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In Our Time: History

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BBC Radio 4

Historical themes, events and key individuals from Akhenaten to Xenophon.

#215

The Hanoverian Succession

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. With Andreas Gestrich Professor Emeritus at Trier University and Former Director of the German Historical Institute in London Elaine Chalus Professor of British History at the University of Liverpool And Mark Knights Professor of History at the University of Warwick Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading 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 ... Read more

26 Dec 2024

50 MINS

50:54

26 Dec 2024

#214

The Antikythera Mechanism

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 University Jo Marchant Science journalist and author of 'Decoding the Heavens' on the Antikythera Mechanism And 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, Munich Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production Reading 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) ... Read more

12 Dec 2024

50 MINS

50:35

12 Dec 2024

#213

The Venetian Empire

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable rise of Venice in the eastern Mediterranean. Unlike other Italian cities of the early medieval period, Venice had not been settled during the Roman Empire. Rather, it was a refuge for those fleeing unrest after the fall of Rome who settled on these boggy islands on a lagoon and developed into a power that ran an empire from mainland Italy, down the Adriatic coast, across the Peloponnese to Crete and Cyprus, past Constantinople and into the Black Sea. This was a city without walls, just one of the surprises for visitors who marvelled at the stability and influence of Venice right up to the 17th Century when the Ottomans, Spain, France and the Hapsburgs were to prove too much especially with trade shifting to the Atlantic. With Maartje van Gelder Professor in Early Modern History at the University of Amsterdam Stephen Bowd Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Edinburgh And Georg Christ Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Manchester Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Michel Balard and Christian Buchet (eds.), The Sea in History: The Medieval World (Boydell & Brewer, 2017), especially ‘The Naval Power of Venice in the Eastern Mediterranean’ by Ruthy Gertwagen Stephen D. Bowd, Venice's Most Loyal City: Civic Identity in Renaissance Brescia (Harward University Press, 2010) Frederic Chapin Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973) Georg Christ and Franz-Julius Morche (eds.), Cultures of Empire: Rethinking Venetian rule 1400–1700: Essays in Honour of Benjamin Arbel (Brill, 2020), especially ‘Orating Venice's Empire: Politics and Persuasion in Fifteenth Century Funeral Orations’ by Monique O'Connell Eric R. Dursteler, A Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797 (Brill, 2013), especially ‘Venice's Maritime Empire in the Early Modern Period’ by Benjamin Arbel Iain Fenlon, The Ceremonial City: History, Memory and Myth in Renaissance Venice (Yale University Press, 2007) Joanne M. Ferraro, Venice: History of the Floating City (Cambridge University Press, 2012) Maria Fusaro, Political Economies of Empire: The Decline of Venice and the Rise of England 1450-1700 (Cambridge University Press, 2015) Maartje van Gelder, Trading Places: The Netherlandish Merchant Community in Early Modern Venice, 1590-1650 (Brill, 2009) Deborah Howard, The Architectural History of Venice (Yale University Press, 2004) Kristin L. Huffman (ed.), A View of Venice: Portrait of a Renaissance City (Duke University Press, 2024) Peter Humfrey, Venice and the Veneto: Artistic Centers of the Italian Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 2008) John Jeffries Martin and Dennis Romano (eds.), Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297-1797 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) Erin Maglaque, Venice’s Intimate Empire: Family Life and Scholarship in the Renaissance Mediterranean (Cornell University Press, 2018) Michael E Mallett and John Rigby Hale, The Military Organization of a Renaissance State Venice, c.1400 to 1617 (Cambridge University Press, 1984) William Hardy McNeill, Venice: The Hinge of Europe (The University of Chicago Press, 1974) Jan Morris, The Venetian Empire: A Sea Voyage (Faber & Faber, 1980) Monique O'Connell, Men of Empire: Power and Negotiation in Venice’s Maritime State (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009) Dennis Romano, Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City (Oxford University Press, 2023) David Rosand, Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State (University of North Carolina Press, 2001) David Sanderson Chambers, The Imperial Age of Venice, 1380-1580 (Thames and Hudson, 1970) Sandra Toffolo, Describing the City, Describing the State: Representations of Venice and the Venetian Terraferma in the Renaissance (Brill, 2020) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production . ... Read more

28 Nov 2024

51 MINS

51:24

28 Nov 2024

#212

The Haymarket Affair

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the notorious attack of 4th of May 1886 at a workers rally in Chicago when somebody threw a bomb that killed a policeman, Mathias J. Degan. The chaotic shooting that followed left more people dead and sent shockwaves across America and Europe. This was in Haymarket Square at a protest for an eight hour working day following a call for a general strike and the police killing of striking workers the day before, at a time when labour relations in America were marked by violent conflict. The bomber was never identified but two of the speakers at the rally, both of then anarchists and six of their supporters were accused of inciting murder. Four of them, George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Albert Parsons, and August Spies were hanged on 11th November 1887 only to be pardoned in the following years while a fifth, Louis Ling, had killed himself after he was convicted. The May International Workers Day was created in their memory. With Ruth Kinna Professor of Political Theory at Loughborough University Christopher Phelps Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Nottingham And Gary Gerstle Paul Mellon Professor of American History Emeritus at the University of Cambridge Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton University Press, 1984) Henry David, The History of the Haymarket Affair (Collier Books, 1963) James Green, Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America (Pantheon, 2006) Carl Levy and Matthew S. Adams (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), especially 'Haymarket and the Rise of Syndicalism' by Kenyon Zimmer Franklin Rosemont and David Roediger, Haymarket Scrapbook: 125th Anniversary Edition (AK Press, 2012) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production ... Read more

31 Oct 2024

51 MINS

51:39

31 Oct 2024

#211

Benjamin Disraeli

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the major figures in Victorian British politics. Disraeli (1804 -1881) served both as Prime Minister twice and, for long periods, as leader of the opposition. Born a Jew, he was only permitted to enter Parliament as his father had him baptised into the Church of England when he was twelve. Disraeli was a gifted orator and, outside Parliament, he shared his views widely through several popular novels including Sybil or The Two Nations, which was to inspire the idea of One Nation Conservatism. He became close to Queen Victoria and she mourned his death with a primrose wreath, an event marked for years after by annual processions celebrating his life in politics. With Lawrence Goldman Emeritus Fellow in History at St Peter's College, University of Oxford Emily Jones Lecturer in Modern British History at the University of Manchester And Daisy Hay Professor of English Literature and Life Writing at the University of Exeter Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Robert Blake, Disraeli (first published 1966; Faber & Faber, 2010) M. Dent, ‘Disraeli and the Bible’ (Journal of Victorian Culture 29, 2024) Benjamin Disraeli (ed. N. Shrimpton), Sybil; or, The Two Nations (Oxford University Press, 2017) Daisy Hay, Mr and Mrs Disraeli: A Strange Romance (Chatto & Windus, 2015) Douglas Hurd and Edward Young, Disraeli: or, The Two Lives (W&N, 2014) Emily Jones, ‘Impressions of Disraeli: Mythmaking and the History of One Nation Conservatism, 1881-1940’ (French Journal of British Studies 28, 2023) William Kuhn, The Politics of Pleasure: A Portrait of Benjamin Disraeli (Simon & Schuster, 2007) Robert O'Kell, Disraeli: The Romance of Politics (University of Toronto Press, 2013) J.P. Parry, ‘Disraeli and England’ (Historical Journal 43, 2000) J.P. Parry, ‘Disraeli, the East and Religion: Tancred in Context’ (English Historical Review 132, 2017) Cecil Roth, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (New York Philosophical library, 1952) Paul Smith, Disraelian Conservatism and Social Reform (Routledge & Kegan Paul PLC, 1967) John Vincent, Disraeli (Oxford University Press, 1990) P.J. Waller (ed.), Politics and Social Change in Modern Britain (Prentice Hall / Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1987), especially the chapter ‘Style and Substance in Disraelian Social Reform’ by P. Ghosh In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production ... Read more

17 Oct 2024

51 MINS

51:21

17 Oct 2024

#210

The Orkneyinga Saga

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Saga of the Earls of Orkney, as told in the 13th Century by an unknown Icelander. This was the story of arguably the most important, strategically, of all the islands in the British Viking world, when the Earls controlled Shetland, Orkney and Caithness from which they could raid the Irish and British coasts, from Dublin round to Lindisfarne. The Saga combines myth with history, bringing to life the places on those islands where Vikings met, drank, made treaties, told stories, became saints, plotted and fought. With Judith Jesch Professor of Viking Studies at the University of Nottingham Jane Harrison Archaeologist and Research Associate at Oxford and Newcastle Universities And Alex Woolf Senior Lecturer in History at the University of St Andrews Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production Reading list: Theodore M. Andersson, The Growth of Medieval Icelandic Sagas, 1180-1280, (Cornell University Press, 2012) Margaret Clunies Ross, The Cambridge Introduction to the Old Norse-Icelandic Saga (Cambridge University Press, 2010) Robert Cook (trans.), Njals Saga (Penguin, 2001) Barbara E. Crawford, The Northern Earldoms: Orkney and Caithness from AD 870 to 1470 (John Donald Short Run Press, 2013) Shami Ghosh, Kings’ Sagas and Norwegian History: Problems and Perspectives (Brill, 2011) J. Graham-Campbell and C. E. Batey, Vikings in Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 2002) David Griffiths, J. Harrison and Michael Athanson, Beside the Ocean: Coastal Landscapes at the Bay of Skaill, Marwick, and Birsay Bay, Orkney: Archaeological Research 2003-18 (Oxbow Books, 2019) Jane Harrison, Building Mounds: Orkney and the Vikings (Routledge, forthcoming) Ármann Jakobsson and Sverrir Jakobsson (eds.), The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas (Routledge, 2017) Judith Jesch, The Viking Diaspora (Routledge, 2015) Judith Jesch, ‘Earl Rögnvaldr of Orkney, a Poet of the Viking Diaspora’ (Journal of the North Atlantic, Special Volume 4, 2013) Judith Jesch, The Poetry of Orkneyinga Saga (H.M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures, University of Cambridge, 2020) Devra Kunin (trans.), A History of Norway and the Passion and Miracles of the Blessed Olafr (Viking Society for Northern Research, 2001) Rory McTurk (ed.), A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture (Wiley-Blackwell, 2004) Tom Muir, Orkney in the Sagas (Orkney Islands Council, 2005) Else Mundal (ed.), Dating the Sagas: Reviews and Revisions (Museum Tusculanum Press, 2013) Heather O’Donoghue, Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Short Introduction, (John Wiley & Sons, 2004) Heather O'Donoghue and Eleanor Parker (eds.), The Cambridge History of Old Norse-Icelandic Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2024), especially 'Landscape and Material Culture' by Jane Harrison and ‘Diaspora Sagas’ by Judith Jesch Richard Oram, Domination and Lordship, Scotland 1070-1230, (Edinburgh University Press, 2011) Olwyn Owen (ed.), The World of Orkneyinga Saga: The Broad-cloth Viking Trip (Orkney Islands Council, 2006) Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards (trans.), Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney (Penguin Classics, 1981) Snorri Sturluson (trans. tr. Alison Finlay and Anthony Faulkes), Heimskringla, vol. I-III (Viking Society for Northern Research, 2011-2015) William P. L. Thomson, The New History of Orkney (Birlinn Ltd, 2008) Alex Woolf, From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070 (Edinburgh University Press, 2007), especially chapter 7 ... Read more

04 Jul 2024

51 MINS

51:02

04 Jul 2024

#209

Marsilius of Padua

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the canonical figures from the history of political thought. Marsilius of Padua (c1275 to c1343) wrote 'Defensor Pacis' (The Defender of the Peace) around 1324 when the Papacy, the Holy Roman Emperor and the French King were fighting over who had supreme power on Earth. In this work Marsilius argued that the people were the source of all power and they alone could elect a leader to act on their behalf; they could remove their leaders when they chose and, afterwards, could hold them to account for their actions. He appeared to favour an elected Holy Roman Emperor and he was clear that there were no grounds for the Papacy to have secular power, let alone gather taxes and wealth, and that clerics should return to the poverty of the Apostles. Protestants naturally found his work attractive in the 16th Century when breaking with Rome. In the 20th Century Marsilius has been seen as an early advocate for popular sovereignty and republican democracy, to the extent possible in his time. With Annabel Brett Professor of Political Thought and History at the University of Cambridge George Garnett Professor of Medieval History and Fellow and Tutor at St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford And Serena Ferente Professor of Medieval History at the University of Amsterdam Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Sounds Audio Production Reading list: Richard Bourke and Quentin Skinner (eds), Popular Sovereignty in Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2016), especially 'Popolo and law in Marsilius and the jurists' by Serena Ferente J. Canning, Ideas of Power in the Late Middle Ages, 1296-1417 (Cambridge University Press, 2011) H.W.C. Davis (ed.), Essays in Mediaeval History presented to Reginald Lane Poole (Clarendon Press, 1927), especially ‘The authors cited in the Defensor Pacis’ by C.W. Previté-Orton George Garnett, Marsilius of Padua and ‘The Truth of History’ (Oxford University Press, 2006) J.R. Hale, J.R.L. Highfield and B. Smalley (eds.), Europe in the Late Middle Ages (Faber and Faber, 1965), especially ‘Marsilius of Padua and political thought of his time’ by N. Rubinstein Joel Kaye, 'Equalization in the Body and the Body Politic: From Galen to Marsilius of Padua’ (Mélanges de l'Ecole Française de Rome 125, 2013) Xavier Márquez (ed.), Democratic Moments: Reading Democratic Texts (Bloomsbury, 2018), especially ‘Consent and popular sovereignty in medieval political thought: Marsilius of Padua’s Defensor pacis’ by T. Shogimen Marsiglio of Padua (trans. Cary J. Nederman), Defensor Minor and De Translatione Imperii (Cambridge University Press, 1993) Marsilius of Padua (trans. Annabel Brett), The Defender of the Peace (Cambridge University Press, 2005) Gerson Moreño-Riano (ed.), The World of Marsilius of Padua (Brepols, 2006) Gerson Moreno-Riano and Cary J. Nederman (eds), A Companion to Marsilius of Padua (Brill, 2012) A. Mulieri, S. Masolini and J. Pelletier (eds.), Marsilius of Padua: Between history, Politics, and Philosophy (Brepols, 2023) C. Nederman, Community and Consent: The Secular Political Theory of Marsiglio of Padua’s Defensor Pacis (Rowman and Littlefield, 1995) Vasileios Syros, Marsilius of Padua at the Intersection of Ancient and Medieval Traditions of Political Thought (University of Toronto Press, 2012) ... Read more

27 Jun 2024

56 MINS

56:44

27 Jun 2024

#208

Empress Dowager Cixi

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the woman who, for almost fifty years, was the most powerful figure in the Chinese court. Cixi (1835-1908) started out at court as one of the Emperor's many concubines, yet was the only one who gave him a son to succeed him and who also possessed great political skill and ambition. When their son became emperor he was still a young child and Cixi ruled first through him and then, following his death, through another child emperor. This was a time of rapid change in China, when western powers and Japan humiliated the forces of the Qing empire time after time, and Cixi had the chance to push forward the modernising reforms the country needed to thrive. However, when she found those reforms conflicted with her own interests or those of the Qing dynasty, she was arguably obstructive or too slow to act and she has been personally blamed for some of those many humiliations even when the fault lay elsewhere. With Yangwen Zheng Professor of Chinese History at the University of Manchester Rana Mitter The S.T. Lee Professor of US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School And Ronald Po Associate Professor in the Department of International History at London School of Economics and Visiting Professor at Leiden University Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production Reading list: Pearl S. Buck, Imperial Woman: The Story of the Last Empress of China (first published 1956; Open Road Media, 2013) Katharine A. Carl, With the Empress Dowager (first published 1906; General Books LLC, 2009) Jung Chang, Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (Jonathan Cape, 2013) Princess Der Ling, Old Buddha (first published 1929; Kessinger Publishing, 2007) Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (University of California Press, 1987) John K. Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Harvard University Press, 2006) Peter Gue Zarrow and Rebecca Karl (eds.), Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China (Harvard University Press, 2002) Grant Hayter-Menzies, Imperial Masquerade: The Legend of Princess Der Ling (Hong Kong University Press, 2008) Keith Laidler, The Last Empress: The She-Dragon of China (Wiley, 2003) Keith McMahon, Celestial Women: Imperial Wives and Concubines in China from Song to Qing (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020) Anchee Min, The Last Empress (Bloomsbury, 2011) Ying-Chen Peng, Artful Subversion: Empress Dowager Cixi’s Image Making (Yale University Press, 2023). Sarah Pike Conger, Letters from China: with Particular Reference to the Empress Dowager and the Women of China (first published 1910; Forgotten Books, 2024) Stephen Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (Atlantic Books, 2019) Liang Qichao (trans. Peter Zarrow), Thoughts From the Ice-Drinker's Studio: Essays on China and the World (Penguin Classics, 2023) Sterling Seagrave, Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China (Vintage, 1993) Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (first published 1991; W. W. Norton & Company, 2001) X. L. Woo, Empress Dowager Cixi: China's Last Dynasty and the Long Reign of a Formidable Concubine (Algora Publishing, 2003) Zheng Yangwen, Ten Lessons in Modern Chinese History (Manchester University Press, 2018) ... Read more

20 Jun 2024

50 MINS

50:02

20 Jun 2024

#207

Napoleon's Hundred Days

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) ... Read more

16 May 2024

58 MINS

58:56

16 May 2024

#206

Julian the Apostate

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the last pagan ruler of the Roman Empire. Fifty years after Constantine the Great converted to Christianity and introduced a policy of tolerating the faith across the empire, Julian (c.331 - 363 AD) aimed to promote paganism instead, branding Constantine the worst of all his predecessors. Julian was a philosopher-emperor in the mould of Marcus Aurelius and was noted in his lifetime for his letters and his satires, and it was his surprising success as a general in his youth in Gaul that had propelled him to power barely twenty years after a rival had slaughtered his family. Julian's pagan mission and his life were brought to a sudden end while on campaign against the Sasanian Empire in the east, but he left so much written evidence of his ideas that he remains one of the most intriguing of all the Roman emperors and a hero to the humanists of the Enlightenment. With James Corke-Webster Reader in Classics, History and Liberal Arts at King’s College, London Lea Niccolai Assistant Professor in Classics at the University of Cambridge and Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics, Trinity College And Shaun Tougher Professor of Late Roman and Byzantine History at Cardiff University Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Polymnia Athanassiadi, Julian: An Intellectual Biography (first published 1981; Routledge, 2014) Nicholas Baker-Brian and Shaun Tougher (eds.), Emperor and Author: The Writings of Julian the Apostate (Classical Press of Wales, 2012) Nicholas Baker-Brian and Shaun Tougher (eds.), The Sons of Constantine, AD 337-361: In the Shadows of Constantine and Julian, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) G.W. Bowersock, Julian the Apostate (first published 1978; Harvard University Press, 1997) Susanna Elm, Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome (University of California Press, 2012) Ari Finkelstein, The Specter of the Jews: Emperor Julian and the Rhetoric of Ethnicity in Syrian Antioch (University of California Press, 2018) David Neal Greenwood, Julian and Christianity: Revisiting the Constantinian Revolution (Cornell University Press, 2021) Lea Niccolai, Christianity, Philosophy, and Roman Power: Constantine, Julian, and the Bishops on Exegesis and Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2023) Stefan Rebenich and Hans-Ulrich Wiemer (eds), A Companion to Julian the Apostate (Brill, 2020) Rowland Smith, Julian’s Gods: Religion and Philosophy in the Thought and Action of Julian the Apostate (Routledge, 1995) H.C. Teitler, The Last Pagan Emperor: Julian the Apostate and the War against Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2017) Shaun Tougher, Julian the Apostate (Edinburgh University Press, 2007) W. C. Wright, The Works of Emperor Julian of Rome (Loeb, 1913-23) ... Read more

18 Apr 2024

50 MINS

50:14

18 Apr 2024

#205

The Mokrani Revolt

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the revolt that broke out in 1871 in Algeria against French rule, spreading over hundreds of miles and countless towns and villages before being brutally suppressed. It began with the powerful Cheikh Mokrani and his family and was taken up by hundreds of thousands, becoming the last major revolt there before Algeria’s war of independence in 1954. In the wake of its swift suppression though came further waves of French migrants to settle on newly confiscated lands, themselves displaced by French defeat in Europe and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, and their arrival only increased tensions. The Mokrani Revolt came to be seen as a watershed between earlier Ottoman rule and full national identity, an inspiration to nationalists in the 1950s. With Natalya Benkhaled-Vince Associate Professor of the History of Modern France and the Francophone World, Fellow of University College, University of Oxford Hannah-Louise Clark Senior Lecturer in Global Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow And Jim House Senior Lecturer in French and Francophone History at the University of Leeds Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Mahfoud Bennoune, The Making of Contemporary Algeria: 1830-1987 (Cambridge University Press, 1988) Julia Clancy-Smith, Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters, Algeria and Tunisia 1800–1904 (University of California Press, 1994) Hannah-Louise Clark, ‘The Islamic Origins of the French Colonial Welfare State: Hospital Finance in Algeria’ (European Review of History, vol. 28, nos 5-6, 2021) Hannah-Louise Clark, ‘Of jinn theories and germ theories: translating microbes, bacteriological medicine, and Islamic law in Algeria’ (Osiris, vol. 36, 2021) Brock Cutler, Ecologies of Imperialism in Algeria (University of Nebraska Press, 2023) Didier Guignard, 1871: L’Algérie sous Séquestre (CNRS Éditions, 2023) Idir Hachi, ‘Histoire social de l’insurrection de 1871 et du procès de ses chefs (PhD diss., University of Aix-Marseille, 2017) Abdelhak Lahlou, Idir Hachi, Isabelle Guillaume, Amélie Gregório and Peter Dunwoodie, ‘L'insurrection kabyle de 1871’ (Etudes françaises volume 57, no 1, 2021) James McDougall, A History of Algeria (Cambridge University Press (2017) John Ruedy, Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation (Indiana University Press, 2005, 2nd edition) Jennifer E Sessions, By Sword and Plow: France and the Conquest of Algeria (Cornell University Press, 2011) Samia Touati, ‘Lalla Fatma N’Soumer, 1830–1863: Spirituality, Resistance and Womanly Leadership in Colonial Algeria (Societies vol. 8, no. 4, 2018) Natalya Vince, Our Fighting Sisters: Nation, Memory and Gender in Algeria, 1954-2012 (Manchester University Press, 2015) ... Read more

04 Apr 2024

57 MINS

57:32

04 Apr 2024

#204

The Sack of Rome 1527

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the infamous assault of an army of the Holy Roman Emperor on the city of Rome in 1527. The troops soon broke through the walls of this holy city and, with their leader shot dead early on, they brought death and destruction to the city on an epic scale. Later writers compared it to the fall of Carthage or Jerusalem and soon the mass murder, torture, rape and looting were followed by disease which was worsened by starvation and opened graves. It has been called the end of the High Renaissance, a conflict between north and south, between Lutherans and Catholics, and a fulfilment of prophecy of divine vengeance and, perhaps more persuasively, a consequence of military leaders not feeding or paying their soldiers other than by looting. With Stephen Bowd Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Edinburgh Jessica Goethals Associate Professor of Italian at the University of Alabama And Catherine Fletcher Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Stephen Bowd, Renaissance Mass Murder: Civilians and Soldiers during the Italian Wars (Oxford University Press, 2018) Benvenuto Cellini, Autobiography (Penguin Classics, 1999) Benvenuto Cellini (trans. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella), My Life (Oxford University Press, 2009) André Chastel (trans. Beth Archer), The Sack of Rome 1527 (Princeton University Press, 1983 Catherine Fletcher, The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance (Bodley Head, 2020) Kenneth Gouwens and Sheryl E. Reiss (eds), The Pontificate of Clement VII: History, Politics, Culture (Routledge, 2005) Francesco Guicciardini (trans. Sidney Alexander), The History of Italy (first published 1561; Princeton University Press, 2020) Luigi Guicciardini (trans. James H. McGregor), The Sack of Rome (first published 1537; Italica Press, 2008) Judith Hook, The Sack of Rome (2nd edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) Geoffrey Parker, Emperor: A New Life of Charles V (Yale University Press, 2019) ... Read more

21 Mar 2024

46 MINS

46:32

21 Mar 2024

#203

The Hanseatic League

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Hanseatic League or Hansa which dominated North European trade in the medieval period. With a trading network that stretched from Iceland to Novgorod via London and Bruges, these German-speaking Hansa merchants benefitted from tax exemptions and monopolies. Over time, the Hansa became immensely influential as rulers felt the need to treat it well. Kings and princes sometimes relied on loans from the Hansa to finance their wars and an embargo by the Hansa could lead to famine. Eventually, though, the Hansa went into decline with the rise in the nation state’s power, greater competition from other merchants and the development of trade across the Atlantic. With Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz Associate Professor of Medieval History at the University of Amsterdam Georg Christ Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Manchester And Sheilagh Ogilvie Chichele Professor of Economic History at All Souls College, University of Oxford Producer: Victoria Brignell Reading list: James S. Amelang and Siegfried Beer, Public Power in Europe: Studies in Historical Transformations (Plus-Pisa University Press, 2006), especially `Trade and Politics in the Medieval Baltic: English Merchants and England’s Relations to the Hanseatic League 1370–1437` Nicholas R. Amor, Late Medieval Ipswich: Trade and Industry (Boydell & Brewer, 2011) B. Ayers, The German Ocean: Medieval Europe around the North Sea (Equinox, 2016) H. Brand and P. Brood, The German Hanse in Past & Present Europe: A medieval league as a model for modern interregional cooperation? (Castel International Publishers, 2007) Wendy R. Childs, The Trade and Shipping of Hull, 1300-1500 (East Yorkshire Local History Society, 1990) Alexander Cowan, Hanseatic League: Oxford Bibliographies (Oxford University Press, 2010) Philippe Dollinger, The German Hansa (Macmillan, 1970) John D. Fudge, Cargoes, Embargoes and Emissaries: The Commercial and Political Interaction of England and the German Hanse, 1450-1510 (University of Toronto Press, 1995) Donald J. Harreld, A Companion to the Hanseatic League (Brill, 2015) T.H. Lloyd, England and the German Hanse, 1157 – 1611: A Study of their Trade and Commercial Diplomacy (first published 1991; Cambridge University Press, 2002) Giampiero Nigro (ed.), Maritime networks as a factor in European integration (Fondazione Istituto Internazionale Di Storia Economica “F. Datini” Prato, University of Firenze, 2019), especially ‘Maritime Networks and Premodern Conflict Management on Multiple Levels. The Example of Danzig and the Giese Family’ by Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz Sheilagh Ogilvie, Institutions and European Trade: Merchant Guilds, 1000-1800 (Cambridge University Press, 2011) Paul Richards (ed.), Six Essays in Hanseatic History (Poppyland Publishing, 2017) Paul Richards, King’s Lynn and The German Hanse 1250-1550: A Study in Anglo-German Medieval Trade and Politics (Poppyland Publishing, 2022) Stephen H. Rigby, The Overseas Trade of Boston, 1279-1548 (Böhlau Verlag, 2023) Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz and Stuart Jenks (eds.), The Hanse in Medieval & Early Modern Europe (Brill, 2012) Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz, ‘The late medieval and early modern Hanse as an institution of conflict management’ (Continuity and Change 32/1, Cambridge University Press, 2017) ... Read more

29 Feb 2024

49 MINS

49:01

29 Feb 2024

#202

Nefertiti

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the woman who inspired one of the best known artefacts from ancient Egypt. The Bust of Nefertiti is multicoloured and symmetrical, about 49cm/18" high and, despite the missing left eye, still holds the gaze of onlookers below its tall, blue, flat topped headdress. Its discovery in 1912 in Amarna was kept quiet at first but its display in Berlin in the 1920s caused a sensation, with replicas sent out across the world. Ever since, as with Tutankhamun perhaps, the concrete facts about Nefertiti herself have barely kept up with the theories, the legends and the speculation, reinvigorated with each new discovery. With Aidan Dodson Honorary Professor of Egyptology at the University of Bristol Joyce Tyldesley Professor of Egyptology at the University of Manchester And Kate Spence Senior Lecturer in Egyptian Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Emmanuel College Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Dorothea Arnold (ed.), The Royal Women of Amarna: Images of Beauty from Ancient Egypt (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996) Norman de Garis Davies, The Rock Tombs of el-Amarna (6 vols. Egypt Exploration Society, 1903-1908) Aidan Dodson, Amarna Sunset: Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb and the Egyptian Counter-reformation. (American University in Cairo Press, 2009 Aidan Dodson, Nefertiti, Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt: her life and afterlife (American University in Cairo Press, 2020) Aidan Dodson, Tutankhamun: King of Egypt: his life and afterlife (American University in Cairo Press, 2022) Barry Kemp, The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Amarna and Its People (Thames and Hudson, 2012) Dominic Montserrat, Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt (Routledge, 2002) Friederike Seyfried (ed.), In the Light of Amarna: 100 Years of the Nefertiti Discovery (Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussamlung Staatlich Museen zu Berlin/ Michael Imhof Verlag, 2013) Joyce Tyldesley, Tutankhamun: Pharaoh, Icon, Enigma (Headline, 2022) Joyce Tyldesley, Nefertiti’s Face: The Creation of an Icon (Profile Books, 2018) Joyce Tyldesley, Nefertiti: Egypt’s Sun Queen (Viking, 1998) ... Read more

15 Feb 2024

49 MINS

49:50

15 Feb 2024

#201

Tiberius

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman emperor Tiberius. When he was born in 42BC, there was little prospect of him ever becoming Emperor of Rome. Firstly, Rome was still a Republic and there had not yet been any Emperor so that had to change and, secondly, when his stepfather Augustus became Emperor there was no precedent for who should succeed him, if anyone. It somehow fell to Tiberius to develop this Roman imperial project and by some accounts he did this well, while to others his reign was marked by cruelty and paranoia inviting comparison with Nero. With Matthew Nicholls Senior Tutor at St. John’s College, University of Oxford Shushma Malik Assistant Professor of Classics and Onassis Classics Fellow at Newnham College at the University of Cambridge And Catherine Steel Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Edward Champlin, ‘Tiberius the Wise’ (Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 57.4, 2008) Alison E. Cooley, ‘From the Augustan Principate to the invention of the Age of Augustus’ (Journal of Roman Studies 109, 2019) Alison E. Cooley, The Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre: text, translation, and commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2023) Eleanor Cowan, ‘Tiberius and Augustus in Tiberian Sources’ (Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 58.4, 2009) Cassius Dio (trans. C. T. Mallan), Roman History: Books 57 and 58: The Reign of Tiberius (Oxford University Press, 2020) Rebecca Edwards, ‘Tacitus, Tiberius and Capri’ (Latomus, 70.4, 2011) A. Gibson (ed.), The Julio-Claudian Succession: Reality and Perception of the Augustan Model (Brill, 2012), especially ‘Tiberius and the invention of succession’ by C. Vout Josephus (trans. E. Mary Smallwood and G. Williamson), The Jewish War (Penguin Classics, 1981) Barbara Levick, Tiberius the Politician (Routledge, 1999) E. O’Gorman, Tacitus’ History of Political Effective Speech: Truth to Power (Bloomsbury, 2019) Velleius Paterculus (trans. J. C. Yardley and Anthony A. Barrett), Roman History: From Romulus and the Foundation of Rome to the Reign of the Emperor Tiberius (Hackett Publishing, 2011) R. Seager, Tiberius (2nd ed., Wiley-Blackwell, 2005) David Shotter, Tiberius Caesar (Routledge, 2005) Suetonius (trans. Robert Graves), The Twelve Caesars (Penguin Classics, 2007) Tacitus (trans. Michael Grant), The Annals of Imperial Rome (Penguin Classics, 2003) ... Read more

11 Jan 2024

53 MINS

53:10

11 Jan 2024

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