With
Nigel Hussey Professor of Experimental Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Bristol and Radbout University
Suchitra Sebastian Professor of Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge
And
Stephen Blundell Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Mansfield College
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 23 Feb 2023 - 671 - Rawls' Theory of Justice
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss A Theory of Justice by John Rawls (1921 - 2002) which has been called the most influential book in twentieth century political philosophy. It was first published in 1971. Rawls (pictured above) drew on his own experience in WW2 and saw the chance in its aftermath to build a new society, one founded on personal liberty and fair equality of opportunity. While in that just society there could be inequalities, Rawls’ radical idea was that those inequalities must be to the greatest advantage not to the richest but to the worst off.
With
Fabienne Peter Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick
Martin O’Neill Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of York
And
Jonathan Wolff The Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford and Fellow of Wolfson College
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 16 Feb 2023 - 670 - John Donne
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Donne (1573-1631), known now as one of England’s finest poets of love and notable in his own time as an astonishing preacher. He was born a Catholic in a Protestant country and, when he married Anne More without her father's knowledge, Donne lost his job in the government circle and fell into a poverty that only ended once he became a priest in the Church of England. As Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, his sermons were celebrated, perhaps none more than his final one in 1631 when he was plainly in his dying days, as if preaching at his own funeral.
The image above is from a miniature in the Royal Collection and was painted in 1616 by Isaac Oliver (1565-1617)
With
Mary Ann Lund Associate Professor in Renaissance English Literature at the University of Leicester
Sue Wiseman Professor of Seventeenth Century Literature at Birkbeck, University of London
And
Hugh Adlington Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham
Thu, 09 Feb 2023 - 669 - The Great Stink
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the stench from the River Thames in the hot summer of 1858 and how it appalled and terrified Londoners living and working beside it, including those in the new Houses of Parliament which were still under construction. There had been an outbreak of cholera a few years before in which tens of thousands had died, and a popular theory held that foul smells were linked to diseases. The source of the problem was that London's sewage, once carted off to fertilise fields had recently, thanks to the modern flushing systems, started to flow into the river and, thanks to the ebb and flow of the tides, was staying there and warming in the summer sun. The engineer Joseph Bazalgette was given the task to build huge new sewers to intercept the waste, a vast network, so changing the look of London and helping ensure there were no further cholera outbreaks from contaminated water.
The image above is from Punch, July 10th 1858 and it has this caption: The 'Silent Highway'-Man. "Your Money or your Life!"
With
Rosemary Ashton Emeritus Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at University College London
Stephen Halliday Author of ‘The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis’
And
Paul Dobraszczyk Lecturer at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London
Thu, 26 Jan 2023 - 668 - Persuasion
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jane Austen’s last complete novel, which was published just before Christmas in 1817, five months after her death. It is the story of Anne Elliot, now 27 and (so we are told), losing her bloom, and of her feelings for Captain Wentworth who she was engaged to, 8 years before – an engagement she broke off under pressure from her father and godmother. When Wentworth, by chance, comes back into Anne Elliot's life, he is still angry with her and neither she nor Austen's readers can know whether it is now too late for their thwarted love to have a second chance.
The image above is from a 1995 BBC adaptation of the novel, with Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds
With
Karen O’Brien Vice-Chancellor of Durham University
Fiona Stafford Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford
And
Paddy Bullard Associate Professor of English Literature and Book History at the University of Reading
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 19 Jan 2023 - 667 - Citizen Kane
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orson Welles' film, released in 1941, which is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, films yet made. Welles plays the lead role of Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper magnate, and Welles directed, produced and co-wrote this story of loneliness at the heart of a megalomaniac. The plot was partly inspired by the life of William Randolph Hearst, who then used the power of his own newspapers to try to suppress the film’s release. It was to take some years before Citizen Kane reached a fuller audience and, from that point, become so celebrated.
The image above is of Kane addressing a public meeting while running for Governor.
With
Stella Bruzzi Professor of Film and Dean of Arts and Humanities at University College London
Ian Christie Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London
And
John David Rhodes Professor of Film Studies and Visual Culture at the University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 12 Jan 2023 - 666 - The Irish Rebellion of 1798
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the momentum behind rebellion in Ireland in 1798, the people behind the rebellion and the impact over the next few years and after. Amid wider unrest, the United Irishmen set the rebellion on its way, inspired by the French and American revolutionaries and their pursuit of liberty. When it broke out in May the United Irishmen had an estimated two hundred thousand members, Catholic and Protestant, and the prospect of a French invasion fleet to back them. Crucially for the prospects of success, some of those members were British spies who exposed the plans and the military were largely ready - though not in Wexford where the scale of rebellion was much greater. The fighting was initially fierce and brutal and marked with sectarianism but had largely been suppressed by the time the French arrived in August to declare a short-lived republic. The consequences of the rebellion were to be far reaching, not least in the passing of Acts of Union in 1800.
The image above is of Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763 - 1798), prominent member of the United Irishmen
With
Ian McBride Foster Professor of Irish History at Hertford College, University of Oxford
Catriona Kennedy Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of York
And
Liam Chambers Head of Department and Senior Lecturer in History at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 05 Jan 2023 - 665 - The Nibelungenlied
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Song of the Nibelungs, a twelfth century German epic, full of blood, violence, fantasy and bleakness. It is a foundational work of medieval literature, drawing on the myths of Scandinavia and central Europe. The poem tells of two couples, Siegfried and Kriemhild and Gunther and Brunhilda, whose lives are destroyed by lies and revenge. It was extremely popular in its time, sometimes rewritten with happier endings, and was rediscovered by German Romantics and has since been drawn from selectively by Wagner, Fritz Lang and, infamously, the Nazis looking to support ideas on German heritage.
The image above is of Siegfried seeing Kriemhild for the first time, a miniature from the Hundeshagenschen Code manuscript dating from 15th Century.
With
Sarah Bowden Reader in German and Medieval Studies at King’s College London
Mark Chinca Professor of Medieval German and Comparative Literature at the University of Cambridge
And
Bettina Bildhauer Professor of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 29 Dec 2022 - 664 - The Challenger Expedition 1872-1876
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the voyage of HMS Challenger which set out from Portsmouth in 1872 with a mission a to explore the ocean depths around the world and search for new life. The scale of the enterprise was breath taking and, for its ambition, it has since been compared to the Apollo missions. The team onboard found thousands of new species, proved there was life on the deepest seabeds and plumbed the Mariana Trench five miles below the surface. Thanks to telegraphy and mailboats, its vast discoveries were shared around the world even while Challenger was at sea, and they are still being studied today, offering insights into the ever-changing oceans that cover so much of the globe and into the health of our planet.
The image above is from the journal of Pelham Aldrich R.N. who served on the Challenger Surveying Expedition from 1872-5.
With
Erika Jones Curator of Navigation and Oceanography at Royal Museums Greenwich
Sam Robinson Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute Research Fellow at the University of Southampton
And
Giles Miller Principal Curator of Micropalaeontology at the Natural History Museum London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 22 Dec 2022 - 663 - Demosthenes' Philippics
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the speeches that became a byword for fierce attacks on political opponents. It was in the 4th century BC, in Athens, that Demosthenes delivered these speeches against the tyrant Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, when Philip appeared a growing threat to Athens and its allies and Demosthenes feared his fellow citizens were set on appeasement. In what became known as The Philippics, Demosthenes tried to persuade Athenians to act against Macedon before it was too late; eventually he succeeded in stirring them, even if the Macedonians later prevailed. For these speeches prompting resistance, Demosthenes became famous as one of the Athenian democracy’s greatest freedom fighters. Later, in Rome, Cicero's attacks on Mark Antony were styled on Demosthenes and these too became known as Philippics.
The image above is painted on the dome of the library of the National Assembly, Paris and is by Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863). It depicts Demosthenes haranguing the waves of the sea as a way of strengthening his voice for his speeches.
With
Paul Cartledge A. G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge
Kathryn Tempest Reader in Latin Literature and Roman History at the University of Roehampton
And
Jon Hesk Reader in Greek and Classical Studies at the University of St Andrews
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 15 Dec 2022 - 662 - Bauhaus
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Bauhaus which began in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, as a school for arts and crafts combined, and went on to be famous around the world. Under its first director, Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus moved to Dessau and extended its range to architecture and became associated with a series of white, angular, flat-roofed buildings reproduced from Shanghai to Chicago, aimed for modern living. The school closed after only 14 years while at a third location, Berlin, under pressure from the Nazis, yet its students and teachers continued to spread its ethos in exile, making it even more influential.
The image above is of the Bauhaus Building, Dessau, designed by Gropius and built in 1925-6
With
Robin Schuldenfrei Tangen Reader in 20th Century Modernism at The Courtauld Institute of Art
Alan Powers History Leader at the London School of Architecture
And
Michael White Professor of the History of Art at the University of York
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 08 Dec 2022 - 661 - The Morant Bay Rebellion
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rebellion that broke out in Jamaica on 11th October 1865 when Paul Bogle (1822-65) led a protest march from Stony Gut to the courthouse in nearby Morant Bay. There were many grounds for grievance that day and soon anger turned to bloodshed. Although the British had abolished slavery 30 years before, the plantation owners were still dominant and the conditions for the majority of people on Jamaica were poor. The British governor suppressed this rebellion brutally and soon people in Jamaica lost what right they had to rule themselves. Some in Britain, like Charles Dickens, supported the governor's actions while others, like Charles Darwin, wanted him tried for murder.
The image above is from a Jamaican $2 banknote, printed after Paul Bogle became a National Hero in 1969.
With
Matthew J Smith Professor of History and Director of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at University College London
Diana Paton The William Robertson Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh
And
Lawrence Goldman Emeritus Fellow in History at St Peter’s College, University of Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 01 Dec 2022 - 660 - Wilfred Owen
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the celebrated British poet of World War One. Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) had published only a handful of poems when he was killed a week before the end of the war, but in later decades he became seen as the essential British war poet. His works such as Anthem for Doomed Youth, Strange Meeting and Dulce et Decorum Est went on to be inseparable from the memory of the war and its futility. However, while Owen is best known for his poetry of the trenches, his letters offer a more nuanced insight into him such as his pride in being an officer in charge of others and in being a soldier who fought alongside his comrades.
With
Jane Potter Reader in The School of Arts at Oxford Brookes University
Fran Brearton Professor of Modern Poetry at Queen’s University Belfast
And
Guy Cuthbertson Professor of British Literature and Culture at Liverpool Hope University
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 24 Nov 2022 - 659 - The Fish-Tetrapod Transition
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest changes in the history of life on Earth. Around 400 million years ago some of our ancestors, the fish, started to become a little more like humans. At the swampy margins between land and water, some fish were turning their fins into limbs, their swim bladders into lungs and developed necks and eventually they became tetrapods, the group to which we and all animals with backbones and limbs belong. After millions of years of this transition, these tetrapod descendants of fish were now ready to leave the water for a new life of walking on land, and with that came an explosion in the diversity of life on Earth.
The image above is a representation of Tiktaalik Roseae, a fish with some features of a tetrapod but not one yet, based on a fossil collected in the Canadian Arctic.
With
Emily Rayfield Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Bristol
Michael Coates Chair and Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago
And
Steve Brusatte Professor of Palaeontology and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 17 Nov 2022 - 658 - Berthe Morisot
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the influential painters at the heart of the French Impressionist movement: Berthe Morisot (1841-1895). The men in her circle could freely paint in busy bars and public spaces, while Morisot captured the domestic world and found new, daring ways to paint quickly in the open air. Her work shows women as they were, to her: informal, unguarded, and not transformed or distorted for the eyes of men. The image above is one of her few self-portraits, though several portraits of her survive by other artists, chiefly her sister Edma and her brother-in-law Edouard Manet.
With
Tamar Garb Professor of History of Art at University College London
Lois Oliver Curator at the Royal Academy and Adjunct Professor of Art History at the American University of Notre Dame London.
And
Claire Moran Reader in French at Queen's University Belfast
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 10 Nov 2022 - 657 - The Knights Templar
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the military order founded around 1119, twenty years after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem. For almost 200 years the Knights Templar were a notable fighting force and financial power in the Crusader States and Western Europe. Their mission was to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land, and they became extremely wealthy yet, as the crusader grip on Jerusalem slipped, their political fortune declined steeply. They were to be persecuted out of existence, with their last grand master burned at the stake in Paris in 1314, and that sudden end has contributed to the strength of the legends that have grown up around them.
With
Helen Nicholson Professor of Medieval History at Cardiff University
Mike Carr Lecturer in Late Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh
And
Jonathan Phillips Professor of Crusading History at Royal Holloway, University of London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 03 Nov 2022 - 656 - The Electron
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss an atomic particle that's become inseparable from modernity. JJ Thomson discovered the electron 125 years ago, so revealing that atoms, supposedly the smallest things, were made of even smaller things. He pictured them inside an atomic ball like a plum pudding, with others later identifying their place outside the nucleus - and it is their location on the outer limit that has helped scientists learn so much about electrons and with electrons. We can use electrons to reveal the secrets of other particles and, while electricity exists whether we understand electrons or not, the applications of electricity and electrons grow as our knowledge grows. Many questions, though, remain unanswered.
With
Victoria Martin Professor of Collider Physics at the University of Edinburgh
Harry Cliff Research Fellow in Particle Physics at the University of Cambridge
And
Frank Close Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics and Fellow Emeritus at Exeter College at the University of Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 27 Oct 2022 - 655 - Plato's Atlantis
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Plato's account of the once great island of Atlantis out to the west, beyond the world known to his fellow Athenians, and why it disappeared many thousands of years before his time. There are no sources for this story other than Plato, and he tells it across two of his works, the Timaeus and the Critias, tantalizing his readers with evidence that it is true and clues that it is a fantasy. Atlantis, for Plato, is a way to explore what an ideal republic really is, and whether Athens could be (or ever was) one; to European travellers in the Renaissance, though, his story reflected their own encounters with distant lands, previously unknown to them, spurring generations of explorers to scour the oceans and in the hope of finding a lost world.
The image above is from an engraving of the legendary island of Atlantis after a description by Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680).
With
Edith Hall Professor of Classics at Durham University
Christopher Gill Emeritus Professor of Ancient Thought at the University of Exeter
And
Angie Hobbs Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 20 Oct 2022 - 654 - Nineteen Eighty-Four
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Orwell's (1903-1950) final novel, published in 1949, set in a dystopian London which is now found in Airstrip One, part of the totalitarian superstate of Oceania which is always at war and where the protagonist, Winston Smith, works at the Ministry of Truth as a rewriter of history: 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' The influence of Orwell's novel is immeasurable, highlighting threats to personal freedom with concepts he named such as doublespeak, thoughtcrime, Room 101, Big Brother, memory hole and thought police.
With
David Dwan Professor of English Literature and Intellectual History at the University of Oxford
Lisa Mullen Teaching Associate in Modern Contemporary Literature at the University of Cambridge
And
John Bowen Professor of English Literature at the University of York
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 13 Oct 2022 - 643 - John Bull
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origin of this personification of the English everyman and his development as both British and Britain in the following centuries. He first appeared along with Lewis Baboon (French) and Nicholas Frog (Dutch) in 1712 in a pamphlet that satirised the funding of the War of the Spanish Succession. The author was John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), a Scottish doctor and satirist who was part of the circle of Swift and Pope, and his John Bull was the English voter, overwhelmed by taxes that went not so much into the war itself but into the pockets of its financiers. For the next two centuries, Arbuthnot’s John Bull was a gift for cartoonists and satirists, especially when they wanted to ridicule British governments for taking advantage of the people’s patriotism.
The image above is by William Charles, a Scottish engraver who emigrated to the United States, and dates from 1814 during the Anglo-American War of 1812.
With
Judith Hawley Professor of 18th Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London
Miles Taylor Professor of British History and Society at Humboldt, University of Berlin
And
Mark Knights Professor of History at the University of Warwick
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 28 Jul 2022 - 642 - Angkor Wat
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the largest and arguably the most astonishing religious structure on Earth, built for Suryavarman II in the 12th Century in modern-day Cambodia. It is said to have more stone in it than the Great Pyramid of Giza, and much of the surface is intricately carved and remarkably well preserved. For the last 900 years Angkor Wat has been a centre of religion, whether Hinduism, Buddhism or Animism or a combination of those, and a source of wonder to Cambodians and visitors from around the world.
With
Piphal Heng Postdoctoral scholar at the Cotsen Institute and the Programme for Early Modern Southeast Asia at UCLA
Ashley Thompson Hiram W Woodward Chair of Southeast Asian Art at SOAS University of London
And
Simon Warrack A stone conservator who has worked extensively at Angkor Wat
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 21 Jul 2022 - 641 - Dylan Thomas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the celebrated Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953). He wrote some of his best poems before he was twenty in the first half of his short, remarkable life, and was prolific in the second half too with poems such as those set in London under the Blitz and reworkings of his childhood in Swansea, and his famous radio play Under Milk Wood (performed after his death). He was read widely and widely heard: with his reading tours in America and recordings of his works that sold in their hundreds of thousands after his death, he is credited with reviving the act of poetry as performance in the 20th century.
With
Nerys Williams Associate Professor of Poetry and Poetics at University College Dublin
John Goodby Professor of Arts and Culture at Sheffield Hallam University
And
Leo Mellor The Roma Gill Fellow in English at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 14 Jul 2022 - 640 - The Death of Stars
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the abrupt transformation of stars after shining brightly for millions or billions of years, once they lack the fuel to counter the force of gravity. Those like our own star, the Sun, become red giants, expanding outwards and consuming nearby planets, only to collapse into dense white dwarves. The massive stars, up to fifty times the mass of the Sun, burst into supernovas, visible from Earth in daytime, and become incredibly dense neutron stars or black holes. In these moments of collapse, the intense heat and pressure can create all the known elements to form gases and dust which may eventually combine to form new stars, new planets and, as on Earth, new life.
The image above is of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, approximately 10,000 light years away, from a once massive star that died in a supernova explosion that was first seen from Earth in 1690
With
Martin Rees Astronomer Royal, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
Carolin Crawford Emeritus Member of the Institute of Astronomy and Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge
And
Mark Sullivan Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Southampton
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 07 Jul 2022 - 637 - Hegel's Philosophy of History
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 - 1831) on history. Hegel, one of the most influential of the modern philosophers, described history as the progress in the consciousness of freedom, asking whether we enjoy more freedom now than those who came before us. To explore this, he looked into the past to identify periods when freedom was moving from the one to the few to the all, arguing that once we understand the true nature of freedom we reach an endpoint in understanding. That end of history, as it's known, describes an understanding of freedom so far progressed, so profound, that it cannot be extended or deepened even if it can be lost.
With
Sally Sedgwick Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Boston University
Robert Stern Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield
And
Stephen Houlgate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 23 Jun 2022 - 636 - Comenius
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Czech educator Jan Amos Komenský (1592-1670) known throughout Europe in his lifetime under the Latin version of his name, Comenius. A Protestant and member of the Unity of Brethren, he lived much of his life in exile, expelled from his homeland under the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and he wanted to address the deep antagonisms underlying the wars that were devastating Europe especially The Thirty Years War (1618-1648). A major part of his plan was Universal Education, in which everyone could learn about everything, and better understand each other and so tolerate their religious differences and live side by side. His ideas were to have a lasting influence on education, even though the peace that followed the Thirty Years War only entrenched the changes in his homeland that made his life there impossible.
The image above is from a portrait of Comenius by Jürgen Ovens, 1650 - 1670, painted while he was living in Amsterdam and held in the Rikjsmuseum
With
Vladimir Urbanek Senior Researcher in the Department of Comenius Studies and Early Modern Intellectual History at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Suzanna Ivanic Lecturer in Early Modern European History at the University of Kent
And
Howard Hotson Professor of Early Modern Intellectual History at the University of Oxford and Fellow of St Anne’s College
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 16 Jun 2022 - 635 - Tang Era Poetry
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss two of China’s greatest poets, Li Bai and Du Fu, who wrote in the 8th century in the Tang Era. Li Bai (701-762AD) is known for personal poems, many of them about drinking wine, and for finding the enjoyment in life. Du Fu (712-770AD), a few years younger, is more of an everyman, writing in the upheaval of the An Lushan Rebellion (755-763AD). Together they have been a central part of Chinese culture for over a millennium, reflecting the balance between the individual and the public life, and one sign of their enduring appeal is that there is rarely agreement on which of them is the greater.
The image above is intended to depict Du Fu.
With
Tim Barrett Professor Emeritus of East Asian History at SOAS, University of London
Tian Yuan Tan Shaw Professor of Chinese at the University of Oxford and Professorial Fellow at University College
And
Frances Wood Former Curator of the Chinese Collections at the British Library
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 09 Jun 2022 - 634 - The Davidian Revolution
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact of David I of Scotland (c1084-1153) on his kingdom and on neighbouring lands. The youngest son of Malcolm III, he was raised in exile in the Anglo-Norman court and became Earl of Huntingdon and Prince of Cumbria before claiming the throne in 1124. He introduced elements of what he had learned in England and, in the next decades, his kingdom saw new burghs, new monasteries, new ways of governing and the arrival of some very influential families, earning him the reputation of The Perfect King.
With
Richard Oram Professor of Medieval and Environmental History at the University of Stirling
Alice Taylor Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London
And
Alex Woolf Senior Lecturer in History at the University of St Andrews
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 02 Jun 2022 - 633 - Early Christian Martyrdom
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the accounts by Eusebius of Caesarea (c260-339 AD) and others of the killings of Christians in the first three centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus. Eusebius was writing in a time of peace, after The Great Persecution that had started with Emperor Diocletian in 303 AD and lasted around eight years. Many died under Diocletian, and their names are not preserved, but those whose deaths are told by Eusebius became especially celebrated and their stories became influential. Through his writings, Eusebius shaped perceptions of what it meant to be a martyr in those years, and what it meant to be a Christian.
The image above is of The Martyrdom of Saint Blandina (1886) at the Church of Saint-Blandine de Lyon, France
With:
Candida Moss Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham
Kate Cooper Professor of History at Royal Holloway, University of London
And
James Corke-Webster Senior Lecturer in Classics, History and Liberal Arts at King’s College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 26 May 2022 - 632 - Olympe de Gouges
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the French playwright who, in 1791, wrote The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen. This was Olympe de Gouges (1748-93) and she was responding to The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from 1789, the start of the French Revolution which, by excluding women from these rights, had fallen far short of its apparent goals. Where the latter declared ‘men are born equal’, she asserted ‘women are born equal to men,’ adding, ‘since women are allowed to mount the scaffold, they should also be allowed to stand in parliament and defend their rights’. Two years later this playwright, novelist, activist and woman of letters did herself mount the scaffold, two weeks after Marie Antoinette, for the crime of being open to the idea of a constitutional monarchy and, for two hundred years, her reputation died with her, only to be revived with great vigour in the last 40 years.
With
Catriona Seth Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford
Katherine Astbury Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick
And
Sanja Perovic Reader in 18th century French studies at King’s College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 19 May 2022 - 631 - Homo erectus
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of our ancestors, Homo erectus, who thrived on Earth for around two million years whereas we, Homo sapiens, emerged only in the last three hundred thousand years. Homo erectus, or Upright Man, spread from Africa to Asia and it was on the Island of Java that fossilised remains were found in 1891 in an expedition led by Dutch scientist Eugène Dubois. Homo erectus people adapted to different habitats, ate varied food, lived in groups, had stamina to outrun their prey; and discoveries have prompted many theories on the relationship between their diet and the size of their brains, on their ability as seafarers, on their creativity and on their ability to speak and otherwise communicate.
The image above is from a diorama at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark, depicting the Turkana Boy referred to in the programme.
With
Peter Kjærgaard Director of the Natural History Museum of Denmark and Professor of Evolutionary History at the University of Copenhagen
José Joordens Senior Researcher in Human Evolution at Naturalis Biodiversity Centre and Professor of Human Evolution at Maastricht University
And
Mark Maslin Professor of Earth System Science at University College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 12 May 2022 - 630 - Polidori's The Vampyre
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential novella of John Polidori (1795-1821) published in 1819 and attributed first to Lord Byron (1788-1824) who had started a version of it in 1816 at the Villa Diodati in the Year Without A Summer. There Byron, his personal physician Polidori, Mary and Percy Shelley and Claire Clairmont had whiled away the weeks of miserable weather by telling ghost stories, famously giving rise to Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'. Emerging soon after, 'The Vampyre' thrilled readers with its aristocratic Lord Ruthven who glutted his thirst with the blood of his victims, his status an abrupt change from the stories of peasant vampires of eastern and central Europe that had spread in the 18th Century with the expansion of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The connection with Lord Byron gave the novella a boost, and soon 'The Vampyre' spawned West End plays, penny dreadfuls such as 'Varney the Vampire', Bram Stoker’s 'Dracula', F.W Murnau's film 'Nosferatu A Symphony of Horror', and countless others.
The image above is of Bela Lugosi (1882-1956) as Count Mora in Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer's 'Vampires of Prague' (1935)
With
Nick Groom Professor of Literature in English at the University of Macau
Samantha George Associate Professor of Research in Literature at the University of Hertfordshire
And
Martyn Rady Professor Emeritus of Central European History at University College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 05 May 2022 - 629 - The Sistine Chapel
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the astonishing work of Michelangelo (1477-1564) in this great chapel in the Vatican, firstly the ceiling with images from Genesis (of which the image above is a detail) and later The Last Judgement on the altar wall. For the Papacy, Michelangelo's achievement was a bold affirmation of the spiritual and political status of the Vatican, of Rome and of the Catholic Church. For the artist himself, already famous as the sculptor of David in Florence, it was a test of his skill and stamina, and of the potential for art to amaze which he realised in his astonishing mastery of the human form.
With
Catherine Fletcher Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University
Sarah Vowles The Smirnov Family Curator of Italian and French Prints and Drawings at the British Museum
And
Matthias Wivel The Aud Jebsen Curator of Sixteenth-Century Italian Paintings at the National Gallery
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 28 Apr 2022 - 628 - Antigone
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what is reputedly the most performed of all Greek tragedies. Antigone, by Sophocles (c496-c406 BC), is powerfully ambiguous, inviting the audience to reassess its values constantly before the climax of the play resolves the plot if not the issues. Antigone is barely a teenager and is prepared to defy her uncle Creon, the new king of Thebes, who has decreed that nobody should bury the body of her brother, a traitor, on pain of death. This sets up a conflict between generations, between the state and the individual, uncle and niece, autocracy and pluralism, and it releases an enormous tragic energy that brings sudden death to Antigone, her fiance Haemon who is also Creon's son, and to Creon's wife Eurydice, while Creon himself is condemned to a living death of grief.
With
Edith Hall Professor of Classics at Durham University
Oliver Taplin Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of Oxford
And
Lyndsay Coo Senior Lecturer in Ancient Greek Language and Literature at the University of Bristol
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 21 Apr 2022 - 627 - Charisma
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea of charismatic authority developed by Max Weber (1864-1920) to explain why people welcome some as their legitimate rulers and follow them loyally, for better or worse, while following others only dutifully or grudgingly. Weber was fascinated by those such as Napoleon (above) and Washington who achieved power not by right, as with traditional monarchs, or by law as with the bureaucratic world around him in Germany, but by revolution or insurrection. Drawing on the experience of religious figures, he contended that these leaders, often outsiders, needed to be seen as exceptional, heroic and even miraculous to command loyalty, and could stay in power for as long as the people were enthralled and the miracles they had promised kept coming. After the Second World War, Weber's idea attracted new attention as a way of understanding why some reviled leaders once had mass support and, with the arrival of television, why some politicians were more engaging and influential on screen than others.
With
Linda Woodhead The FD Maurice Professor and Head of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King's College London
David Bell The Lapidus Professor in the Department of History at Princeton University
And
Tom Wright Reader in Rhetoric at the University of Sussex
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 14 Apr 2022 - 626 - Seismology
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the study of earthquakes. A massive earthquake in 1755 devastated Lisbon, and this disaster helped inspire a new science of seismology which intensified after San Francisco in 1906 and advanced even further with the need to monitor nuclear tests around the world from 1945 onwards. While we now know so much more about what lies beneath the surface of the Earth, and how rocks move and crack, it remains impossible to predict when earthquakes will happen. Thanks to seismology, though, we have a clearer idea of where earthquakes will happen and how to make some of them less hazardous to lives and homes.
With
Rebecca Bell Senior lecturer in Geology and Geophysics at Imperial College London
Zoe Mildon Lecturer in Earth Sciences and Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Plymouth
And
James Hammond Reader in Geophysics at Birkbeck, University of London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 07 Apr 2022 - 625 - The Arthashastra
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ancient Sanskrit text the Arthashastra, regarded as one of the major works of Indian literature. Written in the style of a scientific treatise, it provides rulers with a guide on how to govern their territory and sets out what the structure, economic policy and foreign affairs of the ideal state should be. According to legend, it was written by Chanakya, a political advisor to the ruler Chandragupta Maurya (reigned 321 – 297 BC) who founded the Mauryan Empire, the first great Empire in the Indian subcontinent. As the Arthashastra asserts that a ruler should pursue his goals ruthlessly by whatever means is required, it has been compared with the 16th-century work The Prince by Machiavelli. Today, it is widely viewed as presenting a sophisticated and refined analysis of the nature, dynamics and challenges of rulership, and scholars value it partly because it undermines colonial stereotypes of what early South Asian society was like.
With
Jessica Frazier Lecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies
James Hegarty Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions at Cardiff University
And
Deven Patel Associate Professor of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 31 Mar 2022 - 624 - In Our Time is now first on BBC Sounds
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Fri, 04 Mar 2022 - 623 - Peter Kropotkin
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Russian prince who became a leading anarchist and famous scientist. Kropotkin (1842 - 1921) was born into privilege, very much in the highest circle of Russian society as a pageboy for the Tsar, before he became a republican in childhood and dropped the title 'Prince'. While working in Siberia, he started reading about anarchism and that radicalised him further, as did his observations of Siberian villagers supporting each other without (or despite) a role for the State. He made a name for himself as a geographer but soon his politics landed him in jail in St Petersburg, from which he escaped to exile in England where he was fêted, with growing fame leading to lecture tours in the USA. His time in Siberia also inspired his ideas on the importance of mutual aid in evolution, a counter to the dominant idea from Darwin and Huxley that life was a gladiatorial combat in which only the fittest survived. Kropotkin became such a towering figure in public life that, returning to Russia, he was able to challenge Lenin without reprisal, and Lenin in turn permitted his enormous public funeral there, attended by 20,000 mourners.
With
Ruth Kinna Professor of Political Theory at Loughborough University
Lee Dugatkin Professor of Biology at the University of Louisville
And
Simon Dixon The Sir Bernard Pares Professor of Russian History at University College London
Thu, 24 Feb 2022 - 622 - Romeo and Juliet
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Shakespeare's famous tragedy, written in the early 1590s after a series of histories and comedies. His audience already knew the story of the feuding Capulets and Montagues in Verona and the fate of the young lovers from their rival houses, but not how Shakespeare would tell it and, with his poetry and plotting, he created a work so powerful and timeless that his play has shaped the way we talk of love, especially young love, ever since.
The image above is of Mrs Patrick Campbell ('Mrs Pat') as Juliet and Johnson Forbes-Robinson as Romeo in a scene from the 1895 production at the Lyceum Theatre, London
With
Helen Hackett Professor of English Literature at University College London
Paul Prescott Professor of English and Theatre at the University of California Merced
And
Emma Smith Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 17 Feb 2022 - 621 - Walter Benjamin
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most celebrated thinkers of the twentieth century. Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, critic, historian, an investigator of culture, a maker of radio programmes and more. Notably, in his Arcades Project, he looked into the past of Paris to understand the modern age and, in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, examined how the new media of film and photography enabled art to be politicised, and politics to become a form of art. The rise of the Nazis in Germany forced him into exile, and he worked in Paris in dread of what was to come; when his escape from France in 1940 was blocked at the Spanish border, he took his own life.
With
Esther Leslie Professor of Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck, University of London
Kevin McLaughlin Dean of the Faculty and Professor of English, Comparative Literature and German Studies at Brown University
And
Carolin Duttlinger Professor of German Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 10 Feb 2022 - 620 - The Temperance Movement
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the momentum behind teetotalism in 19th Century Britain, when calls for moderation gave way to complete abstinence in pursuit of a better life. Although arguments for temperance had been made throughout the British Isles beforehand, the story of the organised movement in Britain is often said to have started in 1832 in Preston, when Joseph Livesey and seven others gave a pledge to abstain. The movement grew quickly, with Temperance Halls appearing as new social centres in towns in place of pubs, and political parties being drawn into taking sides either to support abstinence or impose it or reject it.
The image above, which appeared in The Teetotal Progressionist in 1852, is an example of the way in which images contained many points of temperance teaching, and is © Copyright Livesey Collection at the University of Central Lancashire. With
Annemarie McAllister Senior Research Fellow in History at the University of Central Lancashire
James Kneale Associate Professor in Geography at University College London
And
David Beckingham Associate Professor in Cultural and Historical Geography at the University of Nottingham
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 03 Feb 2022 - 619 - Colette
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the outstanding French writers of the twentieth century. The novels of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873 - 1954) always had women at their centre, from youth to mid-life to old age, and they were phenomenally popular, at first for their freshness and frankness about women’s lives, as in the Claudine stories, and soon for their sheer quality as she developed as a writer. Throughout her career she intrigued readers by inserting herself, or a character with her name, into her works, fictionalising her life as a way to share her insight into the human experience.
With
Diana Holmes Professor of French at the University of Leeds
Michèle Roberts Writer, novelist, poet and Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia
And
Belinda Jack Fellow and Tutor in French Literature and Language at Christ Church, University of Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 27 Jan 2022 - 618 - The Gold Standard
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the system that flourished from 1870 when gold became dominant and more widely available, following gold rushes in California and Australia. Banknotes could be exchanged for gold at central banks, the coins in circulation could be gold (as with the sovereign in the image above, initially worth £1), gold could be freely imported and exported, and many national currencies around the world were tied to gold and so to each other. The idea began in Britain, where sterling was seen as good as gold, and when other countries rushed to the Gold Standard the confidence in their currencies grew, and world trade took off and, for a century, gold was seen as a vital component of the world economy, supporting stability and confidence. The system came with constraints on government ability to respond to economic crises, though, and has been blamed for deepening and prolonging the Great Depression of the 1930s.
With
Catherine Schenk Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Oxford
Helen Paul Lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton
And
Matthias Morys Senior Lecturer in Economic History at the University of York
Produced by Eliane Glaser and Simon Tillotson
Thu, 20 Jan 2022 - 617 - Thomas Hardy's Poetry
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Thomas Hardy (1840 -1928) and his commitment to poetry, which he prized far above his novels. In the 1890s, once he had earned enough from his fiction, Hardy stopped writing novels altogether and returned to the poetry he had largely put aside since his twenties. He hoped that he might be ranked one day alongside Shelley and Byron, worthy of inclusion in a collection such as Palgrave's Golden Treasury which had inspired him. Hardy kept writing poems for the rest of his life, in different styles and metres, and he explored genres from nature, to war, to epic. Among his best known are what he called his Poems of 1912 to 13, responding to his grief at the death of his first wife, Emma (1840 -1912), who he credited as the one who had made it possible for him to leave his work as an architect's clerk and to write the novels that made him famous.
With
Mark Ford Poet, and Professor of English and American Literature, University College London.
Jane Thomas Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Hull and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Leeds
And
Tim Armstrong Professor of Modern English and American Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 13 Jan 2022 - 616 - Fritz Lang
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Austrian-born film director Fritz Lang (1890-1976), who was one of the most celebrated film-makers of the 20th century. He worked first in Weimar Germany, creating a range of films including the startling and subversive Mabuse the Gambler and the iconic but ruinously expensive Metropolis before arguably his masterpiece, M, with both the police and the underworld hunting for a child killer in Berlin, his first film with sound. The rise of the Nazis prompted Lang's move to Hollywood where he developed some of his Weimar themes in memorable and disturbing films such as Fury and The Big Heat.
With
Stella Bruzzi Professor of Film and Dean of Arts and Humanities at University College London
Joe McElhaney Professor of Film Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York
And
Iris Luppa Senior Lecturer in Film Studies in the Division of Film and Media at London South Bank University
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 30 Dec 2021 - 615 - The Hittites
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the empire that flourished in the Late Bronze Age in what is now Turkey, and which, like others at that time, mysteriously collapsed. For the next three thousand years these people of the Land of Hatti, as they called themselves, were known only by small references to their Iron Age descendants in the Old Testament and by unexplained remains in their former territory. Discoveries in their capital of Hattusa just over a century ago brought them back to prominence, including cuneiform tablets such as one (pictured above) which relates to an agreement with their rivals, the Egyptians. This agreement has since become popularly known as the Treaty of Kadesh and described as the oldest recorded peace treaty that survives to this day, said to have followed a great chariot battle with Egypt in 1274 BC near the Orontes River in northern Syria.
With
Claudia Glatz Professor of Archaeology at the University of Glasgow
Ilgi Gercek Assistant Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Languages and History at Bilkent University
And
Christoph Bachhuber Lecturer in Archaeology at St John’s College, University of Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 23 Dec 2021 - 614 - A Christmas Carol
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Dickens' novella, written in 1843 when he was 31, which has become intertwined with his reputation and with Christmas itself. Ebenezer Scrooge is the miserly everyman figure whose joyless obsession with money severs him from society and his own emotions, and he is only saved after recalling his lonely past, seeing what he is missing now and being warned of his future, all under the guidance of the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Yet To Come. Redeemed, Scrooge comes to care in particular about one of the many minor characters in the story who make a great impact, namely Tiny Tim, the disabled child of the poor and warm-hearted Cratchit family, with his cry, "God bless us, every one!"
With
Juliet John Professor of English Literature and Dean of Arts and Social Sciences at City, University of London
Jon Mee Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of York
And
Dinah Birch Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Cultural Engagement and Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 16 Dec 2021 - 613 - The May Fourth Movement
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the violent protests in China on 4th May 1919 over the nation's humiliation in the Versailles Treaty after World War One. China had supported the Allies, sending workers to dig trenches, and expected to regain the German colonies on its territory, but the Allies and China's leaders chose to give that land to Japan instead. To protestors, this was a travesty and reflected much that was wrong with China, with its corrupt leaders, division by warlords, weakness before Imperial Europe and outdated ideas and values. The movement around 4th May has since been seen as a watershed in China’s development in the 20th century, not least as some of those connected with the movement went on to found the Communist Party of China a few years later.
The image above is of students from Peking University marching with banners during the May Fourth demonstrations in 1919.
With
Rana Mitter Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China and Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford
Elisabeth Forster Lecturer in Chinese History at the University of Southampton
And
Song-Chuan Chen Associate Professor in History at the University of Warwick
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 09 Dec 2021 - 612 - The Battle of Trafalgar
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the events of 21st October 1805, in which the British fleet led by Nelson destroyed a combined Franco-Spanish fleet in the Atlantic off the coast of Spain. Nelson's death that day was deeply mourned in Britain, and his example proved influential, and the battle was to help sever ties between Spain and its American empire. In France meanwhile, even before Nelson's body was interred at St Paul's, the setback at Trafalgar was overshadowed by Napoleon's decisive victory over Russia and Austria at Austerlitz, though Napoleon's search for his lost naval strength was to shape his plans for further conquests.
The image above is from 'The Battle of Trafalgar' by JMW Turner (1824).
With
James Davey Lecturer in Naval and Maritime History at the University of Exeter
Marianne Czisnik Independent researcher on Nelson and editor of his letters to Lady Hamilton
And
Kenneth Johnson Research Professor of National Security at Air University, Alabama
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 02 Dec 2021 - 611 - Plato's Gorgias
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Plato's most striking dialogues, in which he addresses the real nature of power and freedom, and the relationship between pleasure and true self-interest. As he tests these ideas, Plato creates powerful speeches, notably from Callicles who claims that laws of nature trump man-made laws, that might is right, and that rules are made by weak people to constrain the strong in defiance of what is natural and proper. Gorgias is arguably the most personal of all of Plato's dialogues, with its hints of a simmering fury at the system in Athens that put his mentor Socrates to death, and where rhetoric held too much sway over people.
With
Angie Hobbs Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield
Frisbee Sheffield University Lecturer in Classics and Fellow of Downing College, University of Cambridge
And
Fiona Leigh Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 25 Nov 2021 - 610 - The Decadent Movement
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the British phase of a movement that spread across Europe in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Influenced by Charles Baudelaire and by Walter Pater, these Decadents rejected the mainstream Victorian view that art needed a moral purpose, and valued instead the intense sensations art provoked, celebrating art for art’s sake. Oscar Wilde was at its heart, Aubrey Beardsley adorned it with his illustrations and they, with others, provoked moral panic with their supposed degeneracy. After burning brightly, the movement soon lost its energy in Britain yet it has proved influential.
The illustration above, by Beardsley, is from the cover of the first edition of The Yellow Book in April 1894.
With
Neil Sammells Professor of English and Irish Literature and Deputy Vice Chancellor at Bath Spa University
Kate Hext Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Exeter
And
Alex Murray Senior Lecturer in English at Queen’s University, Belfast
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Thu, 18 Nov 2021 - 609 - William and Caroline Herschel
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Herschel (1738 – 1822) and his sister Caroline Herschel (1750 – 1848) who were born in Hanover and made their reputation in Britain. William was one of the most eminent astronomers in British history. Although he started life as a musician, as a young man he became interested in studying the night sky. With an extraordinary talent, he constructed telescopes that were able to see further and more clearly than any others at the time. He is most celebrated today for discovering the planet Uranus and detecting what came to be known as infrared radiation. Caroline also became a distinguished astronomer, discovering several comets and collaborating with her brother.
With
Monica Grady Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University
Carolin Crawford Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge and an Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge
And
Jim Bennett Keeper Emeritus at the Science Museum in London.
Studio producer: John Goudie
Thu, 11 Nov 2021 - 608 - The Song of Roland
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss an early masterpiece of French epic poetry, from the 12th Century. It is a reimagining of Charlemagne’s wars in Spain in the 8th Century in which Roland, his most valiant knight, chooses death before dishonour, guarding the army’s rear from a pagan ambush as it heads back through the Roncesvalles Pass in the Pyrenees. If he wanted to, Roland could blow on his oliphant, his elephant tusk horn, to summon help by calling back Charlemagne's army, but according to his values that would bring shame both on him and on France, and he would rather keep killing pagans until he is the last man standing and the last to die.
The image above is taken from an illustration of Charlemagne finding Roland after the Battle of Roncevaux/Roncesvalles, from 'Les Grandes Chroniques de France', c.1460 by Jean Fouquet, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, Ms Fr 6465 f.113
With
Laura Ashe Professor of English Literature and Fellow in English at Worcester College, University of Oxford
Miranda Griffin Assistant Professor of Medieval French at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Murray Edwards College
And
Luke Sunderland Professor in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham University
Studio producer: John Goudie
Thu, 04 Nov 2021
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