Podcast appearances and mentions of Melvyn Bragg

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. 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 Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

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. 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 TillotsonSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

We have a broadcasting legend for you today on Rosebud, as Gyles interviews the creator and host of In Our Time and The South Bank Show, Melvyn Bragg, Lord Bragg of Wigton. Melvyn takes Gyles back to his roots in Wigton, a small town in Cumbria, in which his parents ran one of the local pubs, and the young Bragg played all day long in the streets, making bows and arrows from trees overhanging the river. He tells Gyles about his schooldays, the brilliant teachers who guided him and there's a really interesting discussion of the unexpected mental health problems he had as a teenager. He takes us to Oxford University, where he fell in love with cinema, and was encouraged to apply for a BBC traineeship. And we hear about some of the landmark interviews of his career, with Francis Bacon and Paul McCartney. But its Bragg's evocation of his working class childhood which will really stay with you - this is a journey to a special time and place which no longer really exists. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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) Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

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) Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1490-1573) was a Spanish humanist, philosopher, and theologian of the Spanish Renaissance. He is mainly known for his participation in a famous debate with Bartolomé de las Casas in Valladolid, Spain, in 1550–1551. The debate centered on the legitimacy of the conquest and colonization of America by the Spanish Empire and on the treatment of the Native Americans. The main philosophical referents of Sepulveda were Aristotle, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Roman law and Christian theology. These influences allowed him to argue for the cultural superiority and domination of the Spanish over the Native Americans during the period of the conquest. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/bZmyfAroUWQ which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. In Our Time History podcast at https://amzn.to/3HdSjF5 In Our Time book by M.Bragg https://amzn.to/44VlbuP Melvyn Bragg books available at https://amzn.to/458Iosk Bartolomé de las Casas books at https://amzn.to/46OMMiQ Encomienda books at https://amzn.to/3Hhp4B8 Caroline Dodds Pennock book at https://amzn.to/3UF8Jt6 ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credit: In Our Time History podcast with Melvyn Bragg and guests Caroline Dodds Pennock, John Edwards, Julia McClure (episode: Valladolid Debate (20feb2020) BBC Radio4. Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dominican friar and Catholic priest Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566), the Bishop of Chiapas, Mexico, tried to end Mexico’s Encomienda system in which those who owned land could also take the people living there in forced labor. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/0kcG_UoXWNY which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. In Our Time History podcast at https://amzn.to/3HdSjF5 In Our Time book by M.Bragg https://amzn.to/44VlbuP Melvyn Bragg books available at https://amzn.to/458Iosk Bartolomé de las Casas books at https://amzn.to/46OMMiQ Encomienda books at https://amzn.to/3Hhp4B8 Caroline Dodds Pennock book at https://amzn.to/3UF8Jt6 ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credit: In Our Time History podcast with Melvyn Bragg and guests Caroline Dodds Pennock, John Edwards, Julia McClure (episode: Valladolid Debate (20feb2020) BBC Radio4. Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Napoleon Bonaparte's temporary return to power in France in 1815, following his escape from exile on Elba . He arrived with fewer than a thousand men, yet three weeks later he had displaced Louis XVIII and taken charge of an army as large as any that the Allied Powers could muster individually. He saw that his best chance was to pick the Allies off one by one, starting with the Prussian and then the British/Allied armies in what is now Belgium. He appeared to be on the point of victory at Waterloo yet somehow it eluded him, and his plans were soon in tatters. His escape to America thwarted, he surrendered on 15th July and was exiled again but this time to Saint Helena. There he wrote his memoirs to help shape his legacy, while back in Europe there were still fears of his return. With Michael Rowe Reader in European History at Kings College London Katherine Astbury Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick And Zack White Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Portsmouth Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production. Reading list: Katherine Astbury and Mark Philp (ed.), Napoleon's Hundred Days and the Politics of Legitimacy (Palgrave, 2018) Jeremy Black, The Battle of Waterloo: A New History (Icon Books, 2010) Michael Broers, Napoleon: The Decline and Fall of an Empire: 1811-1821 (Pegasus Books, 2022) Philip Dwyer, Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in power 1799-1815 (Bloomsbury, 2014) Charles J. Esdaile, Napoleon, France and Waterloo: The Eagle Rejected (Pen & Sword Military, 2016) Gareth Glover, Waterloo: Myth and Reality (Pen & Sword Military, 2014) Sudhir Hazareesingh, The Legend of Napoleon (Granta, 2014) John Hussey, Waterloo: The Campaign of 1815, Volume 1, From Elba to Ligny and Quatre Bras (Greenhill Books, 2017) Andrew Roberts, Napoleon the Great (Penguin Books, 2015) Brian Vick, The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon (Harvard University Press, 2014) Zack White (ed.), The Sword and the Spirit: Proceedings of the first ‘War & Peace in the Age of Napoleon' Conference (Helion and Company, 2021) Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

The rights to enslave the native peoples in the newly conquered lands of Mexico were debated in 1550 in the northwest Spanish city of Valladolid. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/wAUv25DwUpU which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. In Our Time History podcast at https://amzn.to/3HdSjF5 In Our Time book by M.Bragg https://amzn.to/44VlbuP Melvyn Bragg books available at https://amzn.to/458Iosk Encomienda books at https://amzn.to/3Hhp4B8 Caroline Dodds Pennock book at https://amzn.to/3UF8Jt6 ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio Credit: In Our Time History podcast with Melvyn Bragg and guests Caroline Dodds Pennock, John Edwards, Julia McClure (episode: Valladolid Debate (20feb2020) BBC Radio4. Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1550, a debate transpired in Valladolid, Spain over the rights to enslave the native peoples in the newly conquered lands, including Mexico. The Encomienda system in New Spain was a Spanish labor system that granted Spanish conquistadors control over indigenous populations in exchange for protection and religious instruction, but in practice often led to forced labor and exploitation. Essentially, it was a way for the Spanish crown to reward its subjects for their service in colonizing the Americas, while simultaneously attempting to manage and control the indigenous population. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/zzcZdYlGe5s which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. In Our Time History podcast at https://amzn.to/3HdSjF5 In Our Time book by M.Bragg https://amzn.to/44VlbuP Melvyn Bragg books available at https://amzn.to/458Iosk Encomienda books at https://amzn.to/3Hhp4B8 Caroline Dodds Pennock book at https://amzn.to/3UF8Jt6 ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio Credit: In Our Time History podcast with Melvyn Bragg and guests Caroline Dodds Pennock, John Edwards, Julia McClure (episode: Valladolid Debate (20feb2020) BBC Radio4. Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that Civility, in one of its meanings, is among the most valuable social virtues: the skill to discuss topics that really matter to you, with someone who disagrees and yet somehow still get along. In another of its meanings, when Civility describes the limits of behaviour that is acceptable, the idea can reflect society at its worst: when only those deemed 'civil enough' are allowed their rights, their equality and even their humanity. Between these extremes, Civility is a slippery idea that has fascinated philosophers especially since the Reformation, when competing ideas on how to gain salvation seemed to make it impossible to disagree and remain civil.With Teresa Bejan Professor of Political Theory at Oriel College, University of OxfordPhil Withington Professor of History at the University of SheffieldAnd John Gallagher Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the University of LeedsProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list: Teresa M. Bejan, Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration (Harvard University Press, 2017)Anna Bryson, From Courtesy to Civility: Changing Codes of Conduct in Early Modern England (Oxford University Press, 1998)Peter Burke, The Fortunes of the Courtier: The European Reception of Castiglione's Cortegiano (Polity Press, 1995)Peter Burke, Brian Harrison and Paul Slack (eds.), Civil Histories: Essays Presented to Sir Keith Thomas (Oxford University Press, 2000)Keith J. Bybee, How Civility Works (Stanford University Press, 2016)Nandini Das, João Vicente Melo, Haig Z. Smith and Lauren Working, Keywords of Identity, Race, and Human Mobility in Early Modern England (Amsterdam University Press, 2021)Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Polity, 1992)Jennifer Richards, Rhetoric and Courtliness in Early Modern Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2003)Austin Sarat (ed.), Civility, Legality, and Justice in America (Cambridge University Press, 2014)Keith Thomas, In Pursuit of Civility: Manners and Civilization in Early Modern England (Yale University Press, 2018)Phil Withington, Society in Early Modern England: The Vernacular Origins of Some Powerful Ideas (Polity, 2010)Lauren Working, The Making of an Imperial Polity: Civility and America in the Jacobean Metropolis (Cambridge University Press, 2020)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio ProductionSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

Melvyn Bragg and guests explore dragons, literally and symbolically potent creatures that have appeared in many different guises in countries and cultures around the world. Sometimes compared to snakes, alligators, lions and even dinosaurs, dragons have appeared on clay tablets in ancient Mesopotamia, in the Chinese zodiac, in the guise of the devil in Christian religious texts and in the national symbolism of the countries of England and Wales. They are often portrayed as terrifying but sometimes appear as sacred and even benign creatures, and they continue to populate our cultural fantasies through blockbuster films, TV series and children's books. With:Kelsey Granger, Post Doctoral Researcher in Chinese History at the University of EdinburghDaniel Ogden, Professor of Ancient History at the University of ExeterAnd Juliette Wood, Associate Lecturer in the School of Welsh at the University of Wales. Producer: Eliane GlaserReading list:Paul Acker and Carolyne Larrington (eds.), Revisiting the Poetic Edda: Essays on Old Norse Heroic Legend (Routledge, 2013), especially ‘Dragons in the Eddas and in Early Nordic Art' by Paul AckerScott G. Bruce (ed.), The Penguin Book of Dragons (Penguin, 2022)James H. Charlesworth, The Good and Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol became Christianized (Yale University Press, 2009)Juliana Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon: The Cult of St Margaret of Antioch in Medieval England (Oxford University Press, 2016)Joyce Tally Lionarons, The Medieval Dragon: The Nature of the Beast in Germanic Literature (Hisarlik Press, 1998)Daniel Ogden, Dragons, Serpents, and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford University Press, 2013)Daniel Ogden, The Dragon in the West (Oxford University Press, 2021)Christine Rauer, Beowulf and the Dragon (D.S. Brewer, 2000)Phil Senter et al., ‘Snake to Monster: Conrad Gessner's Schlangenbuch and the Evolution of the Dragon in the Literature of Natural History' (Journal of Folklore Research, vol. 53, no. 1, 2016)Jacqueline Simpson, British Dragons: Myth, Legend and Folklore (first published 1980; Wordsworth Editions, 2001) Jeffrey Snyder-Reinke, Dry Spells: State Rainmaking and Local Governance in Late Imperial China (Harvard University Press, 2009)Roel Sterckx, The Animal and the Daemon in Early China (State University of New York Press, 2002)Roel Sterckx, Chinese Thought: From Confucius to Cook Ding (Pelican Books, 2019)J. R. R. Tolkien, The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays (first published 1983; HarperCollins, 2007)Christopher Walter, The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition (Routledge, 2003)Juliette Wood, Fantastic Creatures in Mythology and Folklore: From Medieval Times to the Present Day (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018) Yang Xin, Li Yihua, and Xu Naixiang, Art of the Dragon (Shambhala, 1988)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss John Barbour's epic poem The Brus, or Bruce, which he wrote c1375. The Brus is the earliest surviving poem in Older Scots and the only source of many of the stories of King Robert I of Scotland (1274-1329), popularly known as Robert the Bruce, and his victory over the English at Bannockburn in 1314. In almost 14,000 lines of rhyming couplets, Barbour distilled the aspects of the Bruce's history most relevant for his own time under Robert II (1316-1390), the Bruce's grandson and the first of the Stewart kings, when the mood was for a new war against England after decades of military disasters. Barbour's battle scenes are meant to stir in the name of freedom, and the effect of the whole is to assert Scotland as the rightful equal of any power in Europe.WithRhiannon Purdie Professor of English and Older Scots at the University of St AndrewsSteve Boardman Professor of Medieval Scottish History at the University of EdinburghAndMichael Brown Professor of Scottish History at the University of St AndrewsProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:John Barbour (ed. A.A.M. Duncan), The Bruce (Canongate Classics, 2007)G.W.S. Barrow, Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 1988)Stephen Boardman, The Early Stewart Kings: Robert II and Robert III (Tuckwell Press, 1996)Steve Boardman and Susan Foran (eds.), Barbour's Bruce and its Cultural Contexts: Politics, Chivalry and Literature in Late Medieval Scotland (D.S. Brewer, 2015)Michael Brown, Disunited Kingdoms: Peoples and Politics in the British Isles, 1280-1460 (Routledge, 2013)Michael Brown, The Wars of Scotland, 1214-1371 (Edinburgh University Press, 2004)Thomas Owen Clancy and Murray Pittock, Ian Brown and Susan Manning (eds.), The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature, Vol. 1: From Columba to the Union (until 1707), (Edinburgh University Press 2006)Robert Crawford, Scotland's Books: A History of Scottish Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)Robert DeMaria Jr., Heesok Chang and Samantha Zacher (eds.), A Companion to British Literature: Vol 1, Medieval Literature, 700-1450 (John Wiley & Sons, 2014), especially 'Before the Makars: Older Scots literature under the early Stewart Kings' by Rhiannon PurdieColm McNamee, The Wars of the Bruces: Scotland, England and Ireland 1306-1328 (Tuckwell Press, 2001)Michael Penman, Robert the Bruce, King of the Scots (Yale University Press, 2014)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio ProductionSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the evolution of lungs and of the first breaths, which can be traced back 400 million years to when animal life spread from rock pools and swamps onto land, as some fish found an evolutionary advantage in getting their oxygen from air rather than water. Breathing with lungs may have started with fish filling their mouths with air and forcing it down into sacs in their chests, like the buccal pumping that frogs do now, and slowly their swimming muscles adapted to work their lungs like bellows. While lungs developed in different ways, there are astonishing continuities: for example, the distinct breathing system that helps tiny birds fly thousands of miles now is also the one that once allowed some dinosaurs to become huge; our hiccups are vestiges of the flight reaction in fish needing more oxygen; and we still breathe through our skins, just not enough to meet our needs.With:Steve Brusatte Professor of Palaeontology and Evolution at the University of EdinburghEmily Rayfield Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of BristolAndJonathan Codd Professor of Integrative Zoology at the University of ManchesterProducer: Simon Tillotson Reading list:Roger B. J. Benson, Richard J. Butler, Matthew T. Carrano and Patrick M. O'Connor, ‘Air-filled postcranial bones in theropod dinosaurs: physiological implications and the ‘reptile'–bird transition' (Biological Reviews: Cambridge Philosophical Society, July 2011)Steve Brusatte, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World (Mariner Books, 2018)Jennifer A. Clack, Gaining Ground: The Origin and Evolution of Tetrapods (2nd edition, Indiana University Press, 2012)Camila Cupello et al, ‘Lung Evolution in vertebrates and the water-to-land transition' (eLife, July 2022)Andrew Davies and Carl Moore, The Respiratory System (Elsevier, 2010) Kenneth Kardong, Vertebrates: Comparative Anatomy, Function, Evolution (8th edition, McGraw-Hill Education, 2018)Ye Li et al, ‘Origin and stepwise evolution of vertebrate lungs' (Nature Ecology & Evolution, Feb 2025) P. Martin Sander and Marcus Clauss, ‘Sauropod Gigantism' (Science, Oct 2008)Goran Nilsson, Respiratory Physiology of Vertebrates: Life With and Without Oxygen (Cambridge University Press, 2010)Steven F. Perry et al, ‘What came first, the lung or the breath?' (Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part A: Molecular & Integrative Biology, May 2001)Michael J. Stephen, Breath Taking: The Power, Fragility, and Future of Our Extraordinary Lungs (Grove/Atlantic, 2022)Mathew J. Wedel, ‘The evolution of vertebral pneumaticity in sauropod dinosaurs' (Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Aug 2010)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio ProductionSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

In 1897, Gustav Klimt led a group of radical artists to break free from the cultural establishment of Vienna and found a movement that became known as the Vienna Secession. In the vibrant atmosphere of coffee houses, Freudian psychoanalysis and the music of Wagner and Mahler, the Secession sought to bring together fine art and music with applied arts such as architecture and design. The movement was characterized by Klimt's stylised paintings, richly decorated with gold leaf, and the art nouveau buildings that began to appear in the city, most notably the Secession Building, which housed influential exhibitions of avant-garde art and was a prototype of the modern art gallery. The Secessionists themselves were pioneers in their philosophy and way of life, aiming to immerse audiences in unified artistic experiences that brought together visual arts, design, and architecture. With:Mark Berry, Professor of Music and Intellectual History at Royal Holloway, University of LondonLeslie Topp, Professor Emerita in History of Architecture at Birkbeck, University of LondonAndDiane Silverthorne, art historian and 'Vienna 1900' scholarProducer: Eliane GlaserReading list:Mark Berry, Arnold Schoenberg: Critical Lives (Reaktion Books, 2018)Gemma Blackshaw, Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900 (National Gallery Company, 2013)Elizabeth Clegg, Art, Design and Architecture in Central Europe, 1890-1920 (Yale University Press, 2006)Richard Cockett, Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World (Yale University Press, 2023)Stephen Downes, Gustav Mahler (Reaktion Books, 2025)Peter Gay, Freud, Jews, and Other Germans: Masters and Victims in Modernist Culture (Oxford University Press, 1979)Tag Gronberg, Vienna: City of Modernity, 1890-1914 (Peter Lang, 2007)Allan S. Janik and Hans Veigl, Wittgenstein in Vienna: A Biographical Excursion Through the City and its History (Springer/Wien, 1998)Jill Lloyd and Christian Witt-Dörring (eds.), Vienna 1900: Style and Identity (Hirmer Verlag, 2011)William J. McGrath, Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria (Yale University Press, 1974)Tobias Natter and Christoph Grunenberg (eds.), Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life (Tate, 2008)Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (Vintage, 1979)Elana Shapira, Style and Seduction: Jewish Patrons, Architecture and Design in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna (Brandeis University Press, 2016)Diane V Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds and Megan Brandow-Faller, Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902-1911 (Letterform Archive, 2023)Edward Timms, Karl Kraus: Apocalyptic Satirist: Culture & Catastrophe in Habsburg Vienna (Yale University Press, 1989)Leslie Topp, Architecture and Truth in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna (Cambridge University Press, 2004)Peter Vergo, Art in Vienna, 1898-1918: Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele and Their Contemporaries (4th ed., Phaidon, 2015)Hans-Peter Wipplinger (ed.), Vienna 1900: Birth of Modernism (Walther & Franz König, 2019)Hans-Peter Wipplinger (ed.), Masterpieces from the Leopold Museum (Walther & Franz König)Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday: An Autobiography (University of Nebraska Press, 1964)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio ProductionSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and role of one of the most significant figures in early 20th Century German history. Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934) had been famous since 1914 as the victorious commander at the Battle of Tannenberg against Russian invaders, soon burnishing this fame on the Western Front and Hindenburg was to claim he would have won there too, if enemies at home had not 'stabbed Germany in the back'. He won Germany's Presidential election twice during the Weimar Republic, as a candidate of national unity and, while he gained his second term as a ‘stop Hitler' candidate, President Hindenburg was to appoint Hitler as Chancellor and transfer some of his charisma onto him – a move so disastrous that Germans were later to ask if the myth of Hindenburg had always been an illusion. WithAnna von der Goltz Professor of History at Georgetown University, Washington DCChris Clark Regius Professor of History at the University of CambridgeAndColin Storer Associate Professor in Modern European History at the University of WarwickProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:William J. Astore and Dennis E. Showalter, Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism (Potomac Books, 2005)Benjamin Carter Hett, The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power (William Heinemann, 2018) Andreas Dorpalen, Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic (first published 1964; Princeton University Press, 2016)Jürgen W. Falter, 'The Two Hindenburg Elections of 1925 and 1932: A Total Reversal of Voter Coalitions' (Central European History, 32/2, 1990)Peter Fritzsche, 'Presidential Victory and Popular Festivity in Weimar Germany: Hindenburg's 1925 Election' (Central European History, 32/2, 1990) Larry Eugene Jones, Hitler Versus Hindenburg: The 1932 Presidential Elections and the End of the Weimar Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2016) Martin Kitchen, The Silent Dictatorship: The Politics of the German High Command under Hindenburg and Ludendorff, 1916-1918 (first published 1976; Routledge, 2021) John Lee, The Warlords: Hindenburg and Ludendorff (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005) Frank McDonough, The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall, 1918-1933 (Apollo, 2023) Nadine Rossol and Benjamin Ziemann (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Weimar Republic (Oxford University Press, 2022)Richard Scully, 'Hindenburg: The Cartoon Titan of the Weimar Republic, 1918-1934' (German Studies Review, 35/3, 2012)Colin Storer, A Short History of the Weimar Republic (Revised Edition, Bloomsbury, 2024)Anna von der Goltz, Hindenburg: Power, Myth and the Rise of the Nazis (Oxford University Press, 2009) Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918 (Penguin, 2015)J. W. Wheeler-Bennett, Hindenburg: The Wooden Titan (first published 1936; Macmillan, 1967)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and role of one of the most significant figures in early 20th Century German history. Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934) had been famous since 1914 as the victorious commander at the Battle of Tannenberg against Russian invaders, soon burnishing this fame on the Western Front and Hindenburg was to claim he would have won there too, if enemies at home had not 'stabbed Germany in the back'. He won Germany's Presidential election twice during the Weimar Republic, as a candidate of national unity and, while he gained his second term as a ‘stop Hitler' candidate, President Hindenburg was to appoint Hitler as Chancellor and transfer some of his charisma onto him – a move so disastrous that Germans were later to ask if the myth of Hindenburg had always been an illusion. WithAnna von der Goltz Professor of History at Georgetown University, Washington DCChris Clark Regius Professor of History at the University of CambridgeAndColin Storer Associate Professor in Modern European History at the University of WarwickProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:William J. Astore and Dennis E. Showalter, Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism (Potomac Books, 2005)Benjamin Carter Hett, The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power (William Heinemann, 2018) Andreas Dorpalen, Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic (first published 1964; Princeton University Press, 2016)Jürgen W. Falter, 'The Two Hindenburg Elections of 1925 and 1932: A Total Reversal of Voter Coalitions' (Central European History, 32/2, 1990)Peter Fritzsche, 'Presidential Victory and Popular Festivity in Weimar Germany: Hindenburg's 1925 Election' (Central European History, 32/2, 1990) Larry Eugene Jones, Hitler Versus Hindenburg: The 1932 Presidential Elections and the End of the Weimar Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2016) Martin Kitchen, The Silent Dictatorship: The Politics of the German High Command under Hindenburg and Ludendorff, 1916-1918 (first published 1976; Routledge, 2021) John Lee, The Warlords: Hindenburg and Ludendorff (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005) Frank McDonough, The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall, 1918-1933 (Apollo, 2023) Nadine Rossol and Benjamin Ziemann (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Weimar Republic (Oxford University Press, 2022)Richard Scully, 'Hindenburg: The Cartoon Titan of the Weimar Republic, 1918-1934' (German Studies Review, 35/3, 2012)Colin Storer, A Short History of the Weimar Republic (Revised Edition, Bloomsbury, 2024)Anna von der Goltz, Hindenburg: Power, Myth and the Rise of the Nazis (Oxford University Press, 2009) Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918 (Penguin, 2015)J. W. Wheeler-Bennett, Hindenburg: The Wooden Titan (first published 1936; Macmillan, 1967)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

It's the summer of 1588, and all is not well in England. Citizens are plotting to betray their Monarch for Spanish gold, and the dreaded Armada is coming closer and closer. It's up to the Queen’s Sea Dogs and navy to stop them, but will they succeed in convincing Queen Elizabeth that such action is necessary? And when the Spanish ships finally arrive, what will happen to the Virgin Queen and the citizens of London? And how will this affect the exploration, settlement and colonization of North America? E126. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/d35SQT-Ish8 which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. THE DEAD LETTER by Mark Vinet (Elizabethan Age Denary Novel) is available at https://amzn.to/3AG63BG Spanish Armada books available at https://amzn.to/3BQzphd ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM BBC Radio: In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg and his guests Diane Purkiss, Fellow and Tutor at Keble College, Oxford; Mia Rodriguez-Salgado, Professor in International History at the London School of Economics; Nicholas Rodger, Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College at the University of Oxford. Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the decisive role of one of the great 20th Century physicists in solving the question of nuclear fission. It is said that Meitner (1878-1968) made this breakthrough over Christmas 1938 while she was sitting on a log in Sweden during a snowy walk with her nephew Otto Frisch (1904-79). Both were Jewish-Austrian refugees who had only recently escaped from Nazi Germany. Others had already broken uranium into the smaller atom barium, but could not explain what they found; was the larger atom bursting, or the smaller atom being chipped off or was something else happening? They turned to Meitner. She, with Frisch, deduced the nucleus really was splitting like a drop of water into a dumbbell shape, with the electrical charges at each end forcing the divide, something previously thought impossible, and they named this ‘fission'. This was a crucial breakthrough for which Meitner was eventually widely recognised if not at first.WithJess Wade A Royal Society University Research Fellow and Lecturer in Functional Materials at Imperial College, LondonFrank Close Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics and Fellow Emeritus at Exeter College, University of OxfordAnd Steven Bramwell Director of the London Centre for Nanotechnology and Professor of Physics at University College LondonProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Frank Close, Destroyer of Worlds: The Deep History of the Nuclear Age, 1895-1965 (Allen Lane, 2025)Ruth Lewin Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (University of California Press, 1996)Marissa Moss, The Woman Who Split the Atom: The Life of Lise Meitner (Abrams Books, 2022)Patricia Rife, Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age (Birkhauser Verlag, 1999) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Korea's brief but significant period as an empire as it moved from the 500-year-old dynastic Joseon monarchy towards modernity. It was in October 1897 that King Gojong declared himself Emperor, seizing his chance when the once-dominant China lost to Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War. The king wanted to have the same status as the neighbouring Russian, Chinese and Japanese Emperors, to shore up a bid for Korean independence and sovereignty when the world's major powers either wanted to open Korea up to trade or to colonise it. The Korean Empire lasted only thirteen years, yet it was a time of great transformation for this state and the whole region with lasting consequences in the next century…With Nuri Kim Associate Professor in Korean Studies at the faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Wolfson CollegeHolly Stephens Lecturer in Japanese and Korean Studies at the University of EdinburghAnd Derek Kramer Lecturer in Korean Studies at the University of SheffieldProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Isabella Bird Bishop, Korea and her Neighbors: A Narrative of Travel, With an Account of the Recent Vicissitudes and Present Position of the Country (first published 1898; Forgotten Books, 2019)Vipan Chandra, Imperialism, Resistance and Reform in Late Nineteenth-Century Korea: Enlightenment and the Independence Club (University of California, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1988)Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1859-1910 (University of California Press, 1995)Carter J. Eckert, Offspring of Empire: The Koch'ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, 1876–1910 (University of Washington Press, 1991)George L. Kallander, Salvation through Dissent: Tonghak Heterodoxy and Early Modern Korea (University of Hawaii Press, 2013)Kim Dong-no, John B. Duncan and Kim Do-hyung (eds.), Reform and Modernity in the Taehan Empire (Jimoondang, 2006)Kirk W. Larsen, Tradition, Treaties, and Trade: Qing Imperialism and Chosŏn Korea, 1850-1910 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2008)Yumi Moon, Populist Collaborators: The Ilchinhoe and the Japanese Colonization of Korea, 1896-1910 (Cornell University Press, 2013)Sung-Deuk Oak, The Making of Korean Christianity: Protestant Encounters with Korean Religions, 1876-1915 (Baylor University Press, 2013)Eugene T. Park, A Family of No Prominence: The Descendants of Pak Tŏkhwa and the Birth of Modern Korea (Stanford University Press, 2020)Michael E. Robinson, Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History (University of Hawaii Press, 2007)Andre Schmid, Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919 (Columbia University Press, 2002)Vladimir Tikhonov, Social Darwinism and Nationalism in Korea: The Beginnings, 1880s-1910s (Brill, 2010)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Korea's brief but significant period as an empire as it moved from the 500-year-old dynastic Joseon monarchy towards modernity. It was in October 1897 that King Gojong declared himself Emperor, seizing his chance when the once-dominant China lost to Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War. The king wanted to have the same status as the neighbouring Russian, Chinese and Japanese Emperors, to shore up a bid for Korean independence and sovereignty when the world's major powers either wanted to open Korea up to trade or to colonise it. The Korean Empire lasted only thirteen years, yet it was a time of great transformation for this state and the whole region with lasting consequences in the next century…With Nuri Kim Associate Professor in Korean Studies at the faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Wolfson CollegeHolly Stephens Lecturer in Japanese and Korean Studies at the University of EdinburghAnd Derek Kramer Lecturer in Korean Studies at the University of SheffieldProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Isabella Bird Bishop, Korea and her Neighbors: A Narrative of Travel, With an Account of the Recent Vicissitudes and Present Position of the Country (first published 1898; Forgotten Books, 2019)Vipan Chandra, Imperialism, Resistance and Reform in Late Nineteenth-Century Korea: Enlightenment and the Independence Club (University of California, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1988)Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1859-1910 (University of California Press, 1995)Carter J. Eckert, Offspring of Empire: The Koch'ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, 1876–1910 (University of Washington Press, 1991)George L. Kallander, Salvation through Dissent: Tonghak Heterodoxy and Early Modern Korea (University of Hawaii Press, 2013)Kim Dong-no, John B. Duncan and Kim Do-hyung (eds.), Reform and Modernity in the Taehan Empire (Jimoondang, 2006)Kirk W. Larsen, Tradition, Treaties, and Trade: Qing Imperialism and Chosŏn Korea, 1850-1910 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2008)Yumi Moon, Populist Collaborators: The Ilchinhoe and the Japanese Colonization of Korea, 1896-1910 (Cornell University Press, 2013)Sung-Deuk Oak, The Making of Korean Christianity: Protestant Encounters with Korean Religions, 1876-1915 (Baylor University Press, 2013)Eugene T. Park, A Family of No Prominence: The Descendants of Pak Tŏkhwa and the Birth of Modern Korea (Stanford University Press, 2020)Michael E. Robinson, Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History (University of Hawaii Press, 2007)Andre Schmid, Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919 (Columbia University Press, 2002)Vladimir Tikhonov, Social Darwinism and Nationalism in Korea: The Beginnings, 1880s-1910s (Brill, 2010)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great figures in world literature. The French playwright Molière (1622-1673) began as an actor, aiming to be a tragedian, but he was stronger in comedy, touring with a troupe for 13 years until Louis XIV summoned him to audition at the Louvre and gave him his break. It was in Paris and at Versailles that Molière wrote and performed his best known plays, among them Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope and Le Malade Imaginaire, and in time he was so celebrated that French became known as The Language of Molière.With Noel Peacock Emeritus Marshall Professor in French Language and Literature at the University of GlasgowJan Clarke Professor of French at Durham UniversityAnd Joe Harris Professor of Early Modern French and Comparative Literature at Royal Holloway, University of LondonProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:David Bradby and Andrew Calder (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Molière (Cambridge University Press, 2006)Jan Clarke (ed.), Molière in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2022)Georges Forestier, Molière (Gallimard, 2018)Michael Hawcroft, Molière: Reasoning with Fools (Oxford University Press, 2007)John D. Lyons, Women and Irony in Molière's Comedies of Mariage (Oxford University Press, 2023)Robert McBride and Noel Peacock (eds.), Le Nouveau Moliériste (11 vols., University of Glasgow Presw, 1994- )Larry F. Norman, The Public Mirror: Molière and the Social Commerce of Depiction (University of Chicago Press, 1999)Noel Peacock, Molière sous les feux de la rampe (Hermann, 2012)Julia Prest, Controversy in French Drama: Molière's Tartuffe and the Struggle for Influence (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)Virginia Scott, Molière: A Theatrical Life (Cambridge University Press, 2020)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests explore typology, a method of biblical interpretation that aims to meaningfully link people, places, and events in the Hebrew Bible, what Christians call the Old Testament, with the coming of Christ in the New Testament. Old Testament figures like Moses, Jonah, and King David were regarded by Christians as being ‘types' or symbols of Jesus. This way of thinking became hugely popular in medieval Europe, Renaissance England and Victorian Britain, as Christians sought to make sense of their Jewish inheritance - sometimes rejecting that inheritance with antisemitic fervour. It was a way of seeing human history as part of a divine plan, with ancient events prefiguring more modern ones, and it influenced debates about the relationship between metaphor and reality in the bible, in literature, and in art. It also influenced attitudes towards reality, time and history. WithMiri Rubin, Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of LondonHarry Spillane, Munby Fellow in Bibliography at Cambridge and Research Fellow at Darwin CollegeAnd Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, Associate Professor in Patristics at Cambridge. Producer: Eliane GlaserReading list:A. C. Charity, Events and their Afterlife: The Dialectics of Christian Typology in the Bible and Dante (first published 1966; Cambridge University Press, 2010)Margaret Christian, Spenserian Allegory and Elizabethan Biblical Exegesis: The Context for 'The Faerie Queene' (Manchester University Press, 2016)Dagmar Eichberger and Shelley Perlove (eds.), Visual Typology in Early Modern Europe: Continuity and Expansion (Brepols, 2018)Tibor Fabiny, The Lion and the Lamb: Figuralism and Fulfilment in the Bible, Art and Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 1992)Tibor Fabiny, ‘Typology: Pros and Cons in Biblical Hermeneutics and Literary Criticism' (Academia, 2018)Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (first published 1982; Mariner Books, 2002)Leonhard Goppelt (trans. Donald H. Madvig), Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New (William B Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1982)Paul J. Korshin, Typologies in England, 1650-1820 (first published in 1983; Princeton University Press, 2014)Judith Lieu, Image and Reality: The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century (T & T Clark International, 1999)Sara Lipton, Images of Intolerance: The Representation of Jews and Judaism in the Bible Moralisee (University of California Press, 1999)Montague Rhodes James and Kenneth Harrison, A Guide to the Windows of King's College Chapel (first published in 1899; Cambridge University Press, 2010)J. W. Rogerson and Judith M. Lieu (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies (Oxford University Press, 2008)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the best known events and figures in Irish history. In 1014 Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, defeated the Hiberno-Norse forces of Sigtrygg Silkbeard and allies near their Dublin stronghold, with Brian losing his life on the day of battle. Soon chroniclers in Ireland and abroad were recording and retelling the events, raising the status of Brian Boru as one who sacrificed himself for Ireland, Christ-like, a connection reinforced by the battle taking place on Good Friday. While some of the facts are contested, the Battle of Clontarf became a powerful symbol of what a united Ireland could achieve by force against invaders.WithSeán Duffy Professor of Medieval Irish and Insular History at Trinity College DublinMáire Ní Mhaonaigh Professor of Celtic and Medieval Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John's College, CambridgeAnd Alex Woolf Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of St AndrewsProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Howard B. Clarke, Sheila Dooley and Ruth Johnson, Dublin and the Viking World (O'Brien Press Ltd, 2018)Howard B. Clarke and Ruth Johnson (ed.), The Vikings in Ireland and Beyond: Before and After Clontarf (Four Courts Press, 2015)Clare Downham, ‘The Battle of Clontarf in Irish History and Legend' (History Ireland 13, No. 5, 2005)Seán Duffy, Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf (Gill & Macmillan, 2014)Seán Duffy (ed.), Medieval Dublin XVI: Proceedings of Clontarf 1014–2014: National Conference Marking the Millennium of the Battle of Clontarf (Four Courts Press, 2017)Colmán Etchingham, ‘North Wales, Ireland and the Isles: The Insular Viking Zone' (Peritia 15, 2001)Colmán Etchingham, Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh and Elizabeth Ashman Rowe, Norse-Gaelic Contacts in a Viking World (Brepols N.V., 2019)David Griffiths, Vikings of the Irish Sea (The History Press, 2nd ed., 2025)James Henthorn Todd (ed. and trans.), Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh: The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, or, the Invasions of Ireland by the Danes and other Norsemen (first published 1867; Cambridge University Press, 2012)Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Brian Boru: Ireland's greatest king? (The History Press, 2006)Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, ‘Tales of Three Gormlaiths in Medieval Irish Literature' (Ériu 52, 2002)Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, ‘Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib: Some Dating Consierations' (Peritia 9, 1995)Brendan Smith, The Cambridge History of Ireland, vol. 1, 600–1550 (Cambridge University Press, 2018), especially ‘The Scandinavian Intervention' by Alex WoolfIn Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the best known events and figures in Irish history. In 1014 Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, defeated the Hiberno-Norse forces of Sigtrygg Silkbeard and allies near their Dublin stronghold, with Brian losing his life on the day of battle. Soon chroniclers in Ireland and abroad were recording and retelling the events, raising the status of Brian Boru as one who sacrificed himself for Ireland, Christ-like, a connection reinforced by the battle taking place on Good Friday. While some of the facts are contested, the Battle of Clontarf became a powerful symbol of what a united Ireland could achieve by force against invaders.WithSeán Duffy Professor of Medieval Irish and Insular History at Trinity College DublinMáire Ní Mhaonaigh Professor of Celtic and Medieval Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John's College, CambridgeAnd Alex Woolf Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of St AndrewsProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Howard B. Clarke, Sheila Dooley and Ruth Johnson, Dublin and the Viking World (O'Brien Press Ltd, 2018)Howard B. Clarke and Ruth Johnson (ed.), The Vikings in Ireland and Beyond: Before and After Clontarf (Four Courts Press, 2015)Clare Downham, ‘The Battle of Clontarf in Irish History and Legend' (History Ireland 13, No. 5, 2005)Seán Duffy, Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf (Gill & Macmillan, 2014)Seán Duffy (ed.), Medieval Dublin XVI: Proceedings of Clontarf 1014–2014: National Conference Marking the Millennium of the Battle of Clontarf (Four Courts Press, 2017)Colmán Etchingham, ‘North Wales, Ireland and the Isles: The Insular Viking Zone' (Peritia 15, 2001)Colmán Etchingham, Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh and Elizabeth Ashman Rowe, Norse-Gaelic Contacts in a Viking World (Brepols N.V., 2019)David Griffiths, Vikings of the Irish Sea (The History Press, 2nd ed., 2025)James Henthorn Todd (ed. and trans.), Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh: The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, or, the Invasions of Ireland by the Danes and other Norsemen (first published 1867; Cambridge University Press, 2012)Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Brian Boru: Ireland's greatest king? (The History Press, 2006)Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, ‘Tales of Three Gormlaiths in Medieval Irish Literature' (Ériu 52, 2002)Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, ‘Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib: Some Dating Consierations' (Peritia 9, 1995)Brendan Smith, The Cambridge History of Ireland, vol. 1, 600–1550 (Cambridge University Press, 2018), especially ‘The Scandinavian Intervention' by Alex WoolfIn Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus whose names are entwined with the end of Rome's Republic and the rise of the Roman Emperors. As tribunes, they brought popular reforms to the Roman Republic at the end of the 2nd century BC. Tiberius (c163-133BC) brought in land reform so every soldier could have his farm, while Gaius (c154-121BC) offered cheap grain for Romans and targeted corruption among the elites. Those elites saw the reforms as such a threat that they had the brothers killed: Tiberius in a shocking murder led by the Pontifex Maximus, the high priest, in 133BC and Gaius 12 years later with the senate's approval. This increase in political violence was to destabilise the Republic, forever tying the Gracchi to the question of why Rome's Republic gave way to the Rome of Emperors.WithCatherine Steel Professor of Classics at the University of GlasgowFederico Santangelo Professor of Ancient History at Newcastle UniversityAndKathryn Tempest Lecturer in Roman History at the University of LeicesterProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Appian (trans. John Carter), The Civil Wars (Penguin Classics, 2005)Valentina Arena, Jonathan R. W. Prag and Andrew Stiles, A Companion to the Political Culture of the Roman Republic (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022), especially the chapter by Lea Beness and Tom HillardR. Cristofoli, A. Galimberti and F. Rohr Vio (eds.), Costruire la Memoria: Uso e abuso della storia fra tarda repubblica e primo principato (L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2017), especially ‘The 'Tyranny' of the Gracchi and the Concordia of the Optimates: An Ideological Construct.' by Francisco Pina PoloSuzanne Dixon, Cornelia: Mother of the Gracchi, (Routledge, 2007)Peter Garnsey and Dominic Rathbone, ‘The Background to the Grain Law of Gaius Gracchus' (Journal of Roman Studies 75, 1985)O. Hekster, G. de Kleijn and D. Slootjes (eds.), Crises and the Roman Empire (Brill, 2007), especially ‘Tiberius Gracchus, Land and Manpower' by John W. RichJosiah Osgood, Rome and the Making of a World State, 150 BCE-20 CE (Cambridge University Press, 2018)Plutarch (trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert and Christopher Pelling), Rome in Crisis (Penguin Classics, 2010) Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield, ed. Philip A. Stadter), Roman Lives (Oxford University Press, 2008)Nathan Rosenstein, ‘Aristocrats and Agriculture in the Middle and Late Republic' (Journal of Roman Studies 98, 2008)A. N. Sherwin-White, ‘The Lex Repetundarum and the Political Ideas of Gaius Gracchus' (Journal of Roman Studies 72, 1982) Catherine Steel, The End of the Roman Republic, 146 to 44 BC: Conquest and Crisis (Edinburgh University Press, 2013)David Stockton, The Gracchi (Oxford University Press, 1979)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus whose names are entwined with the end of Rome's Republic and the rise of the Roman Emperors. As tribunes, they brought popular reforms to the Roman Republic at the end of the 2nd century BC. Tiberius (c163-133BC) brought in land reform so every soldier could have his farm, while Gaius (c154-121BC) offered cheap grain for Romans and targeted corruption among the elites. Those elites saw the reforms as such a threat that they had the brothers killed: Tiberius in a shocking murder led by the Pontifex Maximus, the high priest, in 133BC and Gaius 12 years later with the senate's approval. This increase in political violence was to destabilise the Republic, forever tying the Gracchi to the question of why Rome's Republic gave way to the Rome of Emperors.WithCatherine Steel Professor of Classics at the University of GlasgowFederico Santangelo Professor of Ancient History at Newcastle UniversityAndKathryn Tempest Lecturer in Roman History at the University of LeicesterProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Appian (trans. John Carter), The Civil Wars (Penguin Classics, 2005)Valentina Arena, Jonathan R. W. Prag and Andrew Stiles, A Companion to the Political Culture of the Roman Republic (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022), especially the chapter by Lea Beness and Tom HillardR. Cristofoli, A. Galimberti and F. Rohr Vio (eds.), Costruire la Memoria: Uso e abuso della storia fra tarda repubblica e primo principato (L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2017), especially ‘The 'Tyranny' of the Gracchi and the Concordia of the Optimates: An Ideological Construct.' by Francisco Pina PoloSuzanne Dixon, Cornelia: Mother of the Gracchi, (Routledge, 2007)Peter Garnsey and Dominic Rathbone, ‘The Background to the Grain Law of Gaius Gracchus' (Journal of Roman Studies 75, 1985)O. Hekster, G. de Kleijn and D. Slootjes (eds.), Crises and the Roman Empire (Brill, 2007), especially ‘Tiberius Gracchus, Land and Manpower' by John W. RichJosiah Osgood, Rome and the Making of a World State, 150 BCE-20 CE (Cambridge University Press, 2018)Plutarch (trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert and Christopher Pelling), Rome in Crisis (Penguin Classics, 2010) Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield, ed. Philip A. Stadter), Roman Lives (Oxford University Press, 2008)Nathan Rosenstein, ‘Aristocrats and Agriculture in the Middle and Late Republic' (Journal of Roman Studies 98, 2008)A. N. Sherwin-White, ‘The Lex Repetundarum and the Political Ideas of Gaius Gracchus' (Journal of Roman Studies 72, 1982) Catherine Steel, The End of the Roman Republic, 146 to 44 BC: Conquest and Crisis (Edinburgh University Press, 2013)David Stockton, The Gracchi (Oxford University Press, 1979)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), who was part of the movement known as phenomenology. While less well-known than his contemporaries Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, his popularity has increased among philosophers in recent years. Merleau-Ponty rejected Rene Descartes' division between body and mind, arguing that the way we perceive the world around us cannot be separated from our experience of inhabiting a physical body. Merleau-Ponty was interested in the down-to-earth question of what it is actually like to live in the world. While performing actions as simple as brushing our teeth or patting a dog, we shape the world and, in turn, the world shapes us. With Komarine Romdenh-Romluc Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of SheffieldThomas Baldwin Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of YorkAnd Timothy Mooney Associate Professor of Philosophy at University College, DublinProduced by Eliane GlaserReading list:Peter Antich, Motivation and the Primacy of Perception: Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Knowledge (Ohio University Press, 2021)Dimitris Apostolopoulos, Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Language (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019) Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails (Chatto and Windus, 2016) Thomas Baldwin (ed.), Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Basic Writings (Routledge, 2004)Thomas Baldwin (ed.), Reading Merleau-Ponty (Routledge, 2007)Renaud Barbaras (trans. Ted Toadvine and Leonard Lawlor), The Being of the Phenomenon: Merleau-Ponty's Ontology (Indiana University Press, 2004).Anya Daly, Merleau-Ponty and the Ethics of Intersubjectivity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)M. C. Dillon, Merleau-Ponty's Ontology (Northwestern University Press, 1998, 2nd ed.) Maurice Merleau-Ponty (trans. Alden L. Fisher), The Structure of Behavior (first published 1942; Beacon Press, 1976)Maurice Merleau-Ponty (trans. Donald Landes), Phenomenology of Perception (first published 1945; Routledge, 2011)Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sense and Non-Sense (first published 1948; Northwestern University Press, 1964)Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Signs (first published 1960; Northwestern University Press, 1964)Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible (first published 1964; Northwestern University Press, 1968)Maurice Merleau-Ponty (trans. Oliver Davis with an introduction by Thomas Baldwin), The World of Perception (Routledge, 2008)Ariane Mildenberg (ed.), Understanding Merleau-Ponty, Understanding Modernism (Bloomsbury, 2019)Timothy Mooney, Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception: On the Body Informed (Cambridge University Press, 2023) Katherine J. Morris, Starting with Merleau-Ponty (Continuum, 2012) Komarine Romdenh-Romluc, Merleau-Ponty and Phenomenology of Perception (Routledge, 2011)Komarine Romdenh-Romluc, The Routledge Guidebook to Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception (Routledge, 2011)Jean-Paul Sartre (trans. Benita Eisler), Situations (Hamish Hamilton, 1965)Hilary Spurling, The Girl from the Fiction Department (Penguin, 2003)Jon Stewart (ed.), The Debate Between Sartre and Merleau-Ponty (Northwestern University Press, 1998)Ted Toadvine, Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy of Nature (Northwestern University Press, 2009)Kerry Whiteside, Merleau-Ponty and the Foundation of an Existential Politics (Princeton University Press, 1988)Iris Marion Young, On Female Body Experience: “Throwing Like a Girl” and Other Essays (Oxford University Press, 2005)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most energetic, varied and innovative playwrights of his time. Thomas Middleton (1580-1627) worked across the London stages both alone and with others from Dekker and Rowley to Shakespeare and more. Middleton's range included raucous city comedies such as A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and chilling revenge tragedies like The Changeling and The Revenger's Tragedy, some with the main adult companies and some with child actors playing the scheming adults. Middleton seemed to be everywhere on the Jacobean stage, mixing warmth and cruelty amid laughter and horror, and even Macbeth's witches may be substantially his work.WithEmma Smith Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of OxfordLucy Munro Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature at Kings College LondonAnd Michelle O'Callaghan Professor of Early Modern Literature at the University of ReadingProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Swapan Chakravorty, Society and Politics in the Plays of Thomas Middleton (Clarendon Press, 1996)Suzanne Gossett (ed.), Thomas Middleton in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2011)R.V. Holdsworth (ed.), Three Jacobean Revenge Tragedies: A Selection of Critical Essays (Macmillan, 1990), especially ‘Calvinist Psychology in Middleton's Tragedies' by John StachniewskiMark Hutchings and A. A. Bromham, Middleton and His Collaborators (Northcote House, 2007)Gordon McMullan and Kelly Stage (eds.), The Changeling: The State of Play (The Arden Shakespeare, 2022)Lucy Munro, Shakespeare in the Theatre: The King's Men (The Arden Shakespeare, 2020)David Nicol, Middleton & Rowley: Forms of Collaboration in the Jacobean Playhouse (University of Toronto Press, 2012)Michelle O'Callaghan, Thomas Middleton: Renaissance Dramatist (Edinburgh University Press, 2009)Gary Taylor and Trish Thomas Henley (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Thomas Middleton (Oxford University Press, 2012)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests explore the history and reputation of the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great. Cyrus the Second of Persia as he was known then was born in the sixth century BCE in Persis which is now in Iran. He was the founder of the first Persian Empire, the largest empire at that point in history, spanning more than two million square miles. His story was told by the Greek historians Herodotus and Xenophon, and in the Hebrew bible he is praised for freeing the Jewish captives in Babylon. But the historical facts are intertwined with fiction.Cyrus proclaimed himself ‘king of the four corners of the world' in the famous Cyrus Cylinder, one of the most admired objects in the British Museum. It's been called by some the first bill of human rights, but that's a label which has been disputed by most scholars today.WithMateen Arghandehpour, a researcher for the Invisible East Project at Oxford University,Lindsay Allen, Senior Lecturer in Ancient Greek and Near Eastern History at King's College London,AndLynette Mitchell, Professor Emerita in Classics and Ancient History at Exeter University.Producer: Eliane GlaserReading list:Pierre Briant (trans. Peter T. Daniels), From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire (Eisenbrauns, 2002)John Curtis and Nigel Tallis (eds.), Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia (The British Museum Press, 2005)Irving Finkel (ed.), The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia's Proclamation from Ancient Babylon (I.B.Tauris, 2013)Lisbeth Fried, ‘Cyrus the Messiah? The Historical Background to Isaiah 45:1' (Harvard Theological Review 95, 2002) M. Kozuh, W.F. Henkelman, C.E. Jones and C. Woods (eds.), Extraction and Control: Studies in Honour of Matthew W. Stolper (Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2014), especially the chapter ‘Cyrus the Great, exiles and foreign gods: A comparison of Assyrian and Persian policies in subject nations' by R. J. van der SpekLynette Mitchell, Cyrus the Great: A Biography of Kingship (Routledge, 2023)Michael Roaf, Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East (Facts On File, 1990)Vesta Sarkosh Curtis and Sarah Stewart (eds.), Birth of the Persian Empire (I.B.Tauris, 2005), especially the chapter ‘Cyrus the Great and the kingdom of Anshan' by D.T. PottsMatt Waters, King of the World: The Life of Cyrus the Great (Oxford University Press, 2022)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

Melvyn Bragg and guests explore the history and reputation of the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great. Cyrus the Second of Persia as he was known then was born in the sixth century BCE in Persis which is now in Iran. He was the founder of the first Persian Empire, the largest empire at that point in history, spanning more than two million square miles. His story was told by the Greek historians Herodotus and Xenophon, and in the Hebrew bible he is praised for freeing the Jewish captives in Babylon. But the historical facts are intertwined with fiction.Cyrus proclaimed himself ‘king of the four corners of the world' in the famous Cyrus Cylinder, one of the most admired objects in the British Museum. It's been called by some the first bill of human rights, but that's a label which has been disputed by most scholars today.WithMateen Arghandehpour, a researcher for the Invisible East Project at Oxford University,Lindsay Allen, Senior Lecturer in Ancient Greek and Near Eastern History at King's College London,AndLynette Mitchell, Professor Emerita in Classics and Ancient History at Exeter University.Producer: Eliane GlaserReading list:Pierre Briant (trans. Peter T. Daniels), From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire (Eisenbrauns, 2002)John Curtis and Nigel Tallis (eds.), Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia (The British Museum Press, 2005)Irving Finkel (ed.), The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia's Proclamation from Ancient Babylon (I.B.Tauris, 2013)Lisbeth Fried, ‘Cyrus the Messiah? The Historical Background to Isaiah 45:1' (Harvard Theological Review 95, 2002) M. Kozuh, W.F. Henkelman, C.E. Jones and C. Woods (eds.), Extraction and Control: Studies in Honour of Matthew W. Stolper (Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2014), especially the chapter ‘Cyrus the Great, exiles and foreign gods: A comparison of Assyrian and Persian policies in subject nations' by R. J. van der SpekLynette Mitchell, Cyrus the Great: A Biography of Kingship (Routledge, 2023)Michael Roaf, Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East (Facts On File, 1990)Vesta Sarkosh Curtis and Sarah Stewart (eds.), Birth of the Persian Empire (I.B.Tauris, 2005), especially the chapter ‘Cyrus the Great and the kingdom of Anshan' by D.T. PottsMatt Waters, King of the World: The Life of Cyrus the Great (Oxford University Press, 2022)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

Jane and Fi wonder how best to disrupt each others' funerals musically and marvel at Melvyn Bragg's hair. They also sort through our, quite frankly, bulging post bag. Plus, they're joined by geopolitics expert Tim Marshall, who discusses the updated version of his book ‘Prisoners of Geography' Send your suggestions for the next book club pick!If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: janeandfi@times.radioFollow us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Hindu goddess Kali, often depicted as dark blue, fierce, defiant, revelling in her power, and holding in her four or more arms a curved sword and a severed head with a cup underneath to catch the blood. She may have her tongue out, to catch more blood spurting from her enemies, be wearing a garland of more severed heads and a skirt of severed hands and yet she is also a nurturing mother figure, known in West Bengal as ‘Maa Kali' and she can be fiercely protective. Sometimes she is shown as young and conventionally beautiful and at other times as old, emaciated and hungry, so defying any narrow definition.WithBihani Sarkar Senior Lecturer in Comparative Non-Western Thought at Lancaster UniversityJulius Lipner Professor Emeritus of Hinduism and the Comparative Study of Religion at the University of CambridgeAnd Jessica Frazier Lecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of Oxford and fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu StudiesDuring this discussion, Julius Lipner reads a translation of a poem by Kamalakanta (c.1769–1821) "Is my black Mother Syama really black?" This translation is by Rachel Fell McDermott and can be found in her book Singing to the Goddess, Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal (Oxford University Press, 2001)Producer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Mandakranta Bose (ed.), The Goddess (Oxford University Press, 2018) John S. Hawley and Donna M. Wulff (eds.), Devi: Goddesses of India (University of California Press, 1996)Knut A. Jacobsen (ed.), Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism, vol 1 (Brill, 2025)David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition (University of California Press, 1986), especially chapter 8Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal (eds.), Encountering Kālī in the margins, at the center, in the west (University of California Press, 2003)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the renowned and versatile Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith (1728 - 1774). There is a memorial to him in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner written by Dr Johnson, celebrating Goldsmith's life as a poet, natural philosopher and historian. To this could be added ‘playwright' and ‘novelist' and ‘science writer' and ‘pamphleteer' and much besides, as Goldsmith explored so many different outlets for his talents. While he began on Grub Street in London, the centre for jobbing writers scrambling for paid work, he became a great populariser and compiler of new ideas and knowledge and achieved notable successes with poems such as The Deserted Village, his play She Stoops to Conquer and his short novel The Vicar of Wakefield. WithDavid O'Shaughnessy Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of GalwayJudith Hawley Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of LondonAnd Michael Griffin Professor of English at the University of LimerickProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Norma Clarke, Brothers of the Quill: Oliver Goldsmith in Grub Street (Harvard University Press, 2016)Leo Damrosch, The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age (Yale University Press, 2019)Oliver Goldsmith (ed. Aileen Douglas and Ian Campbell Ross), The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale, Supposed to Be Written by Himself (first published 1766; Cambridge University Press, 2024)Oliver Goldsmith (ed. Arthur Friedman), The Vicar of Wakefield (first published 1766; Oxford University Press, 2008)Oliver Goldsmith (ed. Arthur Friedman), The Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith, 5 vols (Clarendon Press, 1966) Oliver Goldsmith (ed. Robert L. Mack), Oliver Goldsmith: Everyman's Poetry, No. 30 (Phoenix, 1997)Oliver Goldsmith (ed. James Ogden), She Stoops to Conquer (first performed 1773; Methuen Drama, 2003)Oliver Goldsmith (ed. James Watt), The Citizen of the World (first published 1762; Cambridge University Press, 2024)Oliver Goldsmith (ed. Nigel Wood), She Stoops to Conquer and Other Comedies (first performed 1773; Oxford University Press, 2007)Michael Griffin and David O'Shaughnessy (eds.), Oliver Goldsmith in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2024)Michael Griffin and David O'Shaughnessy (eds.), The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith (Cambridge University Press, 2018)Roger Lonsdale (ed.), The Poems of Gray, Collins and Goldsmith (Longmans, 1969)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536), the youngest child of the newly dominant Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella. When she was 3, her parents contracted her to marry Arthur, Prince of Wales, the heir to the Tudor king Henry VII in order to strengthen Spain's alliances, since Henry's kingdom was a longstanding trade partner and an enemy of Spain's greatest enemy, France. For the next decade Catherine had the best humanist education available, preparing her for her expected life as queen and drawing inspiration from her warrior mother. She arrived in London to be married when she was 15 but within a few months she was widowed, her situation uncertain and left relatively impoverished for someone of her status. Rather than return home, Catherine stayed and married her late husband's brother, Henry VIII. In her view and that of many around her, she was an exemplary queen and, even after Henry VIII had arranged the annulment of their marriage for the chance of a male heir with Anne Boleyn, Catherine continued to consider herself his only queen.With Lucy Wooding Langford Fellow and Tutor in History at Lincoln College, University of Oxford and Professor of Early Modern History at Oxford Maria Hayward Professor of Early Modern History at the University of SouthamptonAnd Gonzalo Velasco Berenguer Lecturer in Global Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of BristolProducer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio ProductionReading list:Michelle Beer, Queenship at the Renaissance Courts of Britain: Catherine of Aragon and Margaret Tudor, 1503-1533 (Royal Historical Society, 2018)G. R. Bernard, The King's Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church (Yale University Press, 2007)José Luis Colomer and Amalia Descalzo (eds.), Spanish Fashion at the Courts of Early Modern Europe (Centro de Estudios Europa Hispanica, 2014), especially vol 2, 'Spanish Princess or Queen of England? The Image, Identity and Influence of Catherine of Aragon at the Courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII' by Maria HaywardTheresa Earenfight, Catherine of Aragon: Infanta of Spain, Queen of England (Penn State University Press, 2022)John Edwards, Ferdinand and Isabella: Profiles In Power (Routledge, 2004)Garrett Mattingley, Catherine of Aragon (first published 1941; Random House, 2000)J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (first published 1968; Yale University Press, 1997)David Starkey, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII (Vintage, 2004)Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen (Faber & Faber, 2011)Juan Luis Vives (trans. Charles Fantazzi), The Education of a Christian Woman: A Sixteenth-Century Manual (University of Chicago Press, 2000)Patrick Williams, Catherine of Aragon: The Tragic Story of Henry VIII's First Unfortunate Wife (Amberley Publishing, 2013)Lucy Wooding, Henry VIII (Routledge, 2009)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536), the youngest child of the newly dominant Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella. When she was 3, her parents contracted her to marry Arthur, Prince of Wales, the heir to the Tudor king Henry VII in order to strengthen Spain's alliances, since Henry's kingdom was a longstanding trade partner and an enemy of Spain's greatest enemy, France. For the next decade Catherine had the best humanist education available, preparing her for her expected life as queen and drawing inspiration from her warrior mother. She arrived in London to be married when she was 15 but within a few months she was widowed, her situation uncertain and left relatively impoverished for someone of her status. Rather than return home, Catherine stayed and married her late husband's brother, Henry VIII. In her view and that of many around her, she was an exemplary queen and, even after Henry VIII had arranged the annulment of their marriage for the chance of a male heir with Anne Boleyn, Catherine continued to consider herself his only queen.With Lucy Wooding Langford Fellow and Tutor in History at Lincoln College, University of Oxford and Professor of Early Modern History at Oxford Maria Hayward Professor of Early Modern History at the University of SouthamptonAnd Gonzalo Velasco Berenguer Lecturer in Global Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of BristolProducer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio ProductionReading list:Michelle Beer, Queenship at the Renaissance Courts of Britain: Catherine of Aragon and Margaret Tudor, 1503-1533 (Royal Historical Society, 2018)G. R. Bernard, The King's Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church (Yale University Press, 2007)José Luis Colomer and Amalia Descalzo (eds.), Spanish Fashion at the Courts of Early Modern Europe (Centro de Estudios Europa Hispanica, 2014), especially vol 2, 'Spanish Princess or Queen of England? The Image, Identity and Influence of Catherine of Aragon at the Courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII' by Maria HaywardTheresa Earenfight, Catherine of Aragon: Infanta of Spain, Queen of England (Penn State University Press, 2022)John Edwards, Ferdinand and Isabella: Profiles In Power (Routledge, 2004)Garrett Mattingley, Catherine of Aragon (first published 1941; Random House, 2000)J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (first published 1968; Yale University Press, 1997)David Starkey, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII (Vintage, 2004)Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen (Faber & Faber, 2011)Juan Luis Vives (trans. Charles Fantazzi), The Education of a Christian Woman: A Sixteenth-Century Manual (University of Chicago Press, 2000)Patrick Williams, Catherine of Aragon: The Tragic Story of Henry VIII's First Unfortunate Wife (Amberley Publishing, 2013)Lucy Wooding, Henry VIII (Routledge, 2009)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the architect Sir John Soane (1753 -1837), the son of a bricklayer. He rose up the ranks of his profession as an architect to see many of his designs realised to great acclaim, particularly the Bank of England and the Law Courts at Westminster Hall, although his work on both of those has been largely destroyed. He is now best known for his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London, which he remodelled and crammed with antiquities and artworks: he wanted visitors to experience the house as a dramatic grand tour of Europe in microcosm. He became professor of architecture at the Royal Academy, and in a series of influential lectures he set out his belief in the power of buildings to enlighten people about “the poetry of architecture”. Visitors to the museum and his other works can see his trademark architectural features such as his shallow dome, which went on to inspire Britain's red telephone boxes.With: Frances Sands, the Curator of Drawings and Books at Sir John Soane's MuseumFrank Salmon, Associate Professor of the History of Art at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Ax:son Johnson Centre for the Study of Classical ArchitectureAnd Gillian Darley, historian and author of Soane's biography.Producer: Eliane Glaser In Our time is a BBC Studios Audio production.Reading list:Barry Bergdoll, European Architecture 1750-1890 (Oxford University Press, 2000)Bruce Boucher, John Soane's Cabinet of Curiosities: Reflections on an Architect and His Collection (Yale University Press, 2024)Oliver Bradbury, Sir John Soane's Influence on Architecture from 1791: An Enduring Legacy (Routledge, 2015)Gillian Darley, John Soane: An Accidental Romantic (Yale University Press, 1999)Ptolemy Dean, Sir John Soane and the Country Estate (Ashgate, 1999)Ptolemy Dean, Sir John Soane and London (Lund Humphries, 2006)Helen Dorey, John Soane and J.M.W. Turner: Illuminating a Friendship (Sir John Soane's Museum, 2007)Tim Knox, Sir John Soane's Museum (Merrell, 2015)Brian Lukacher, Joseph Gandy: An Architectural Visionary in Georgian England (Thames and Hudson, 2006)Susan Palmer, At Home with the Soanes: Upstairs, Downstairs in 19th Century London (Pimpernel Press, 2015)Frances Sands, Architectural Drawings: Hidden Masterpieces at Sir John Soane's Museum (Batsford, 2021)Sir John Soane's Museum, A Complete Description (Sir John Soane's Museum, 2018)Mary Ann Stevens and Margaret Richardson (eds.), John Soane Architect: Master of Space and Light (Royal Academy Publications, 1999)John Summerson, Architecture in Britain 1530-1830 (9th edition, Yale University Press, 1993)A.A. Tait, Robert Adam: Drawings and Imagination (Cambridge University Press, 1993) John H. Taylor, Sir John Soane's Greatest Treasure: The Sarcophagus of Seti I (Pimpernel Press, 2017)David Watkin, Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures (Cambridge University Press, 1996)David Watkin, Sir John Soane: The Royal Academy Lectures (Cambridge University Press, 2000)John Wilton-Ely, Piranesi, Paestum & Soane (Prestel, 2013)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a story that circulated widely in the middle ages about a highly learned woman who lived in the ninth century, dressed as a man, travelled to Rome, and was elected Pope.Her papacy came to a dramatic end when it was revealed that she was a woman, a discovery that is said to have occurred when she gave birth in the street. The story became a popular cautionary tale directed at women who attempted to transgress traditional roles, and it famously blurred the boundary between fact and fiction. The story lives on as the subject of recent novels, plays and films.With:Katherine Lewis, Honorary Professor of Medieval History at the University of Lincoln and Research Associate at the University of YorkLaura Kalas, Senior Lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Swansea UniversityAnd Anthony Bale, Professor of Medieval & Renaissance English at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Girton College.Producer: Eliane GlaserReading list:Alain Boureau (trans. Lydia G. Cochrane), The Myth of Pope Joan (University of Chicago Press, 2001)Stephen Harris and Bryon L. Grisby (eds.), Misconceptions about the Middle Ages (Routledge, 2008), especially 'The Medieval Popess' by Vincent DiMarcoValerie R. Hotchkiss, Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe (Routledge, 1996)Jacques Le Goff, Heroes and Marvels of the Middle Ages (Reaktion, 2020), especially the chapter ‘Pope Joan'Marina Montesano, Cross-dressing in the Middle Ages (Routledge, 2024)Joan Morris, Pope John VIII - An English Woman: Alias Pope Joan (Vrai, 1985)Thomas F. X. Noble, ‘Why Pope Joan?' (Catholic Historical Review, vol. 99, no.2, 2013)Craig M. Rustici, The Afterlife of Pope Joan: Deploying the Popess Legend in Early Modern England (University of Michigan Press, 2006)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Plato's Crito and Phaedo, his accounts of the last days of Socrates in prison in 399 BC as he waited to be executed by drinking hemlock. Both works show Socrates preparing to die in the way he had lived: doing philosophy. In the Crito, Plato shows Socrates arguing that he is duty bound not to escape from prison even though a bribe would open the door, while in the Phaedo his argument is for the immortality of the soul which, at the point of death, might leave uncorrupted from the 'prison' of his body, the one escape that truly mattered to Socrates. His example in his last days has proved an inspiration to thinkers over the centuries and in no small way has helped ensure the strength of his reputation.WithAngie Hobbs Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of SheffieldFiona Leigh Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University College LondonAnd James Warren Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, CambridgeProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:David Ebrey, Plato's Phaedo: Forms, Death and the Philosophical Life (Cambridge University Press, 2023)Dorothea Frede, ‘The Final Proof of the Immortality of the Soul in Plato's Phaedo 102a-107a' (Phronesis 23, 1978)W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 4, Plato: The Man and his Dialogues, Earlier Period (Cambridge University Press, 2008) Verity Harte, ‘Conflicting Values in Plato's Crito' (Archiv. für Geschichte der Philosophie 81, 1999)Angie Hobbs, Why Plato Matters Now (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2025), especially chapter 5 Rachana Kamtekar (ed.), Plato's Euthyphro, Apology and Crito: Critical Essays (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004)Richard Kraut, Socrates and the State (Princeton University Press, 1984)Melissa Lane, ‘Argument and Agreement in Plato's Crito' (History of Political Thought 19, 1998) Plato (trans. Chris Emlyn-Jones and William Preddy), Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo and Phaedrus (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 2017)Plato (trans. G. M. A. Grube and John Cooper), The Trial and Death of Socrates: Euthyphro Apology, Crito, Phaedo (Hackett, 2001) Plato (trans. Christopher Rowe), The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo (Penguin, 2010)Donald R. Robinson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Socrates (Cambridge University Press, 2011)David Sedley and Alex Long (eds.), Plato: Meno and Phaedo (Cambridge University Press, 2010)James Warren, ‘Forms of Agreement in Plato's Crito' (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 123, Issue 1, April 2023)Robin Waterfield, Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths (Faber and Faber, 2010)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most consequential battles of recent centuries. On 20th September 1792 at Valmy, 120 miles to the east of Paris, the army of the French Revolution faced Prussians, Austrians and French royalists heading for Paris to free Louis XVI and restore his power and end the Revolution. The professional soldiers in the French army were joined by citizens singing the Marseillaise and their refusal to give ground prompted their opponents to retreat when they might have stayed and won. The French success was transformative. The next day, back in Paris, the National Convention abolished the monarchy and declared the new Republic. Goethe, who was at Valmy, was to write that from that day forth began a new era in the history of the world.With Michael Rowe Reader in European History at King's College LondonHeidi Mehrkens Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of AberdeenAndColin Jones Professor Emeritus of History at Queen Mary, University of LondonProducer: Simon TillotsonReading listT. C. W. Blanning, The French Revolutionary Wars, 1787-1802 (Hodder Education, 1996)Elizabeth Cross, ‘The Myth of the Foreign Enemy? The Brunswick Manifesto and the Radicalization of the French Revolution' (French History 25/2, 2011)Charles J. Esdaile, The Wars of the French Revolution, 1792-1801 (Routledge, 2018)John A. Lynn, ‘Valmy' (MHQ: Quarterly Journal of Military History, Fall 1992)Munro Price, The Fall of the French Monarchy: Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the baron de Breteuil (Macmillan, 2002)Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (Penguin Books, 1989)Samuel F. Scott, From Yorktown to Valmy: The Transformation of the French Army in an Age of Revolution (University Press of Colorado, 1998)Marie-Cécile Thoral, From Valmy to Waterloo: France at War, 1792–1815 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most consequential battles of recent centuries. On 20th September 1792 at Valmy, 120 miles to the east of Paris, the army of the French Revolution faced Prussians, Austrians and French royalists heading for Paris to free Louis XVI and restore his power and end the Revolution. The professional soldiers in the French army were joined by citizens singing the Marseillaise and their refusal to give ground prompted their opponents to retreat when they might have stayed and won. The French success was transformative. The next day, back in Paris, the National Convention abolished the monarchy and declared the new Republic. Goethe, who was at Valmy, was to write that from that day forth began a new era in the history of the world.With Michael Rowe Reader in European History at King's College LondonHeidi Mehrkens Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of AberdeenAndColin Jones Professor Emeritus of History at Queen Mary, University of LondonProducer: Simon TillotsonReading listT. C. W. Blanning, The French Revolutionary Wars, 1787-1802 (Hodder Education, 1996)Elizabeth Cross, ‘The Myth of the Foreign Enemy? The Brunswick Manifesto and the Radicalization of the French Revolution' (French History 25/2, 2011)Charles J. Esdaile, The Wars of the French Revolution, 1792-1801 (Routledge, 2018)John A. Lynn, ‘Valmy' (MHQ: Quarterly Journal of Military History, Fall 1992)Munro Price, The Fall of the French Monarchy: Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the baron de Breteuil (Macmillan, 2002)Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (Penguin Books, 1989)Samuel F. Scott, From Yorktown to Valmy: The Transformation of the French Army in an Age of Revolution (University Press of Colorado, 1998)Marie-Cécile Thoral, From Valmy to Waterloo: France at War, 1792–1815 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss slime mould, a basic organism that grows on logs, cowpats and compost heaps. Scientists have found difficult to categorise slime mould: in 1868, the biologist Thomas Huxley asked: ‘Is this a plant, or is it an animal? Is it both or is it neither?' and there is a great deal scientists still don't know about it. But despite not having a brain, slime mould can solve complex problems: it can find the most efficient way round a maze and has been used to map Tokyo's rail network. Researchers are using it to help find treatments for cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, and computer scientists have designed an algorithm based on slime mould behaviour to learn about dark matter. It's even been sent to the international space station to help study the effects of weightlessness. WithJonathan Chubb Professor of Quantitative Cell Biology at University College, LondonElinor Thompson Reader in microbiology and plant science at the University of GreenwichAndMerlin Sheldrake Biologist and writerProducer: Eliane Glaser In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss eighteenth century 'vase-mania'. In the second half of the century, inspired by archaeological discoveries, the Grand Tour and the founding of the British Museum, parts of the British public developed a huge enthusiasm for vases modelled on the ancient versions recently dug up in Greece. This enthusiasm amounted to a kind of ‘vase-mania'. Initially acquired by the aristocracy, Josiah Wedgwood made these vases commercially available to an emerging aspiring middle class eager to display a piece of the Classical past in their drawing rooms. In the midst of a rapidly changing Britain, these vases came to symbolise the birth of European Civilisation, the epitome of good taste and the timelessness that would later be celebrated by John Keats in his Ode on a Grecian Urn.WithJenny Uglow Writer and Biographer Rosemary Sweet Professor of Urban History at the University of LeicesterAndCaroline McCaffrey-Howarth Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of EdinburghProducer: Eliane GlaserReading list:Viccy Coltman, Fabricating the Antique: Neoclassicism in Britain 1760–1800 (University of Chicago Press, 2006)David Constantine, Fields of Fire: A Life of Sir William Hamilton (Phoenix, 2002)Tristram Hunt, The Radical Potter: Josiah Wedgwood and the Transformation of Britain (Allen Lane, 2021)Ian Jenkins and Kim Sloan (eds), Vases and Volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and his Collection (British Museum Press, 1996)Berg Maxine, Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Oxford University Press, 2005)Iris Moon, Melancholy Wedgwood (MIT Press, 2024)Rosemary Sweet, Grand Tour: The British in Italy, c.1690–1820 (Cambridge University Press, 2012)Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men: The Friends who Made the Future (Faber and Faber, 2003)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek biographer Plutarch (c46 AD-c120 AD) and especially his work 'Parallel Lives' which has shaped the way successive generations see the Classical world. Plutarch was clear that he was writing lives, not histories, and he wrote these very focussed accounts in pairs to contrast and compare the characters of famous Greeks and Romans, side by side, along with their virtues and vices. This focus on the inner lives of great men was to fascinate Shakespeare, who drew on Plutarch considerably when writing his Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens and Antony and Cleopatra. While few followed his approach of setting lives in pairs, Plutarch's work was to influence countless biographers especially from the Enlightenment onwards.WithJudith Mossman Professor Emerita of Classics at Coventry UniversityAndrew Erskine Professor of Ancient History at the University of EdinburghAnd Paul Cartledge AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, University of CambridgeProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Mark Beck (ed.), A Companion to Plutarch (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014)Colin Burrow, Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2013), especially chapter 6Raphaëla Dubreuil, Theater and Politics in Plutarch's Parallel Lives (Brill, 2023)Tim Duff, Plutarch's Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice (Oxford University Press, 1999)Noreen Humble (ed.), Plutarch's Lives: Parallelism and Purpose (Classical Press of Wales, 2010)Robert Lamberton, Plutarch (Yale University Press, 2002)Hugh Liebert, Plutarch's Politics: Between City and Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2016)Christopher Pelling, Plutarch and History (Classical Press of Wales, 2002)Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield), Greek Lives (Oxford University Press, 2008) Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield), Roman Lives (Oxford University Press, 2008) Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield), Hellenistic Lives (Oxford University Press, 2016)Plutarch (trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert), The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives (Penguin, 2023) Plutarch (trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert), The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives (Penguin, 2011) Plutarch (trans. Richard Talbert), On Sparta (Penguin, 2005)Plutarch (trans. Christopher Pelling), The Rise of Rome (Penguin, 2013) Plutarch (trans. Christopher Pelling), Rome in Crisis: Nine Lives (Penguin, 2010)Plutarch (trans. Rex Warner), The Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives (Penguin, 2006)Plutarch (trans. Thomas North, ed. Judith Mossman), The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (Wordsworth, 1998)Geert Roskam, Plutarch (Cambridge University Press, 2021)D. A. Russell, Plutarch (2nd ed., Bristol Classical Press, 2001)Philip A. Stadter, Plutarch and his Roman Readers (Oxford University Press, 2014)Frances B. Titchener and Alexei V. Zadorojnyi (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Plutarch (Cambridge University Press, 2023)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek biographer Plutarch (c46 AD-c120 AD) and especially his work 'Parallel Lives' which has shaped the way successive generations see the Classical world. Plutarch was clear that he was writing lives, not histories, and he wrote these very focussed accounts in pairs to contrast and compare the characters of famous Greeks and Romans, side by side, along with their virtues and vices. This focus on the inner lives of great men was to fascinate Shakespeare, who drew on Plutarch considerably when writing his Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens and Antony and Cleopatra. While few followed his approach of setting lives in pairs, Plutarch's work was to influence countless biographers especially from the Enlightenment onwards.WithJudith Mossman Professor Emerita of Classics at Coventry UniversityAndrew Erskine Professor of Ancient History at the University of EdinburghAnd Paul Cartledge AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, University of CambridgeProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Mark Beck (ed.), A Companion to Plutarch (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014)Colin Burrow, Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2013), especially chapter 6Raphaëla Dubreuil, Theater and Politics in Plutarch's Parallel Lives (Brill, 2023)Tim Duff, Plutarch's Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice (Oxford University Press, 1999)Noreen Humble (ed.), Plutarch's Lives: Parallelism and Purpose (Classical Press of Wales, 2010)Robert Lamberton, Plutarch (Yale University Press, 2002)Hugh Liebert, Plutarch's Politics: Between City and Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2016)Christopher Pelling, Plutarch and History (Classical Press of Wales, 2002)Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield), Greek Lives (Oxford University Press, 2008) Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield), Roman Lives (Oxford University Press, 2008) Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield), Hellenistic Lives (Oxford University Press, 2016)Plutarch (trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert), The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives (Penguin, 2023) Plutarch (trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert), The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives (Penguin, 2011) Plutarch (trans. Richard Talbert), On Sparta (Penguin, 2005)Plutarch (trans. Christopher Pelling), The Rise of Rome (Penguin, 2013) Plutarch (trans. Christopher Pelling), Rome in Crisis: Nine Lives (Penguin, 2010)Plutarch (trans. Rex Warner), The Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives (Penguin, 2006)Plutarch (trans. Thomas North, ed. Judith Mossman), The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (Wordsworth, 1998)Geert Roskam, Plutarch (Cambridge University Press, 2021)D. A. Russell, Plutarch (2nd ed., Bristol Classical Press, 2001)Philip A. Stadter, Plutarch and his Roman Readers (Oxford University Press, 2014)Frances B. Titchener and Alexei V. Zadorojnyi (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Plutarch (Cambridge University Press, 2023)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss some of the great unanswered questions in science: how and where did life on Earth begin, what did it need to thrive and could it be found elsewhere? Charles Darwin speculated that we might look for the cradle of life here in 'some warm little pond'; more recently the focus moved to ocean depths, while new observations in outer space and in laboratories raise fresh questions about the potential for lifeforms to develop and thrive, or 'habitability' as it is termed. What was the chemistry needed for life to begin and is it different from the chemistry we have now? With that in mind, what signs of life should we be looking for in the universe to learn if we are alone?With Jayne Birkby Associate Professor of Exoplanetary Sciences at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow in Physics at Brasenose CollegeSaidul Islam Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Kings College, LondonAnd Oliver Shorttle Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Clare CollegeProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list: David Grinspoon, Venus Revealed: A New Look Below the Clouds of Our Mysterious Twin Planet (Basic Books, 1998)Lisa Kaltenegger, Alien Earths: Planet Hunting in the Cosmos (Allen Lane, 2024)Andrew H. Knoll, Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth (‎Princeton University Press, 2004)Charles H. Langmuir and Wallace Broecker, How to Build a Habitable Planet: The Story of Earth from the Big Bang to Humankind (Princeton University Press, 2012)Joshua Winn, The Little Book of Exoplanets (Princeton University Press, 2023)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest romantic poets in Persian literature. Nizami Ganjavi (c1141–1209) is was born in the city of Ganja in what is now Azerbaijan and his popularity soon spread throughout the Persian-speaking lands and beyond. Nizami is best known for his Khamsa, a set of five epic poems that contains a famous retelling of the tragic love story of King Khosrow II (c570-628) and the Christian princess Shirin (unknown-628) and the legend of Layla and Majnun. Not only did he write romances: his poetry also displays a dazzling knowledge of philosophy, astronomy, botany and the life of Alexander the Great.With Christine van Ruymbeke Professor of Persian Literature and Culture at the University of CambridgeNarguess Farzad Senior Lecturer in Persian Studies at SOAS, University of LondonAndDominic Parviz Brookshaw Professor of Persian Literature and Iranian Culture at the University of OxfordProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Laurence Binyon, The Poems of Nizami (The Studio Limited, 1928)Barbara Brend, Treasures of Herat: Two Manuscripts of the Khamsah of Nizami in the British Library (Gingko, 2020)Barbara Brend, The Emperor Akbar's Khamsa of Nizami (British Library, 1995)J-C. Burgel and C. van Ruymbeke, A Key to the Treasure of the Hakim: Artistic and Humanistic Aspects of Nizami Ganjavi's Khamsa (Leiden University Press, 2011)Nizami Ganjavi (trans. P.J. Chelkowski), Mirror of the Invisible World: Tales from the Khamseh of Nizami (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975)Nizami Ganjavi (trans. Dick Davis), Layli and Majnun (Penguin Books, 2021)Nizami Ganjavi (trans. Rudolf Gelpke), The Story of Layla and Majnun (first published 1966: Omega Publications, 1997)Nizami Ganjavi (trans. Rudolf Gelpke), The Story of the Seven Princesses (Bruno Cassirer Ltd, 1976)Nizami Ganjavi (trans. Julie Scott Meisami, The Haft Paykar: A Medieval Persian Romance (Oxford University Press, 1995)Nizami Ganjavi (trans. Colin Turner), Layla and Majnun (Blake Publishing, 1997) Dominic Parviz Brookshaw, Hafiz and His Contemporaries: Poetry, Performance and Patronage in Fourteenth-Century Iran (Bloomsbury, 2019)Julie Scott Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry (Princeton University Press, 2014)Asghar Seyed-Gohrab, Layli and Majnun: Love, Madness and Mystic Longing in Nizami's Epic Romance (Brill, 2003)Kamran Talattof, Jerome W. Clinton, and K. Allin Luther, The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric (Palgrave, 2000)C. van Ruymbeke, Science and Poetry in Medieval Persia: The Botany of Nizami's Khamsa (Cambridge University Press, 2007) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the intense political activity at the turn of the 18th Century, when many politicians in London went to great lengths to find a Protestant successor to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland and others went to equal lengths to oppose them. Queen Anne had no surviving children and, following the old rules, there were at least 50 Catholic candidates ahead of any Protestant ones and among those by far the most obvious candidate was James, the only son of James II. Yet with the passing of the Act of Settlement in 1701 ahead of Anne's own succession, focus turned to Europe and to Princess Sophia, an Electress of the Holy Roman Empire in Hanover who, as a granddaughter of James I, thus became next in line to be crowned at Westminster Abbey. It was not clear that Hanover would want this role, given its own ambitions and the risks, in Europe, of siding with Protestants, and soon George I was minded to break the rules of succession so that he would be the last Hanoverian monarch as well as the first.WithAndreas Gestrich Professor Emeritus at Trier University and Former Director of the German Historical Institute in LondonElaine Chalus Professor of British History at the University of LiverpoolAnd Mark Knights Professor of History at the University of WarwickProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:J.M. Beattie, The English Court in the Reign of George I (Cambridge University Press, 1967)Jeremy Black, The Hanoverians: The History of a Dynasty (Hambledon Continuum, 2006)Justin Champion, Republican Learning: John Toland and the Crisis of Christian Culture 1696-1722 (Manchester University Press, 2003), especially his chapter ‘Anglia libera: Protestant liberties and the Hanoverian succession, 1700–14'Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707 – 1837 (Yale University Press, 2009)Andreas Gestrich and Michael Schaich (eds), The Hanoverian Succession: Dynastic Politics and Monarchical Culture (‎Ashgate, 2015)Ragnhild Hatton, George I: Elector and King (Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1979)Mark Knights, Representation and Misrepresentation in Later Stuart Britain: Partisanship and Political Culture (Oxford University Press, 2005) Mark Knights, Faction Displayed: Reconsidering the Impeachment of Dr Henry Sacheverell (Blackwell, 2012)Joanna Marschner, Queen Caroline: Cultural Politics at the Early Eighteenth-Century Court (Yale University Press, 2014)Ashley Marshall, ‘Radical Steele: Popular Politics and the Limits of Authority' (Journal of British Studies 58, 2019)Paul Monod, Jacobitism and the English People, 1688-1788 (Cambridge University Press, 1989)Hannah Smith, Georgian Monarchy: Politics and Culture 1714-1760 (Cambridge University Press, 2006)Daniel Szechi, 1715: The Great Jacobite Rebellion (Yale University Press, 2006)A.C. Thompson, George II : King and Elector (Yale University Press, 2011)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Italian author of Invisible Cities, If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, Cosmicomics and other celebrated novels, fables and short stories of the 20th Century. Calvino (1923 -1985) had a passionate belief that writing and art could make life better for everyone. Despite his parents being scientists, who dearly wanted him to be a scientist too, and his time fighting with the Partisans in Liguria in WWII during which his parents were held hostage by the Nazis, Calvino turned away from realism in his writing. Ideally, he said, he would have liked to be alive in the Enlightenment. He moved towards the fantastical, drawing on his childhood reading while collecting a huge number of the fables of Italy and translating them from dialect into Italian to enrich the shared culture of his fellow citizens. His fresh perspective on the novel continues to inspire writers and delight readers in Italian and in translations around the world.With Guido Bonsaver Professor of Italian Cultural History at the University of OxfordJennifer Burns Professor of Italian Studies at the University of WarwickAndBeatrice Sica Associate Professor in Italian Studies at UCLProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list: Elio Baldi, The Author in Criticism: Italo Calvino's Authorial Image in Italy, the United States, and the United Kingdom (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2020)Elio Baldi and Cecilia Schwartz, Circulation, Translation and Reception Across Borders: Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities Around the World (Routledge, 2024)Peter Bondanella and Andrea Ciccarelli (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Novel (Cambridge University Press, 2003), especially the chapter ‘Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco: Postmodern Masters'James Butler, ‘Infinite Artichoke' (London Review of Books, vol. 45, no. 12, 15 June 2023)Italo Calvino (trans. Martin McLaughlin), The Path to the Spiders' Nests (first published 1947; Penguin Classics, 2009)Italo Calvino (trans. Mikki Taylor), The Baron in the Trees (first published 1957; Vintage Classics, 2021)Italo Calvino, Marcovaldo (first published 1963; Vintage Classics, 2023) Italo Calvino (trans. William Weaver and Ann Goldstein), Difficult Loves and Other Stories (first published 1970; Vintage Classics, 2018)Italo Calvino (trans. William Weaver), Invisible Cities (first published 1972; Vintage Classics, 1997)Italo Calvino (trans. Patrick Creagh), The Uses of Literature (first published 1980; Houghton Mifflin, 1987)Italo Calvino (trans. Geoffrey Brock), Six Memos for the Next Millennium (first published 1988; Penguin Classics, 2016) Italo Calvino (trans. Tim Parks), The Road to San Giovanni (first published 1990; HMH Books, 2014) Italo Calvino (trans. Ann Goldstein), The Written World and the Unwritten World: Essays (Mariner Books Classics, 2023)Kathryn Hume, Calvino's Fictions: Cogito and Cosmos (Clarendon Press, 1992)Martin McLaughlin, Italo Calvino (Edinburgh University Press, 1998)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 2000-year-old device which transformed our understanding of astronomy in ancient Greece. In 1900 a group of sponge divers found the wreck of a ship off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. Among the items salvaged was a corroded bronze object, the purpose of which was not at first clear. It turned out to be one of the most important discoveries in marine archaeology. Over time, researchers worked out that it was some kind of astronomical analogue computer, the only one to survive from this period as bronze objects were so often melted down for other uses. In recent decades, detailed examination of the Antikythera Mechanism using the latest scientific techniques indicates that it is a particularly intricate tool for showing the positions of planets, the sun and moon, with a complexity and precision not surpassed for over a thousand years.With Mike Edmunds Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics at Cardiff UniversityJo Marchant Science journalist and author of 'Decoding the Heavens' on the Antikythera MechanismAnd Liba Taub Professor Emerita in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and Visiting Scholar at the Deutsches Museum, MunichProducer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio ProductionReading list:Derek de Solla Price, Gears from the Greeks: The Antikythera Mechanism (American Philosophical Society Press, 1974)M. G. Edmunds, ‘The Antikythera mechanism and the mechanical universe' (Contemp. Phys. 55, 2014) M.G. Edmunds, 'The Mechanical Universe' (Astronomy & Geophysics, 64, 2023)James Evans and J. Lennart Berggren, Geminos's Introduction to the Phenomena: A Translation and Study of a Hellenistic Survey of Astronomy (Princeton University Press, 2006)T. Freeth et al., ‘Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera mechanism' (Nature 454, 2008)Alexander Jones, A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World (Oxford University Press, 2017)Jo Marchant, Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World's First Computer (Windmill Books, 2009)J.H. Seiradakis and M.G. Edmunds, ‘Our current knowledge of the Antikythera Mechanism' (Nature Astronomy 2, 2018)Liba Taub, Ancient Greek and Roman Science: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2022)