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In Our Time podcast

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In Our Time

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·

  BBC Radio 4  

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.

 

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Duration

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#1043

Italo Calvino

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 Oxford Jennifer Burns Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Warwick And Beatrice Sica Associate Professor in Italian Studies at UCL Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading 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 ... Read more

19 Dec 2024

48 MINS

48:31

19 Dec 2024

#1042

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

#1041

George Herbert

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poet George Herbert (1593-1633) who, according to the French philosopher Simone Weil, wrote ‘the most beautiful poem in the world’. Herbert gave his poems on his relationship with God to a friend, to be published after his death if they offered comfort to any 'dejected pour soul' but otherwise be burned. They became so popular across the range of Christians in the 17th Century that they were printed several times, somehow uniting those who disliked each other but found a common admiration for Herbert; Charles I read them before his execution, as did his enemies. Herbert also wrote poems prolifically and brilliantly in Latin and these he shared during his lifetime both when he worked as orator at Cambridge University and as a parish priest in Bemerton near Salisbury. He went on to influence poets from Coleridge to Heaney and, in parish churches today, congregations regularly sing his poems set to music as hymns. With Helen Wilcox Professor Emerita of English Literature at Bangor University Victoria Moul Formerly Professor of Early Modern Latin and English at UCL And Simon Jackson Director of Music and Director of Studies in English at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Amy Charles, A Life of George Herbert (Cornell University Press, 1977) Thomas M. Corns, The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry: Donne to Marvell (Cambridge University Press, 1993) John Drury, Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert (Penguin, 2014) George Herbert (eds. John Drury and Victoria Moul), The Complete Poetry (Penguin, 2015) George Herbert (ed. Helen Wilcox), The English Poems of George Herbert (Cambridge University Press, 2007) Simon Jackson, George Herbert and Early Modern Musical Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2022) Gary Kuchar, George Herbert and the Mystery of the Word (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) Cristina Malcolmson, George Herbert: A Literary Life (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) Victoria Moul, A Literary History of Latin and English Poetry: Bilingual Literary Culture in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2022) Joseph H. Summers, George Herbert: His Religion and Art (first published by Chatto and Windus, 1954; Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, New York, 1981) Helen Vendler, The Poetry of George Herbert (Harvard University Press, 1975) James Boyd White, This Book of Starres: Learning to Read George Herbert (University of Michigan Press, 1995) Helen Wilcox (ed.), George Herbert. 100 Poems (Cambridge University Press, 2021) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production ... Read more

05 Dec 2024

52 MINS

52:27

05 Dec 2024

#1040

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

#1039

Little Women

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Louisa May Alcott's 1868 novel, credited with starting the new genre of young adult fiction. When Alcott (1832-88) wrote Little Women, she only did so as her publisher refused to publish her father's book otherwise and as she hoped it would make money. It made Alcott's fortune. This coming of age story of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March, each overcoming their own moral flaws, has delighted generations of readers and was so popular from the start that Alcott wrote the second part in 1869 and further sequels and spin-offs in the coming years. Her work has inspired countless directors, composers and authors to make many reimagined versions ever since, with the sisters played by film actors such as Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, Kirsten Dunst, Saoirse Ronan and Emma Watson. With Bridget Bennett Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Leeds Erin Forbes Senior Lecturer in African American and U.S. Literature at the University of Bristol And Tom Wright Reader in Rhetoric and Head of the Department of English Literature at the University of Sussex Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Louisa May Alcott (ed. Madeline B Stern), Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott (William Morrow & Co, 1997) Kate Block, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado and Jane Smiley, March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women (Library of America, 2019) Anne Boyd Rioux, Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters (W. W. Norton & Company, 2018) Azelina Flint, The Matrilineal Heritage of Louisa May Alcott and Christina Rossetti (Routledge, 2021) Robert Gross, The Transcendentalists and Their World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022) John Matteson, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father (W. W. Norton & Company, 2007) Bethany C. Morrow, So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix (St Martin’s Press, 2021) Anne K. Phillips and Gregory Eiselein (eds.), Critical Insights: Louisa May Alcott (Grey House Publishing Inc, 2016) Harriet Reisen, Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women (Picador, 2010) Daniel Shealy (ed.), Little Women at 150 (University of Mississippi Press, 2022) Elaine Showalter, A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx (Virago, 2009) Simon Sleight and Shirleene Robinson (eds.), Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World (Palgrave, 2016), especially “The ‘Willful’ Girl in the Anglo-World: Sentimental Heroines and Wild Colonial Girls” by Hilary Emmett Madeleine B. Stern, Louisa May Alcott: A Biography (first published 1950; Northeastern University Press, 1999) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production ... Read more

21 Nov 2024

48 MINS

48:16

21 Nov 2024

#1038

Hayek's The Road to Serfdom

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Austrian-British economist Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1944) in which Hayek (1899-1992) warned that the way Britain was running its wartime economy would not work in peacetime and could lead to tyranny. His target was centralised planning, arguing this disempowered individuals and wasted their knowledge, while empowering those ill-suited to run an economy. He was concerned about the support for the perceived success of Soviet centralisation, when he saw this and Fascist systems as two sides of the same coin. When Reader's Digest selectively condensed Hayek’s book in 1945, and presented it not so much as a warning against tyranny as a proof against socialism, it became phenomenally influential around the world. With Bruce Caldwell Research Professor of Economics at Duke University and Director of the Center for the History of Political Economy Melissa Lane The Class of 1943 Professor of Politics at Princeton University and the 50th Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College in London And Ben Jackson Professor of Modern History and fellow of University College at the University of Oxford Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets Since the Depression (Harvard University Press, 2012) Bruce Caldwell, Hayek’s Challenge: An Intellectual Biography of F.A. Hayek (University of Chicago Press, 2004) Bruce Caldwell, ‘The Road to Serfdom After 75 Years’ (Journal of Economic Literature 58, 2020) Bruce Caldwell and Hansjoerg Klausinger, Hayek: A Life 1899-1950 (University of Chicago Press, 2022) M. Desai, Marx’s Revenge: The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism (Verso, 2002) Edward Feser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hayek (Cambridge University Press, 2006) Andrew Gamble, Hayek: The Iron Cage of Liberty (Polity, 1996) Friedrich Hayek, Collectivist Economic Planning (first published 1935; Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2015), especially ‘The Nature and History of the Problem’ and ‘The Present State of the Debate’ by Friedrich Hayek Friedrich Hayek (ed. Bruce Caldwell), The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents: The Definitive Edition (first published 1944; Routledge, 2008. Also vol. 2 of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, University of Chicago Press, 2007) Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom: Condensed Version (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2005; The Reader’s Digest condensation of the book) Friedrich Hayek, ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’ (American Economic Review, vol. 35, 1945; vol. 15 of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, University of Chicago Press) Friedrich Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order (first published 1948; University of Chicago Press, 1996), especially the essays ‘Economics and Knowledge’ (1937), ‘Individualism: True and False’ (1945), and ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’ (1945) Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (first published 1960; Routledge, 2006) Friedrich Hayek, Law. Legislation and Liberty: A new statement of the liberal principles of justice and political economy (first published 1973 in 3 volumes; single vol. edn, Routledge, 2012) Ben Jackson, ‘Freedom, the Common Good and the Rule of Law: Hayek and Lippmann on Economic Planning’ (Journal of the History of Ideas 73, 2012) Robert Leeson (ed.), Hayek: A Collaborative Biography Part I (Palgrave, 2013), especially ‘The Genesis and Reception of The Road to Serfdom’ by Melissa Lane In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production ... Read more

14 Nov 2024

53 MINS

53:16

14 Nov 2024

#1037

Robert Graves

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of 'I, Claudius' who was also one of the finest poets of the twentieth century. Robert Graves (1895 -1985) placed his poetry far above his prose. He once declared that from the age of 15 poetry had been his ruling passion and that he lived his life according to poetic principles, writing in prose only to pay the bills and that he bred the pedigree dogs of his prose to feed the cats of his poetry. Yet it’s for his prose that he’s most famous today, including 'I Claudius', his brilliant account of the debauchery of Imperial Rome, and 'Goodbye to All That', the unforgettable memoir of his early life including the time during the First World War when he was so badly wounded at the Somme that The Times listed him as dead. With Paul O’Prey Emeritus Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Roehampton, London Fran Brearton Professor of Modern Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast And Bob Davis Professor of Religious and Cultural Education at the University of Glasgow Producer: Simon Tillotson Robert Graves (ed. Paul O'Prey), In Broken Images: Selected Letters of Robert Graves 1914-1946 (Hutchinson, 1982) Robert Graves (ed. Paul O'Prey), Between Moon and Moon: Selected letters of Robert Graves 1946-1972 (Hutchinson, 1984) Robert Graves (ed. Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward), The Complete Poems (Penguin Modern Classics, 2003) Robert Graves, I, Claudius (republished by Penguin, 2006) Robert Graves, King Jesus (republished by Penguin, 2011) Robert Graves, The White Goddess (republished by Faber, 1999) Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (republished by Penguin, 2017) Robert Graves (ed. Michael Longley), Selected Poems (Faber, 2013) Robert Graves (ed. Fran Brearton, intro. Andrew Motion), Goodbye to All That: An Autobiography: The Original Edition (first published 1929; Penguin Classics, 2014) William Graves, Wild Olives: Life in Majorca with Robert Graves (Pimlico, 2001) Richard Perceval Graves, Robert Graves: The Assault Heroic, 1895-1926 (Macmillan, 1986, vol. 1 of the biography) Richard Perceval Graves, Robert Graves: The Years with Laura, 1926-1940 (Viking, 1990, vol. 2 of the biography) Richard Perceval Graves, Robert Graves and the White Goddess, 1940-1985 (Orion, 1995, vol. 3 of the biography) Miranda Seymour: Robert Graves: Life on the Edge (Henry Holt & Co, 1995) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production ... Read more

07 Nov 2024

54 MINS

54:53

07 Nov 2024

#1036

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

#1035

Wormholes

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the tantalising idea that there are shortcuts between distant galaxies, somewhere out there in the universe. The idea emerged in the context of Einstein's theories and the challenge has been not so much to prove their unlikely existence as to show why they ought to be impossible. The universe would have to folded back on itself in places, and there would have to be something to make the wormholes and then to keep them open. But is there anywhere in the vast universe like that? Could there be holes that we or more advanced civilisations might travel through, from one galaxy to another and, if not, why not? With Toby Wiseman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London Katy Clough Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at Queen Mary, University of London And Andrew Pontzen Professor of Cosmology at Durham University Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Jim Al-Khalili, Black Holes, Wormholes and Time Machines (Taylor & Francis, 1999) Andrew Pontzen, The Universe in a Box: Simulations and the Quest to Code the Cosmos (Riverhead Books, 2023) Claudia de Rham, The Beauty of Falling: A Life in Pursuit of Gravity (Princeton University Press, 2024) Carl Sagan, Contact (Simon and Schuster, 1985) Kip Thorne, Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy (W. W. Norton & Company, 1994) Kip Thorne, Science of Interstellar (W. W. Norton & Company, 2014) Matt Visser, Lorentzian Wormholes: From Einstein to Hawking (American Institute of Physics Melville, NY, 1996) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production ... Read more

24 Oct 2024

1 HR 00 MINS

1:00:56

24 Oct 2024

#1034

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

#1033

Bacteriophages

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most abundant lifeform on Earth: the viruses that 'eat' bacteria. Early in the 20th century, scientists noticed that something in their Petri dishes was making bacteria disappear and they called these bacteriophages, things that eat bacteria. From studying these phages, it soon became clear that they offered countless real or potential benefits for understanding our world, from the tracking of diseases to helping unlock the secrets of DNA to treatments for long term bacterial infections. With further research, they could be an answer to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. With Martha Clokie Director for the Centre for Phage Research and Professor of Microbiology at the University of Leicester James Ebdon Professor of Environmental Microbiology at the University of Brighton And Claas Kirchhelle Historian and Chargé de Recherche at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research’s CERMES3 Unit in Paris. Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production Reading list: James Ebdon, ‘Tackling sources of contamination in water: The age of phage’ (Microbiologist, Society for Applied Microbiology, Vol 20.1, 2022) Thomas Häusler, Viruses vs. Superbugs: A Solution to the Antibiotics Crisis? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) Tom Ireland, The Good Virus: The Untold Story of Phages: The Mysterious Microbes that Rule Our World, Shape Our Health and Can Save Our Future (Hodder Press, 2024) Claas Kirchhelle and Charlotte Kirchhelle, ‘Northern Normal–Laboratory Networks, Microbial Culture Collections, and Taxonomies of Power (1939-2000)’ (SocArXiv Papers, 2024) Dmitriy Myelnikov, ‘An alternative cure: the adoption and survival of bacteriophage therapy in the USSR, 1922–1955’ (Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 73, no. 4, 2018) Forest Rohwer, Merry Youle, Heather Maughan and Nao Hisakawa, Life in our Phage World: A Centennial Field Guide to Earth’s most Diverse Inhabitants (Wholon, 2014) Steffanie Strathdee and Thomas Patterson (2019) The Perfect Predator: A Scientist’s Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug: A Memoir (Hachette Books, 2020) William C. Summers, Félix d`Herelle and the Origins of Molecular Biology (Yale University Press, 1999) William C. Summers, The American Phage Group: Founders of Molecular Biology (University Press, 2023) ... Read more

01 Aug 2024

50 MINS

50:43

01 Aug 2024

#1032

Monet in England

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work of the great French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926) in London, initially in 1870 and then from 1899. He spent his first visit in poverty, escaping from war in France, while by the second he had become so commercially successful that he stayed at the Savoy Hotel. There, from his balcony, he began a series of almost a hundred paintings that captured the essence of this dynamic city at that time, with fog and smoke almost obscuring the bridges, boats and Houses of Parliament. The pollution was terrible for health but the diffraction through the sooty droplets offered an ever-changing light that captivated Monet, and he was to paint the Thames more than he did his water lilies or haystacks or Rouen Cathedral. On his return to France, Monet appeared to have a new confidence to explore an art that was more abstract than impressionist. With Karen Serres Senior Curator of Paintings at the Courtauld Gallery, London Curator of the exhibition 'Monet and London. Views of the Thames' Frances Fowle Professor of Nineteenth-Century Art at the University of Edinburgh and Senior Curator of French Art at the National Galleries of Scotland And Jackie Wullschläger Chief Art Critic for the Financial Times and author of ‘Monet, The Restless Vision’ In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production Producer: Simon Tillotson Studio production: John Goudie Reading list: Caroline Corbeau Parsons, Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile 1870-1904 (Tate Publishing, 2017) Frances Fowle, Monet and French Landscape: Vétheuil and Normandy (National Galleries of Scotland, 2007), especially the chapter ‘Making Money out of Monet: Marketing Monet in Britain 1870-1905’ Robert Gordon and Andrew Forge, Monet (Harry N. Abrams, 1983) Paul Hayes Tucker, Monet in the ’90s: The Series Paintings (Yale University Press, 1990) Paul Hayes Tucker, Monet in the 20th Century (Yale University Press, 1998) Katharine A. Lochnan, Turner, Whistler, Monet (Tate Publishing, 2005) Nicholas Reed, Monet and the Thames: Paintings and Modern Views of Monet’s London (Lilburne Press, 1998) Grace Seiberling, Monet in London (High Museum of Art, 1988) Karen Serres, Frances Fowle and Jennifer A. Thompson, Monet and London: Views of the Thames (Paul Holberton Publishing, 2024 – catalogue to accompany Courtauld Gallery exhibition) Charles Stuckey, Monet: A Retrospective (Random House, 1985) Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: The Triumph of Impressionism (first published 1996; Taschen, 2022) Jackie Wullschläger, Monet: The Restless Vision (Allen Lane, 2023) ... Read more

25 Jul 2024

50 MINS

50:48

25 Jul 2024

#1031

Karma

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the doctrine of Karma as developed initially among Hindus, Jains and Buddhists in India from the first millennium BCE. Common to each is an idea, broadly, that you reap what you sow: how you act in this world has consequences either for your later life or your future lives, depending on your view of rebirth and transmigration. From this flow different ideas including those about free will, engagement with the world or disengagement, the nature of ethics and whether intention matters, and these ideas continue to develop today. With Monima Chadha Professor of Indian Philosophy and Tutorial Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford Jessica Frazier Lecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies And Karen O’Brien-Kop Lecturer in Asian Religions at Kings College London Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production Reading list: J. Bronkhorst, Karma (University of Hawaii Press, 2011) J. H. Davis (ed.), A Mirror is for Reflection: Understanding Buddhist Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2017), especially ‘Buddhism Without Reincarnation? Examining the Prospects of a “Naturalized” Buddhism’ by J. Westerhoff J. Ganeri (ed.), Ethics and Epics: Philosophy, Culture, and Religion (Oxford University Press, 2002), especially ‘Karma and the Moral Order’ by B. K. Matilal Y. Krishan, The Doctrine of Karma: Its Origin and Development in Brāhmaṇical, Buddhist and Jaina Traditions (Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, 1997) N.K.G. Mendis (ed.), The Questions of King Milinda: An Abridgement of Milindapañha (Buddhist Publication Society, 1993) M. Siderits, How Things Are: An Introduction to Buddhist Metaphysics (Oxford University Press, 2022) M. Vargas and J. Dorris (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology (Oxford Univesrity Press, 2022), especially ‘Karma, Moral Responsibility and Buddhist Ethics’ by B. Finnigan J. Zu, 'Collective Karma Cluster Concepts in Chinese Canonical Sources: A Note' (Journal of Global Buddhism, Vol.24: 2, 2023) ... Read more

18 Jul 2024

50 MINS

50:55

18 Jul 2024

#1030

Fielding's Tom Jones

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss "The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling" (1749) by Henry Fielding (1707-1754), one of the most influential of the early English novels and a favourite of Dickens. Coleridge wrote that it had one of the 'three most perfect plots ever planned'. Fielding had made his name in the theatre with satirical plays that were so painful for their targets in government that, from then until the 1960s, plays required approval before being staged; seeking other ways to make a living, Fielding turned to law and to fiction. 'Tom Jones' is one of the great comic novels, with the tightness of a farce and the ambition of a Greek epic as told by the finest raconteur. While other authors might present Tom as a rake and a libertine, Fielding makes him the hero for his fundamental good nature, so offering a caution not to judge anyone too soon, if ever. With Judith Hawley Professor of 18th Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London Henry Power Professor of English Literature at the University of Exeter And Charlotte Roberts Associate Professor of English Literature at University College London Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production Reading list: Martin C. Battestin with Ruthe R. Battestin, Henry Fielding: A Life (Routledge, 1989) J. M. Beattie, The First English Detectives: The Bow Street Runners and the Policing of London, 1750–1840 (Oxford University Press, 2012) S. Dickie, Cruelty and Laughter: Forgotten Comic Literature and the Unsentimental Eighteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2011) J.A. Downie (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Eighteenth-Century Novel (Oxford University Press, 2020) Henry Fielding (ed. John Bender and Simon Stern), The History of Tom Jones (Oxford University Press, 2008) Henry Fielding (ed. Tom Keymer), The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (Penguin Classics, 1996) Ronald Paulson, The Life of Henry Fielding: A Critical Biography (Wiley Blackwell, 2000) Henry Power, Epic into Novel: Henry Fielding, Scriblerian Satire, and the Consumption of Classical Literature (Oxford University Press, 2015) Claude Rawson, Henry Fielding and the Augustan Ideal under Stress (first published 1972; Routledge, 2021) Claude Rawson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Henry Fielding (Cambridge University Press, 2007) ... Read more

11 Jul 2024

54 MINS

54:47

11 Jul 2024

#1029

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

#1028

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

#1027

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

#1026

Philippa Foot

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most significant philosophers of the twentieth century, Philippa Foot (1920 - 2010). Her central question was, “Why be moral?” Drawing on Aristotle and Aquinas, Foot spent her life working through her instinct that there was something lacking in the prevailing philosophy of the 1950s and 1960s which held that values could only be subjective. Could there really be no objective response to the horrors of the concentration camps that she had seen on newsreels, no way of saying that such acts were morally wrong? Foot developed an ethics based on virtues, in which humans needed virtues to flourish as surely as plants needed light and water. While working through her ideas she explored applied ethics and the difference between doing something and letting it happen, an idea she illustrated with what became The Trolley Problem. With Anil Gomes Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Trinity College, University of Oxford Sophie Grace Chappell Professor of Philosophy at the Open University And Rachael Wiseman Reader in Philosophy at the University of Liverpool Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production Reading list: Philippa Foot, Virtues and Vices (Oxford University Press, 1978) Philippa Foot, Moral Dilemmas (Oxford University Press, 2002) Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness (Oxford University Press, 2001) John Hacker-Wright, Philippa Foot's Moral Thought (Bloomsbury, 2013) Benjamin Lipscomb, The Women Are Up To Something (Oxford University Press, 2021) Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman, Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life (Chatto, 2022) Dan Russell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics (Cambridge University Press), especially ‘Virtue Ethics in the Twentieth Century’ by Timothy (now Sophie Grace) Chappell ... Read more

13 Jun 2024

58 MINS

58:12

13 Jun 2024

#1025

Sir Thomas Wyatt

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 'the greatest poet of his age', Thomas Wyatt (1503 -1542), who brought the poetry of the Italian Renaissance into the English Tudor world, especially the sonnet, so preparing the way for Shakespeare and Donne. As an ambassador to Henry VIII and, allegedly, too close to Anne Boleyn, he experienced great privilege under intense scrutiny. Some of Wyatt's poems, such as They Flee From Me That Sometime Did Me Seek, are astonishingly fresh and conversational and yet he wrote them under the tightest constraints, when a syllable out of place could have condemned him to the Tower. With Brian Cummings 50th Anniversary Professor of English at the University of York Susan Brigden Retired Fellow at Lincoln College, University of Oxford And Laura Ashe Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production Reading list: Thomas Betteridge and Suzannah Lipscomb (eds.), Henry VIII and the Court: Art, Politics and Performance (Routledge, 2016) Susan Brigden, Thomas Wyatt: The Heart’s Forest (Faber, 2012) Nicola Shulman, Graven with Diamonds: The Many Lives of Thomas Wyatt: Courtier, Poet, Assassin, Spy (Short Books, 2011) Chris Stamatakis, Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Rhetoric of Rewriting (Oxford University Press, 2012) Patricia Thomson (ed.), Thomas Wyatt: The Critical Heritage (Routledge, 1995) Greg Walker, Writing Under Tyranny: English Literature and the Henrician Reformation (Oxford University Press, 2005) Thomas Wyatt (ed. R. A. Rebholz), The Complete Poems (Penguin, 1978) ... Read more

06 Jun 2024

58 MINS

58:01

06 Jun 2024

#1024

Mercury

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the planet which is closest to our Sun. We see it as an evening or a morning star, close to where the Sun has just set or is about to rise, and observations of Mercury helped Copernicus understand that Earth and the other planets orbit the Sun, so displacing Earth from the centre of our system. In the 20th century, further observations of Mercury helped Einstein prove his general theory of relativity. For the last 50 years we have been sending missions there to reveal something of Mercury's secrets and how those relate to the wider universe, and he latest, BepiColombo, is out there in space now. With Emma Bunce Professor of Planetary Plasma Physics and Director of the Institute for Space at the University of Leicester David Rothery Professor of Planetary Geosciences at the Open University And Carolin Crawford Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, and Emeritus Member of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production Reading list: Emma Bunce, ‘All (X-ray) eyes on Mercury’ (Astronomy & Geophysics, Volume 64, Issue 4, August 2023) Emma Bunce et al, ‘The BepiColombo Mercury Imaging X-Ray Spectrometer: Science Goals, Instrument Performance and Operations’ (Space Science Reviews: SpringerLink, volume 216, article number 126, Nov 2020) David A. Rothery, Planet Mercury: From Pale Pink Dot to Dynamic World (Springer, 2014) ... Read more

30 May 2024

53 MINS

53:49

30 May 2024

#1023

Bertolt Brecht

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest European playwrights of the twentieth century. The aim of Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was to make the familiar ‘strange’: with plays such as Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle he wanted his audience not to sit back but to engage, observe and discover the contradictions in life, and act on what they learnt. He developed this approach in turbulent times, from Weimar Germany to the rise of the Nazis, to exile in Scandinavia and America and then post-war life in East Berlin, and he has since inspired dramatists around the world. With Laura Bradley Professor of German and Theatre at the University of Edinburgh David Barnett Professor of Theatre at the University of York And Tom Kuhn Professor of Twentieth Century German Literature, Emeritus Fellow of St Hugh's College, University of Oxford Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production Reading list: David Barnett, Brecht in Practice: Theatre, Theory and Performance (Bloomsbury, 2014) David Barnett, A History of the Berliner Ensemble (Cambridge University Press, 2015) Laura Bradley and Karen Leeder (eds.), Brecht and the GDR: Politics, Culture, Posterity (Camden House, 2015) Laura Bradley, ‘Training the Audience: Brecht and the Art of Spectatorship’ (The Modern Language Review, 111, 2016) Bertolt Brecht (ed. Marc Silberman, Tom Kuhn and Steve Giles), Brecht on Theatre (Bloomsbury, 2014) Bertolt Brecht (ed. Tom Kuhn, Steve Giles and Marc Silberman), Brecht on Performance (Bloomsbury, 2014) Bertolt Brecht (trans. Tom Kuhn and David Constantine), The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht (Norton Liveright, 2018) which includes the poem ‘Spring 1938’ read by Tom Kuhn in this programme Stephen Brockmann (ed.), Bertolt Brecht in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2021) Meg Mumford, Bertolt Brecht (Routledge, 2009) Stephen Parker, Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life (Bloomsbury, 2014) Ronald Speirs, Brecht’s Poetry of Political Exile (Cambridge University Press, 2000) David Zoob, Brecht: A Practical Handbook (Nick Hern Books, 2018) ... Read more

23 May 2024

59 MINS

59:34

23 May 2024

#1022

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

#1021

Lysistrata

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristophanes' comedy in which the women of Athens and Sparta, led by Lysistrata, secure peace in the long-running war between them by staging a sex strike. To the men in the audience in 411BC, the idea that peace in the Peloponnesian War could be won so easily was ridiculous and the thought that their wives could have so much power over them was even more so. However Aristophanes' comedy also has the women seizing the treasure in the Acropolis that was meant to fund more fighting in an emergency, a fund the Athenians had recently had to draw on. They were in a perilous position and, much as they might laugh at Aristophanes' jokes, they knew there were real concerns about the actual cost of the war in terms of wealth and manpower. With Paul Cartledge AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge Sarah Miles Associate Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University And James Robson Professor of Classical Studies at the Open University Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Aristophanes (ed. Jeffrey Henderson), Lysistrata (Oxford University Press, 1987) Aristophanes (ed. Jeffrey Henderson), Three Plays by Aristophanes: Staging Women (Routledge, 2010) Aristophanes (ed. Jeffrey Henderson), Birds; Lysistrata; Women at the Thesmophoria (Loeb Classical Library series, Harvard University Press, 2014) Aristophanes (ed. Alan H. Sommerstein), Lysistrata and Other Plays: The Acharnians; The Clouds; Lysistrata (Penguin, 2002) Aristophanes (ed. Alan H. Sommerstein), Lysistrata (Aris & Phillips, 1998) Paul Cartledge, Aristophanes and his Theatre of the Absurd (Bristol Classical Press, 1999) Kenneth Dover, Aristophanic Comedy (University of California Press, 1972) Germaine Greer, Lysistrata: The Sex Strike: After Aristophanes (Aurora Metro Press, 2000) Tony Harrison, The Common Chorus: A Version of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (Faber & Faber, 1992) Douglas M. MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athens: An Introduction to the Plays (Oxford University Press, 1995) S. Douglas Olson (ed.), Ancient Comedy and Reception: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey Henderson (De Gruyter, 2013), especially 'She (Don't) Gotta Have It: African-American reception of Lysistrata' by Kevin Wetmore James Robson, Aristophanes: Lysistrata, Bloomsbury ancient comedy companions (Bloomsbury, 2023) James Robson, Aristophanes: An Introduction (Duckworth, 2009) Ralph M. Rosen and Helene P. Foley (eds.), Aristophanes and Politics. New Studies (Brill, 2020) Donald Sells, Parody, Politics and the Populace in Greek Old Comedy (Bloomsbury, 2018) David Stuttard (ed.), Looking at Lysistrata: Eight Essays and a New Version of Aristophanes' Provocative Comedy (Bristol Classical Press, 2010) ... Read more

09 May 2024

55 MINS

55:10

09 May 2024