In Our Time

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

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

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

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

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

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Animal Farm, which Eric Blair published under his pen name George Orwell in 1945.

A biting critique of totalitarianism, particularly Stalinism, the essay sprung from Orwell's experiences fighting Fascists in Spain: he thought that all on the left were on the same side, until the dominant Communists violently suppressed the Anarchists and Trotskyists, and Orwell had to escape to France to avoid arrest.

Setting his satire in an English farm, Orwell drew on the Russian Revolution of 1917, on Stalin's cult of personality and the purges. The leaders on Animal Farm are pigs, the secret police are attack dogs, the supporters who drown out debate with "four legs good, two legs bad" are sheep.

At first, London publishers did not want to touch Orwell's work out of sympathy for the USSR, an ally of Britain in the Second World War, but the Cold War gave it a new audience and Animal Farm became a commercial as well as a critical success.

Featuring:

Steven Connor - Grace 2 Professor of English at the University of Cambridge

Mary Vincent - Professor of Modern European History at the University of Sheffield

Robert Colls - Professor of Cultural History at De Montfort University

Producer: Simon Tillotson

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2016.

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)

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)

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)

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)

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

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)

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)

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

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) and his role in the development of electrical systems towards the end of the nineteenth century. He made his name in New York in the contest over which current should flow into homes and factories in America. Some such as Edison backed direct current or DC while others such as Westinghouse backed alternating current or AC and Nikola Tesla’s invention of a motor that worked on AC swung it for the alternating system that went on to power the modern age. He ensured his reputation and ideas burnt brightly for the next decades, making him synonymous with the lone, genius inventor of the new science fiction.

With

Simon Schaffer Emeritus Fellow of Darwin College, University of Cambridge

Jill Jonnes Historian and author of “Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse and the Race to Electrify the World”

And

Iwan Morus Professor of History at Aberystwyth University

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

W. Bernard Carlson, Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age (Princeton University Press, 2013)

Margaret Cheney and Robert Uth, Tesla: Master of Lightning (Barnes & Noble Books, 1999)

Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983)

Carolyn Marvin, When Old Technologies Were New (Open University Press, 1988)

Iwan Rhys Morus, Nikola Tesla and the Electrical Future (Icon Books, 2019)

Iwan Rhys Morus, How The Victorians Took Us To The Moon (Icon, 2022)

David E. Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (MIT Press, 1991)

John J. O’Neill, Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla (first published 1944; Cosimo Classics, 2006)

Marc J. Seifer, Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla, Biography of a Genius (first published 1996; Citadel Press, 2016)

Nikola Tesla, My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla (first published 1919; Martino Fine Books, 2011)

Nikola Tesla, My Inventions and other Writings (Penguin, 2012)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Finnish epic poem that first appeared in print in 1835 in what was then the Grand Duchy of Finland, part of the Russian Empire and until recently part of Sweden. The compiler of this epic was a doctor, Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884), who had travelled the land to hear traditional poems about mythical heroes being sung in Finnish, the language of the peasantry, and writing them down in his own order to create this landmark work. In creating The Kalevala, Lönnrot helped the Finns realise they were a distinct people apart from Sweden and Russia, who deserved their own nation state and who came to demand independence, which they won in 1917.

With

Riitta Valijärvi Associate Professor in Finnish and Minority Languages at University College London

Thomas Dubois The Halls-Bascom Professor of Scandinavian Folklore and Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

And

Daniel Abondolo Formerly Reader in Hungarian at University College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Nigel Fabb, What is Poetry? Language and Memory in the Poems of the World (Cambridge University Press, 2015)

Frog, Satu Grünthal, Kati Kallio and Jarkko Niemi (eds), Versification: Metrics in Practice (Finnish Literature Society, 2021)

Riho Grünthal et al., ‘Drastic demographic events triggered the Uralic spread’ (Diachronica, Volume 39, Issue 4, Aug 2022)

Lauri Honko (ed.), The Kalevala and the World's Traditional Epics (Finnish Literature Society, 2002)

The Kalevala Heritage: Archive Recordings of Ancient Finnish Songs. Online Catalogue no. ODE8492.

Mauri Kunnas, The Canine Kalevala (Otava Publishing, 1992)

Kuusi, Matti, et al. (eds.), Finnish Folk Poetry: Epic (Finnish Literature Society, 1977)

Elias Lönnrot (trans. John Martin Crawford), Kalevala: The Epic Poem of Finland (first published 1887; CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017)

Elias Lönnrot (trans. W. F. Kirby), Kalevala: The Land of the Heroes (first published by J.M. Dent & Sons, 1907, 2 vols.; ‎ Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd, 2000)

Elias Lönnrot (trans. Francis Peabody Magoun Jr.), The Kalevala, or Poems of the Kaleva District (Harvard University Press, 1963)

Elias Lönnrot (trans. Eino Friberg), The Kalevala: Epic of the Finnish People (Otava Publishing, 1988)

Elias Lönnrot (trans. Keith Bosley), The Kalevala: An Epic Poem after Oral Tradition (Oxford University Press, 1989)

Kirsti Mäkinen, Pirkko-Liisa Surojegin, Kaarina Brooks, An Illustrated Kalevala: Myths and Legends from Finland (Floris Books, 2020)

Sami Makkonen, Kalevala: The Graphic Novel (Ablaze, 2024)

Juha Y. Pentikäinen (trans. Ritva Poom), Kalevala Mythology, (Indiana University Press, 1999)

Tina K. Ramnarine, Ilmatar’s Inspirations: Nationalism, Globalization and the Changing Soundscapes of Finnish Folk Music (University of Chicago Press, 2003) Jonathan Roper (ed.), Alliteration in Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), especially chapter 12 ‘Alliteration in (Balto-) Finnic Languages’ by Frog and Eila Stepanova

Karl Spracklen, Metal Music and the Re-imagining of Masculinity, Place, Race and Nation (Emerald Publishing, 2020), especially the chapter ‘Finnish Folk Metal: Raising Drinking Horns in Mainstream Metal’

Leea Virtanen and Thomas A. DuBois, Finnish Folklore: Studia Fennica Folkloristica 9 (Finnish Literature Society, 2000)

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)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the dance which, from when it reached Britain in the early nineteenth century, revolutionised the relationship between music, literature and people here for the next hundred years. While it may seem formal now, it was the informality and daring that drove its popularity, with couples holding each other as they spun round a room to new lighter music popularised by Johann Strauss, father and son, such as The Blue Danube. Soon the Waltz expanded the creative world in poetry, ballet, novellas and music, from the Ballets Russes of Diaghilev to Moon River and Are You Lonesome Tonight.

With

Susan Jones Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford

Derek B. Scott Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Leeds

And

Theresa Buckland Emeritus Professor of Dance History and Ethnography at the University of Roehampton

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Egil Bakka, Theresa Jill Buckland, Helena Saarikoski, and Anne von Bibra Wharton (eds.), Waltzing Through Europe: Attitudes towards Couple Dances in the Long Nineteenth Century, (Open Book Publishers, 2020)

Theresa Jill Buckland, ‘How the Waltz was Won: Transmutations and the Acquisition of Style in Early English Modern Ballroom Dancing. Part One: Waltzing Under Attack’ (Dance Research, 36/1, 2018); ‘Part Two: The Waltz Regained’ (Dance Research, 36/2, 2018)

Theresa Jill Buckland, Society Dancing: Fashionable Bodies in England, 1870-1920 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)

Erica Buurman, The Viennese Ballroom in the Age of Beethoven (Cambridge University Press, 2022)

Paul Cooper, ‘The Waltz in England, c. 1790-1820’ (Paper presented at Early Dance Circle conference, 2018)

Sherril Dodds and Susan Cook (eds.), Bodies of Sound: Studies Across Popular Dance and Music (Ashgate, 2013), especially ‘Dancing Out of Time: The Forgotten Boston of Edwardian England’ by Theresa Jill Buckland

Zelda Fitzgerald, Save Me the Waltz (first published 1932; Vintage Classics, 2001)

Hilary French, Ballroom: A People's History of Dancing (Reaktion Books, 2022)

Susan Jones, Literature, Modernism, and Dance (Oxford University Press, 2013)

Mark Knowles, The Wicked Waltz and Other Scandalous Dances: Outrage at Couple Dancing in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries (McFarland, 2009)

Rosamond Lehmann, Invitation to the Waltz (first published 1932; Virago, 2006)

Eric McKee, Decorum of the Minuet, Delirium of the Waltz: A Study of Dance-Music Relations in 3/4 Time (Indiana University Press, 2012)

Eduard Reeser, The History of the Walz (Continental Book Co., 1949)

Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol. 27 (Macmillan, 2nd ed., 2000), especially ‘Waltz’ by Andrew Lamb

Derek B. Scott, Sounds of the Metropolis: The 19th-Century Popular Music Revolution in London, New York, Paris and Vienna (Oxford University Press, 2008), especially the chapter ‘A Revolution on the Dance Floor, a Revolution in Musical Style: The Viennese Waltz’

Joseph Wechsberg, The Waltz Emperors: The Life and Times and Music of the Strauss Family (Putnam, 1973)

Cheryl A. Wilson, Literature and Dance in Nineteenth-century Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2009)

Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out (first published 1915; William Collins, 2013)

Virginia Woolf, The Years (first published 1937; Vintage Classics, 2016)

David Wyn Jones, The Strauss Dynasty and Habsburg Vienna (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Sevin H. Yaraman, Revolving Embrace: The Waltz as Sex, Steps, and Sound (Pendragon Press, 2002)

Rishona Zimring, Social Dance and the Modernist Imagination in Interwar Britain (Ashgate Press, 2013)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, ten sentences long, delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg after the Union forces had won an important battle with the Confederates. Opening with " Four score and seven years ago," it became one of the most influential statements of national purpose, asserting that America was "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" and "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Among those inspired were Martin Luther King Jr whose "I have a dream" speech, delivered at the Lincoln Memorial 100 years later, echoed Lincoln's opening words.

With

Catherine Clinton Denman Chair of American History at the University of Texas and International Professor at Queen's University, Belfast

Susan-Mary Grant Professor of American History at Newcastle University

And

Tim Lockley Professor of American History at the University of Warwick

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Muses and their role in Greek mythology, when they were goddesses of poetry, song, music and dance: what the Greeks called mousike, 'the art of the Muses' from which we derive our word 'music.' While the number of Muses, their origin and their roles varied in different accounts and at different times, they were consistently linked with the nature of artistic inspiration. This raised a question for philosophers then and since: was a creative person an empty vessel into which the Muses poured their gifts, at their will, or could that person do something to make inspiration flow?

With

Paul Cartledge Emeritus Professor of Greek Culture and AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge

Angie Hobbs Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy, University of Sheffield

And

Penelope Murray Founder member and retired Senior Lecturer, Department of Classics, University of Warwick

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Image: 'Apollo and the Muses (Parnassus)', 1631-1632. Oil on canvas. Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665).

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Titus Oates (1649-1705) who, with Israel Tonge, spread rumours of a Catholic plot to assassinate Charles II. From 1678, they went to great lengths to support their scheme, forging evidence and identifying the supposed conspirators. Fearing a second Gunpowder Plot, Oates' supposed revelations caused uproar in London and across the British Isles, with many Catholics, particularly Jesuit priests, wrongly implicated by Oates and then executed. Anyone who doubted him had to keep quiet, to avoid being suspected a sympathiser and thrown in prison. Oates was eventually exposed, put on trial under James II and sentenced by Judge Jeffreys to public whipping through the streets of London, but the question remained: why was this rogue, who had faced perjury charges before, ever believed?

With

Clare Jackson Senior Tutor and Director of Studies in History at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge

Mark Knights Professor of History at the University of Warwick

And

Peter Hinds Associate Professor of English at Plymouth University

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, originally serialised in The Graphic in 1891 and, with some significant changes, published as a complete novel in 1892. The book was controversial even before serialisation, rejected by one publisher as too overtly sexual, to which a second added it did not publish 'stories where the plot involves frequent and detailed reference to immoral situations.' Hardy's description of Tess as 'A Pure Woman' in 1892 incensed some Victorian readers. He resented having to censor some of his scenes in the early versions, including references to Tess's baby following her rape by Alec d'Urberville, and even to a scene where Angel Clare lifted four milkmaids over a flooded lane (substituting transportation by wheelbarrow).

The image above, from the 1891 edition, is captioned 'It Was Not Till About Three O'clock That Tess Raised Her Eyes And Gave A Momentary Glance Round. She Felt But Little Surprise At Seeing That Alec D'urberville Had Come Back, And Was Standing Under The Hedge By The Gate'.

With

Dinah Birch Professor of English Literature and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Impact at the University of Liverpool

Francis O'Gorman Professor of Victorian Literature at the University of Leeds

And

Jane Thomas Reader in Victorian and early Twentieth Century literature at the University of Hull

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Euclid's Elements, a mathematical text book attributed to Euclid and in use from its appearance in Alexandria, Egypt around 300 BC until modern times, dealing with geometry and number theory. It has been described as the most influential text book ever written. Einstein had a copy as a child, which he treasured, later saying "If Euclid failed to kindle your youthful enthusiasm, then you were not born to be a scientific thinker."

With

Marcus du Sautoy Professor of Mathematics and Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford

Serafina Cuomo Reader in Roman History at Birkbeck University of London

And

June Barrow-Green Professor of the History of Mathematics at the Open University

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact of the eruption of Mt Tambora, in 1815, on the Indonesian island of Sambawa. This was the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history and it had the highest death toll, devastating people living in the immediate area. Tambora has been linked with drastic weather changes in North America and Europe the following year, with frosts in June and heavy rains throughout the summer in many areas. This led to food shortages, which may have prompted westward migration in America and, in a Europe barely recovered from the Napoleonic Wars, led to widespread famine.

With

Clive Oppenheimer Professor of Volcanology at the University of Cambridge

Jane Stabler Professor in Romantic Literature at the University of St Andrews

And

Lawrence Goldman Director of the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the neutron, one of the particles found in an atom's nucleus. Building on the work of Ernest Rutherford, the British physicist James Chadwick won the Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery of the neutron in 1932. Neutrons play a fundamental role in the universe and their discovery was at the heart of developments in nuclear physics in the first half of the 20th century.

With

Val Gibson Professor of High Energy Physics at the University of Cambridge and fellow of Trinity College

Andrew Harrison Chief Executive Officer of Diamond Light Source and Professor in Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh

And

Frank Close Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Oxford.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rise of the Sikh Empire at the end of the 18th Century under Ranjit Singh, pictured above, who unified most of the Sikh kingdoms following the decline of the Mughal Empire. He became Maharaja of the Punjab at Lahore in 1801, capturing Amritsar the following year. His empire flourished until 1839, after which a decade of unrest ended with the British annexation. At its peak, the Empire covered the Punjab and stretched from the Khyber Pass in the west to the edge of Tibet in the east, up to Kashmir and down to Mithankot on the Indus River. Ranjit Singh is still remembered as "The Lion of the Punjab."

With

Gurharpal Singh Professor in Inter-Religious Relations and Development at SOAS, University of London

Chandrika Kaul Lecturer in Modern History at the University of St Andrews

And

Susan Stronge Senior Curator in the Asian Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Agrippina the Younger was one of the most notorious and influential of the Roman empresses in the 1st century AD. She was the sister of the Emperor Caligula, a wife of the Emperor Claudius and mother of the Emperor Nero. Through careful political manoeuvres, she acquired a dominant position for herself in Rome. In 39 AD she was exiled for allegedly participating in a plot against Caligula and later it was widely thought that she killed Claudius with poison. When Nero came to the throne, he was only 16 so Agrippina took on the role of regent until he began to exert his authority. After relations between Agrippina and Nero soured, he had her murdered.

With:

Catharine Edwards Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Birkbeck, University of London

Alice König Lecturer in Latin and Classical Studies at the University of St Andrews

Matthew Nicholls Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Reading

Producer: Victoria Brignell.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Elizabeth Barrett Browning's epic "Aurora Leigh" which was published in 1856. It is the story of an orphan, Aurora, born in Italy to an English father and Tuscan mother, who is brought up by an aunt in rural Shropshire. She has a successful career as a poet in London and, when living in Florence, is reunited with her cousin, Romney Leigh, whose proposal she turned down a decade before. The poem was celebrated by other poets and was Elizabeth Barrett Browning's most commercially successful. Over 11,000 lines, she addressed many Victorian social issues, including reform, illegitimacy, the pressure to marry and what women must overcome to be independent, successful writers, in a world dominated by men.

With

Margaret Reynolds Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London

Daniel Karlin Winterstoke Professor of English Literature at the University of Bristol

And

Karen O'Brien Professor of English Literature at King's College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the early years of Bedlam, the name commonly used for the London hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem outside Bishopsgate, described in 1450 by the Lord Mayor of London as a place where may "be found many men that be fallen out of their wit. And full honestly they be kept in that place; and some be restored onto their wit and health again. And some be abiding therein for ever." As Bethlem, or Bedlam, it became a tourist attraction in the 17th Century at its new site in Moorfields and, for its relatively small size, made a significant impression on public attitudes to mental illness. The illustration, above, is from the eighth and final part of Hogarth's 'A Rake's Progress' (1732-3), where Bedlam is the last stage in the decline and fall of a young spendthrift,Tom Rakewell.

With

Hilary Marland Professor of History at the University of Warwick

Justin Champion Professor of the History of Early Modern Ideas at Royal Holloway, University of London and President of the Historical Association

And

Jonathan Andrews Reader in the History of Psychiatry at Newcastle University

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Maya Civilization, developed by the Maya people, which flourished in central America from around 250 AD in great cities such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal with advances in mathematics, architecture and astronomy. Long before the Spanish Conquest in the 16th Century, major cities had been abandoned for reasons unknown, although there are many theories including overpopulation and changing climate. The hundreds of Maya sites across Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico raise intriguing questions about one of the world's great pre-industrial civilizations.

With

Elizabeth Graham Professor of Mesoamerican Archaeology at University College London

Matthew Restall Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Latin American History and Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University

And

Benjamin Vis Eastern ARC Research Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Kent

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC, known in English as the Dutch East India Company. The VOC dominated the spice trade between Asia and Europe for two hundred years, with the British East India Company a distant second. At its peak, the VOC had a virtual monopoly on nutmeg, mace, cloves and cinnamon, displacing the Portuguese and excluding the British, and were the only European traders allowed access to Japan.

With

Anne Goldgar Reader in Early Modern European History at King's College London

Chris Nierstrasz Lecturer in Global History at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, formerly at the University of Warwick

And

Helen Paul Lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Mary Magdalene is one of the best-known figures in the Bible and has been a frequent inspiration to artists and writers over the last 2000 years. According to the New Testament, she was at the foot of the cross when Jesus was crucified and was one of the first people to see Jesus after the resurrection. However, her identity has provoked a large amount of debate and in the Western Church she soon became conflated with two other figures mentioned in the Bible, a repentant sinner and Mary of Bethany. Texts discovered in the mid-20th century provoked controversy and raised further questions about the nature of her relations with Jesus.

With:

Joanne Anderson Lecturer in Art History at the Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London

Eamon Duffy Emeritus Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Magdalene College

Joan Taylor Professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism at King's College London

Producer: Victoria Brignell.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Robert Hooke (1635-1703) who worked for Robert Boyle and was curator of experiments at the Royal Society. The engraving of a flea, above, is taken from his Micrographia which caused a sensation when published in 1665. Sometimes remembered for his disputes with Newton, he studied the planets with telescopes and snowflakes with microscopes. He was an early proposer of a theory of evolution, discovered light diffraction with a wave theory to explain it and felt he was rarely given due credit for his discoveries.

With

David Wootton Anniversary Professor of History at the University of York

Patricia Fara President Elect of the British Society for the History of Science

And

Rob Iliffe Professor of History of Science at Oxford University

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry of Rumi, the Persian scholar and Sufi mystic of the 13th Century. His great poetic works are the Masnavi or "spiritual couplets" and the Divan, a collection of thousands of lyric poems. He is closely connected with four modern countries: Afghanistan, as he was born in Balkh, from which he gains the name Balkhi; Uzbekistan from his time in Samarkand as a child; Iran as he wrote in Persian; and Turkey for his work in Konya, where he spent most of his working life and where his followers established the Mevlevi Order, also known as the Whirling Dervishes.

With

Alan Williams British Academy Wolfson Research Professor at the University of Manchester

Carole Hillenbrand Professor of Islamic History at the University of St Andrews and Professor Emerita of Edinburgh University

And

Lloyd Ridgeon Reader in Islamic Studies at the University of Glasgow

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins, development and uses of chromatography. In its basic form, it is familiar to generations of schoolchildren who put a spot of ink at the bottom of a strip of paper, dip it in water and then watch the pigments spread upwards, revealing their separate colours. Chemists in the 19th Century started to find new ways to separate mixtures and their work was taken further by Mikhail Tsvet, a Russian-Italian scientist who is often credited with inventing chromatography in 1900. The technique has become so widely used, it is now an integral part of testing the quality of air and water, the levels of drugs in athletes, in forensics and in the preparation of pharmaceuticals.

With

Andrea Sella Professor of Chemistry at University College London

Apryll Stalcup Professor of Chemical Sciences at Dublin City University

And

Leon Barron Senior Lecturer in Forensic Science at King's College London.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life, times and influence of Eleanor of Aquitaine (c1122-1204) who was one of the most powerful women in Twelfth Century Europe, possibly in the entire Middle Ages. She inherited land from the Loire down to the Pyrenees, about a third of modern France. She married first the King of France, Louis VII, joining him on the Second Crusade. She became stronger still after their marriage was annulled, as her next husband, Henry Plantagenet became Henry II of England. Two of their sons, Richard and John, became kings and she ruled for them when they were abroad. By her death in her eighties, Eleanor had children and grandchildren in power across western Europe. This led to competing claims of inheritance and, for much of the next 250 years, the Plantagenet and French kings battled over Eleanor's land.

With

Lindy Grant Professor of Medieval History at the University of Reading

Nicholas Vincent Professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia

And

Julie Barrau University Lecturer in British Medieval History at the University of Cambridge

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Thomas Paine and his pamphlet "Common Sense" which was published in Philadelphia in January 1776 and promoted the argument for American independence from Britain. Addressed to The Inhabitants of America, it sold one hundred and fifty thousand copies in the first few months and is said, proportionately, to be the best-selling book in American history. Paine had arrived from England barely a year before. He vigorously attacked monarchy generally and George the Third in particular. He argued the colonies should abandon all hope of resolving their dispute with Britain and declare independence immediately. Many Americans were scandalised. More were inspired and, for Paine's vision of America's independent future, he has been called a Founding Father of the United States.

With

Kathleen Burk Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London

Nicholas Guyatt University Lecturer in American History at the University of Cambridge

And

Peter Thompson Associate Professor of American History at the University of Oxford and Fellow of St Cross College

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the planet Saturn with its rings of ice and rock and over 60 moons. In 1610, Galileo used an early telescope to observe Saturn, one of the brightest points in the night sky, but could not make sense of what he saw: perhaps two large moons on either side. When he looked a few years later, those supposed moons had disappeared. It was another forty years before Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens solved the mystery, realizing the moons were really a system of rings. Successive astronomers added more detail, with the greatest leaps forward in the last forty years. The Pioneer 11 spacecraft and two Voyager missions have flown by, sending back the first close-up images, and Cassini is still there, in orbit, confirming Saturn, with its rings and many moons, as one of the most intriguing and beautiful planets in our Solar System.

With

Carolin Crawford Public Astronomer at the Institute of Astronomy and Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge

Michele Dougherty Professor of Space Physics at Imperial College London

And

Andrew Coates Deputy Director in charge of the Solar System at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at UCL.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tristan and Iseult, one of the most popular stories of the Middle Ages. From roots in Celtic myth, it passed into written form in Britain a century after the Norman Conquest and almost immediately spread throughout northern Europe. It tells of a Cornish knight and an Irish queen, Tristan and Iseult, who accidentally drink a love potion, at the same time, on the same boat, travelling to Cornwall. She is due to marry Tristan's king, Mark. Tristan and Iseult seemed ideally matched and their love was heroic, but could that excuse their adultery, in the minds of medieval listeners, particularly when the Church was so clear they were wrong?

With

Laura Ashe Associate Professor of English at Worcester College, University of Oxford

Juliette Wood Associate Lecturer in the School of Welsh at Cardiff University

And

Mark Chinca Reader in Medieval German Literature at the University of Cambridge

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the eminent 19th-century scientist Michael Faraday. Born into a poor working-class family, he received little formal schooling but became interested in science while working as a bookbinder's apprentice. He is celebrated today for carrying out pioneering research into the relationship between electricity and magnetism. Faraday showed that if a wire was turned in the presence of a magnet or a magnet was turned in relation to a wire, an electric current was generated. This ground-breaking discovery led to the development of the electric generator and ultimately to modern power stations. During his life he became the most famous scientist in Britain and he played a key role in founding the Royal Institution's Christmas lectures which continue today.

With:

Geoffrey Cantor Professor Emeritus of the History of Science at the University of Leeds

Laura Herz Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford

Frank James Professor of the History of Science at the Royal Institution

Producer: Victoria Brignell.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the evolution and role of Circadian Rhythms, the so-called body clock that influences an organism's daily cycle of physical, behavioural and mental changes. The rhythms are generated within organisms and also in response to external stimuli, mainly light and darkness. They are found throughout the living world, from bacteria to plants, fungi to animals and, in humans, are noticed most clearly in sleep patterns.

With

Russell Foster Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at the University of Oxford

Debra Skene Professor of Neuroendocrinology at the University of Surrey

And

Steve Jones Emeritus Professor of Genetics at University College London.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins and rise of Legalism in China, from the start of the Warring States Period (c475 - 221 BC) to the time of The First Emperor Qin Shi Huang (pictured), down to Chairman Mao and the present day. Advanced by the Qin statesman Shang Yang and later blended together by Han Fei, the three main aspects of Legalism were the firm implementation of laws, use of techniques such as responsibility and inscrutability, and taking advantage of the ruler's position. The Han dynasty that replaced the Qin discredited this philosophy for its apparent authoritarianism, but its influence continued, re-emerging throughout Chinese history.

With

Frances Wood Former Curator of the Chinese Collections at the British Library

Hilde de Weerdt Professor of Chinese History at Leiden University

And

Roel Sterckx Joseph Needham Professor of Chinese History at the University of Cambridge.

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the scientific advances made in the three voyages of Captain James Cook, from 1768 to 1779. Cook's voyages astonished Europeans, bringing back detailed knowledge of the Pacific and its people, from the Antarctic to the Bering Straits. This topic is one of more than a thousand different ideas suggested by listeners in October and came from Alysoun Hodges in the UK, Fiachra O'Brolchain in Ireland, Mhairi Mackay in New Zealand, Enzo Vozzo in Australia, Jeff Radford in British Columbia and Mark Green in Alaska.

With

Simon Schaffer Professor of the History of Science at the University of Cambridge

Rebekah Higgitt Lecturer in the History of Science at the University of Kent

And

Sophie Forgan Retired Principle Lecturer at the University of Teesside Chairman of Trustees of the Captain Cook Museum, Whitby

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the outbreak of witch trials in Massachusetts in 1692-3, centred on Salem, which led to the execution of twenty people, with more dying in prison before or after trial. Some were men, including Giles Corey who died after being pressed with heavy rocks, but the majority were women. At its peak, around 150 people were suspected of witchcraft, including the wife of the governor who had established the trials. Many of the claims of witchcraft arose from personal rivalries in an area known for unrest, but were examined and upheld by the courts at a time of mass hysteria, belief in the devil, fear of attack by Native Americans and religious divisions.

With

Susan Castillo-Street Harriet Beecher Stowe Professor Emerita of American Studies at King's College London

Simon Middleton Senior Lecturer in American History at the University of Sheffield

And

Marion Gibson Professor of Renaissance and Magical Literatures at Exeter University, Penryn Campus.

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

"Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." So begins Emma by Jane Austen, describing her leading character who, she said, was "a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like." Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss this, one of Austen's most popular novels and arguably her masterpiece, a brilliantly sparkling comedy of manners published in December 1815 by John Murray, the last to be published in Austen's lifetime. This followed Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Mansfield Park (1814), with her brother Henry handling publication of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (1817).

With

Janet Todd Professor Emerita of Literature, University of Aberdeen and Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge

John Mullan Professor of English at University College, London

And

Emma Clery Professor of English at the University of Southampton.

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Battle of Lepanto, 1571, the last great sea battle between galleys, in which the Catholic fleet of the Holy League of principally Venice, Spain, the Papal States, Malta, Genoa, and Savoy defeated the Ottoman forces of Selim II. When much of Europe was divided over the Reformation, this was the first major victory of a Christian force over a Turkish fleet. The battle followed the Ottoman invasion of Venetian Cyprus and decades in which the Venetians had been trying to stop the broader westward expansion of the Ottomans into the Mediterranean. The outcome had a great impact on morale in Europe and Pope Pius V established a feast day of Our Lady of Victory. Some historians call it the most significant sea battle since Actium (31 BC). However, the Ottomans viewed the loss as less significant than their victory in Cyprus and, within two years, the Holy League had broken up.

With

Diarmaid MacCulloch Professor of the History of the Church at the University of Oxford

Kate Fleet Director of the Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies and Fellow of Newnham College, University of Cambridge

And

Noel Malcolm A Senior Research Fellow in History at All Soul's College, University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the problem of P versus NP, which has a bearing on online security. There is a $1,000,000 prize on offer from the Clay Mathematical Institute for the first person to come up with a complete solution. At its heart is the question "are there problems for which the answers can be checked by computers, but not found in a reasonable time?" If the answer to that is yes, then P does not equal NP. However, if all answers can be found easily as well as checked, if only we knew how, then P equals NP. The area has intrigued mathematicians and computer scientists since Alan Turing, in 1936, found that it's impossible to decide in general whether an algorithm will run forever on some problems. Resting on P versus NP is the security of all online transactions which are currently encrypted: if it transpires that P=NP, if answers could be found as easily as checked, computers could crack passwords in moments.

With

Colva Roney-Dougal Reader in Pure Mathematics at the University of St Andrews

Timothy Gowers Royal Society Research Professor in Mathematics at the University of Cambridge

And

Leslie Ann Goldberg Professor of Computer Science and Fellow of St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Empire of Mali which flourished from 1200 to 1600 and was famous in the wider world for the wealth of rulers such as Mansa Musa. Mali was the largest empire in west Africa and for almost 400 years controlled the flow of gold from mines in the south up to the Mediterranean coast and across to the Middle East. These gold mines were the richest known deposits in the 14th Century and produced around half of the world's gold. When Mansa Musa journeyed to Cairo in 1324 as part of his Hajj, he distributed so much gold that its value depreciated by over 10%. Some of the mosques he built on his return survive, albeit rebuilt, such as the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Great Mosque of Djenne.

With

Amira Bennison Reader in the History and Culture of the Maghrib at the University of Cambridge

Marie Rodet Senior Lecturer in the History of Africa at SOAS

And

Kevin MacDonald Professor of African Archaeology Chair of the African Studies Programme at University College, London

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Simone de Beauvoir. "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman," she wrote in her best known and most influential work, The Second Sex, her exploration of what it means to be a woman in a world defined by men. Published in 1949, it was an immediate success with the thousands of women who bought it. Many male critics felt men came out of it rather badly. Beauvoir was born in 1908 to a high bourgeois family and it was perhaps her good fortune that her father lost his money when she was a girl. With no dowry, she pursued her education in Paris to get work and in a key exam to allow her to teach philosophy, came second only to Jean Paul Sartre. He was retaking. They became lovers and, for the rest of their lives together, intellectual sparring partners. Sartre concentrated on existentialist philosophy; Beauvoir explored that, and existentialist ethics, plus the novel and, increasingly in the decades up to her death in 1986, the situation of women in the world.

With Christina Howells Professor of French and Fellow of Wadham College at the University of Oxford

Margaret Atack Professor of French at the University of Leeds

And

Ursula Tidd Professor of Modern French Literature and Thought at the University of Manchester

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) during his two extended stays in England, when he worked at the Tudor Court and became the King's painter. Holbein created some of the most significant portraits of his age, including an image of Henry VIII, looking straight at the viewer, hands on hips, that has dominated perceptions of him since. The original at Whitehall Palace was said to make visitors tremble at its majesty. Holbein was later sent to Europe to paint the women who might be Henry's fourth wife; his depiction of Anne of Cleves was enough to encourage Henry to marry her, a decision Henry quickly regretted and for which Thomas Cromwell, her supporter, was executed. His paintings still shape the way we see those in and around the Tudor Court, including Cromwell, Thomas More, the infant Prince Edward (of which there is a detail, above), The Ambassadors and, of course, Henry the Eighth himself.

With

Susan Foister Curator of Early Netherlandish, German and British Painting at the National Gallery

John Guy A fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge

And

Maria Hayward Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Alexander the Great is one of the most celebrated military commanders in history. Born into the Macedonian royal family in 356 BC, he gained control of Greece and went on to conquer the Persian Empire, defeating its powerful king, Darius III. At its peak, Alexander's empire covered modern Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and part of India. As a result, Greek culture and language was spread into regions it had not penetrated before, and he is also remembered for founding a number of cities. Over the last 2,000 years, the legend of Alexander has grown and he has influenced numerous generals and politicians.

With:

Paul Cartledge Emeritus Professor of Greek Culture and AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge

Diana Spencer Professor of Classics at the University of Birmingham

Rachel Mairs Lecturer in Classics at the University of Reading

Producer: Victoria Brignell.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rise of the idea of perpetual motion and its decline, in the 19th Century, with the Laws of Thermodynamics. For hundreds of years, some of the greatest names in science thought there might be machines that could power themselves endlessly. Leonardo Da Vinci tested the idea of a constantly-spinning wheel and Robert Boyle tried to recirculate water from a draining flask. Gottfried Leibniz supported a friend, Orffyreus, who claimed he had built an ever-rotating wheel. An increasing number of scientists voiced their doubts about perpetual motion, from the time of Galileo, but none could prove it was impossible. For scientists, the designs were a way of exploring the laws of nature. Others claimed their inventions actually worked, and promised a limitless supply of energy. It was not until the 19th Century that the picture became clearer, with the experiments of James Joule and Robert Mayer on the links between heat and work, and the establishment of the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics.

With

Ruth Gregory Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Durham University

Frank Close Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Oxford

and

Steven Bramwell Professor of Physics and former Professor of Chemistry at University College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Born near Mexico City in 1907, Frida Kahlo is considered one of Mexico's greatest artists. She took up painting after a bus accident left her severely injured, was a Communist, married Diego Rivera, a celebrated muralist, became friends with Trotsky and developed an iconic series of self-portraits. Her work brings together elements such as surrealism, pop culture, Aztec and Indian mythology and commentary on Mexican culture. In 1938, artist and poet Andre Breton organised an exhibition of her work in New York, writing in the catalogue, "The Art of Frida Kahlo is a ribbon around a bomb." She was not as widely appreciated during her lifetime as she has since become, but is now one of the most recognised artists of the 20th century.

With

Patience Schell Chair in Hispanic Studies at the University of Aberdeen

Valerie Fraser Emeritus Professor of Latin American Art at the University of Essex

And

Alan Knight Emeritus Professor of the History of Latin America at the University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Frederick the Great ruled Prussia from 1740 until his death in 1786. Born in 1712, he increased the power of the state, he made Prussia the leading military power in Europe and his bold campaigns had great implications for the European political landscape. An absolute monarch in the age of enlightenment, he was a prolific writer, attracted figures such as Voltaire to his court, fostered education and put Berlin firmly on the cultural map. He was much admired by Napoleon and was often romanticised by German historians, becoming a hero for many in united Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries. Others, however, vilified him for aspects such as his militarism and the partition of Poland.

With

Tim Blanning Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at the University of Cambridge

Katrin Kohl Professor of German Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Jesus College

And

Thomas Biskup Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Hull

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

In 1977, scientists in the submersible "Alvin" were exploring the deep ocean bed off the Galapagos Islands. In the dark, they discovered hydrothermal vents, like chimneys, from which superheated water flowed. Around the vents there was an extraordinary variety of life, feeding on microbes which were thriving in the acidity and extreme temperature of the vents. While it was already known that some microbes are extremophiles, thriving in extreme conditions, such as the springs and geysers of Yellowstone Park (pictured), that had not prepared scientists for what they now found. Since the "Alvin" discovery, the increased study of extremophile microbes has revealed much about what is and is not needed to sustain life on Earth and given rise to new theories about how and where life began. It has also suggested forms and places in which life might be found elsewhere in the Universe.

With

Monica Grady Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University

Ian Crawford Professor of Planetary Science and Astrobiology at Birkbeck University of London

And

Nick Lane Reader in Evolutionary Biochemistry at University College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

The story of Jane Eyre is one of the best-known in English fiction. Jane is the orphan who survives a miserable early life, first with her aunt at Gateshead Hall and then at Lowood School. She leaves the school for Thornfield Hall, to become governess to the French ward of Mr Rochester. She and Rochester fall in love but, at their wedding, it is revealed he is married already and his wife, insane, is kept in Thornfield's attic. When Jane Eyre was published in 1847, it was a great success and brought fame to Charlotte Bronte. Combined with Gothic mystery and horror, the book explores many themes, including the treatment of children, relations between men and women, religious faith and hypocrisy, individuality, morality, equality and the nature of true love.

With

Dinah Birch Professor of English Literature and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Liverpool

Karen O'Brien Vice Principal and Professor of English Literature at King's College London

And

Sara Lyons Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Kent

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

A moral theory that emphasises ends over means, Utilitarianism holds that a good act is one that increases pleasure in the world and decreases pain. The tradition flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, and has antecedents in ancient philosophy. According to Bentham, happiness is the means for assessing the utility of an act, declaring "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong." Mill and others went on to refine and challenge Bentham's views and to defend them from critics such as Thomas Carlyle, who termed Utilitarianism a "doctrine worthy only of swine."

With

Melissa Lane The Class of 1943 Professor of Politics at Princeton University

Janet Radcliffe Richards Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Oxford

and

Brad Hooker A Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

In the Middle Ages, Prester John was seen as the great hope for Crusaders struggling to hold on to, then regain, Jerusalem. He was thought to rule a lost Christian kingdom somewhere in the East and was ready to attack Muslim opponents with his enormous armies. There was apparent proof of Prester John's existence, in letters purportedly from him and in stories from travelers who claimed they had met, if not him, then people who had news of him. Most pointed to a home in the earthly paradise in the Indies, outside Eden, with fantastical animals and unimaginable riches. Later, Portuguese explorers thought they had found him in Ethiopia, despite the mystified denials of people there. Melvyn Bragg asks why the legend was so strongly believed for so long, and what facts helped sustain the myths.

With

Marianne O'Doherty Associate Professor in English at the University of Southampton

Martin Palmer Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education, and Culture

And

Amanda Power Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Sheffield.

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

While glass items have been made for at least 5,000 years, scientists are yet to explain, conclusively, what happens when the substance it's made from moves from a molten state to its hard, transparent phase. It is said to be one of the great unsolved problems in physics. While apparently solid, the glass retains certain properties of a liquid. At times, ways of making glass have been highly confidential; in Venice in the Middle Ages, disclosure of manufacturing techniques was a capital offence. Despite the complexity and mystery of the science of glass, glass technology has continued to advance from sheet glass to crystal glass, optical glass and prisms, to float glasses, chemical glassware, fibre optics and metal glasses.

With:

Dame Athene Donald Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge and Master of Churchill College, Cambridge

Jim Bennett Former Director of the Museum of the History of Science at the University of Oxford and Keeper Emeritus at the Science Museum

Paul McMillan Professor of Chemistry at University College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

It is said that, in Britain from the 18th Century, copies of Josephus' works were as widespread and as well read as The Bible. Christians valued "The Antiquities of the Jews" in particular, for the retelling of parts of the Old Testament and apparently corroborating the historical existence of Jesus. Born Joseph son of Matthias, in Jerusalem, in 37AD, he fought the Romans in Galilee in the First Jewish-Roman War. He was captured by Vespasian's troops and became a Roman citizen, later describing the siege and fall of Jerusalem. His actions and writings made him a controversial figure, from his lifetime to the present day.

With

Tessa Rajak Professor Emeritus of Ancient History, University of Reading

Philip Alexander Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies, University of Manchester

And

Martin Goodman Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Oxford and President of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Cotton Famine in Lancashire from 1861-65. The Famine followed the blockade of Confederate Southern ports during the American Civil War which stopped the flow of cotton into mills in Britain and Europe. Reports at the time told of starvation, mass unemployment and migration. Abraham Lincoln wrote, "I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which the working-men of Manchester, and in all Europe, are called to endure in this crisis." While the full cause and extent of the Famine in Lancashire are disputed, the consequences of this and the cotton blockade were far reaching.

With

Lawrence Goldman Director of the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London

Emma Griffin Professor of History at the University of East Anglia

And

David Brown Senior Lecturer in American Studies at University of Manchester

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. He has been called one of the outstanding thinkers of the 20th century and the greatest poet India has ever produced. His Nobel followed publication of Gitanjali, his English version of some of his Bengali poems. WB Yeats and Ezra Pound were great supporters. Tagore was born in Calcutta in 1861 and educated partly in Britain; King George V knighted him, but Tagore renounced this in 1919 following the Amritsar Massacre. A key figure in Indian nationalism, Tagore became a friend of Gandhi, offering criticism as well as support. A polymath and progressive, Tagore painted, wrote plays, novels, short stories and many songs. The national anthems of India and Bangladesh are based on his poems.

With

Chandrika Kaul Lecturer in Modern History at the University of St Andrews

Bashabi Fraser Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University

And

John Stevens Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow at SOAS, University of London

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Earth's Core. The inner core is an extremely dense, solid ball of iron and nickel, the size of the Moon, while the outer core is a flowing liquid, the size of Mars. Thanks to the magnetic fields produced within the core, life on Earth is possible. The magnetosphere protects the Earth from much of the Sun's radiation and the flow of particles which would otherwise strip away the atmosphere. The precise structure of the core and its properties have been fascinating scientists from the Renaissance. Recent seismographs show the picture is even more complex than we might have imagined, with suggestions that the core is spinning at a different speed and on a different axis from the surface.

With

Stephen Blundell Professor of Physics and Fellow of Mansfield College at the University of Oxford

Arwen Deuss Associate Professor in Seismology at Utrecht University

and

Simon Redfern Professor of Mineral Physics at the University of Cambridge

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the 18th-century novelist, playwright and diarist Fanny Burney, also known as Madame D'Arblay and Frances Burney. Her first novel, Evelina, was published anonymously and caused a sensation, attracting the admiration of many eminent contemporaries. In an era when very few women published their work she achieved extraordinary success, and her admirers included Dr Johnson and Edmund Burke; later Virginia Woolf called her 'the mother of English fiction'.

With

Nicole Pohl Reader in English Literature at Oxford Brookes University

Judith Hawley Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London

and

John Mullan Professor of English at University College London.

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life of Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit priest who in the 16th century led a Christian mission to China. An accomplished scholar, Ricci travelled extensively and came into contact with senior officials of the Ming Dynasty administration. His story is one of the most important encounters between Renaissance Europe and a China which was still virtually closed to outsiders.

With

Mary Laven Reader in Early Modern History at the University of Cambridge

Craig Clunas Professor of the History of Art at the University of Oxford

and

Anne Gerritsen Reader in History at the University of Warwick

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Greek poet Sappho. Born in the late seventh century BC, Sappho spent much of her life on the island of Lesbos. In antiquity she was famed as one of the greatest lyric poets, but owing to a series of accidents the bulk of her work was lost to posterity. The fragments that do survive, however, give a tantalising glimpse of a unique voice of Greek literature. Her work has lived on in other languages, too, translated by such major poets as Ovid, Christina Rossetti and Baudelaire.

With

Edith Hall Professor of Classics at King's College, London

Margaret Reynolds Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London

and

Dirk Obbink Professor of Papyrology and Greek Literature at the University of Oxford Fellow and tutor at Christ Church, Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the California Gold Rush. In 1849 the recent discovery of gold at Coloma, near Sacramento in California, led to a massive influx of prospectors seeking to make their fortunes. Within a couple of years the tiny settlement of San Francisco had become a major city, with tens of thousands of immigrants, the so-called Forty-Niners, arriving by boat and over land. The gold rush transformed the west coast of America and its economy, but also uprooted local populations of Native Americans and made irreversible changes to natural habitats.

With:

Kathleen Burk Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London

Jacqueline Fear-Segal Reader in American History and Culture at the University of East Anglia

Frank Cogliano Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the scientific achievements of the Curie family. In 1903 Marie and Pierre Curie shared a Nobel Prize in Physics with Henri Becquerel for their work on radioactivity, a term which Marie coined. Marie went on to win a Nobel in Chemistry eight years later; remarkably, her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie would later share a Nobel with her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie for their discovery that it was possible to create radioactive materials in the laboratory. The work of the Curies added immensely to our knowledge of fundamental physics and paved the way for modern treatments for cancer and other illnesses.

With:

Patricia Fara Senior Tutor of Clare College, University of Cambridge

Robert Fox Emeritus Professor of the History of Science at the University of Oxford

Steven T Bramwell Professor of Physics and former Professor of Chemistry at University College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of Al-Ghazali, a major philosopher and theologian of the late 11th century. Born in Persia, he was one of the most prominent intellectuals of his age, working in such centres of learning as Baghdad, Damascus and Jerusalem. He is now seen as a key figure in the development of Islamic thought, not just refining the theology of Islam but also building on the existing philosophical tradition inherited from the ancient Greeks.

With:

Peter Adamson Professor of Late Ancient and Arabic Philosophy at the LMU in Munich

Carole Hillenbrand Professor of Islamic History at Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities

Robert Gleave Professor of Arabic Studies at the University of Exeter

Producer: Victoria Brignell.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss dark matter, the mysterious and invisible substance which is believed to make up most of the Universe. In 1932 the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort noticed that the speed at which galaxies moved was at odds with the amount of material they appeared to contain. He hypothesized that much of this 'missing' matter was simply invisible to telescopes. Today astronomers and particle physicists are still fascinated by the search for dark matter and the question of what it is.

With

Carolin Crawford Public Astronomer at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge and Gresham Professor of Astronomy

Carlos Frenk Ogden Professor of Fundamental Physics and Director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology at the University of Durham

Anne Green Reader in Physics at the University of Nottingham

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the epic poem Beowulf, one of the masterpieces of Anglo-Saxon literature. Composed in the early Middle Ages by an anonymous poet, the work tells the story of a Scandinavian hero whose feats include battles with the fearsome monster Grendel and a fire-breathing dragon. It survives in a single manuscript dating from around 1000 AD, and was almost completely unknown until its rediscovery in the nineteenth century. Since then it has been translated into modern English by writers including William Morris, JRR Tolkien and Seamus Heaney, and inspired poems, novels and films.

With:

Laura Ashe Associate Professor in English at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Worcester College

Clare Lees Professor of Medieval English Literature and History of the Language at King's College London

Andy Orchard Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history and significance of eunuchs, castrated men who were a common feature of many civilisations for at least three thousand years. Eunuchs were typically employed as servants in royal households in the ancient Middle East, China and classical antiquity. In some civilisations they were used as administrators or senior military commanders, sometimes achieving high office. The tradition lingered until surprisingly recently, with castrated singers remaining a feature of Vatican choirs until the nineteenth century, while the last Chinese eunuch of the imperial court died in 1996.

With:

Karen Radner Professor of Ancient Near Eastern History at University College London

Shaun Tougher Reader in Ancient History at Cardiff University

Michael Hoeckelmann British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at King's College London

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Adam Smith's celebrated economic treatise The Wealth of Nations. Smith was one of Scotland's greatest thinkers, a moral philosopher and pioneer of economic theory whose 1776 masterpiece has come to define classical economics. Based on his careful consideration of the transformation wrought on the British economy by the Industrial Revolution, and how it contrasted with marketplaces elsewhere in the world, the book outlined a theory of wealth and how it is accumulated that has arguably had more influence on economic theory than any other.

With:

Richard Whatmore Professor of Modern History and Director of the Institute of Intellectual History at the University of St Andrews

Donald Winch Emeritus Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Sussex

Helen Paul Lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the photon, one of the most enigmatic objects in the Universe. Generations of scientists have struggled to understand the nature of light. In the late nineteenth century it seemed clear that light was an electromagnetic wave. But the work of physicists including Planck and Einstein shed doubt on this theory. Today scientists accept that light can behave both as a wave and a particle, the latter known as the photon. Understanding light in terms of photons has enabled the development of some of the most important technology of the last fifty years.

With:

Frank Close Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Oxford

Wendy Flavell Professor of Surface Physics at the University of Manchester

Susan Cartwright Senior Lecturer in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Sheffield.

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Indian Emperor Ashoka. Active in the 3rd century BC, Ashoka conquered almost all of the landmass covered by modern-day India, creating the largest empire South Asia had ever known. After his campaign of conquest he converted to Buddhism, and spread the religion throughout his domain. His edicts were inscribed on the sides of an extraordinary collection of stone pillars spread far and wide across his empire, many of which survive today. Our knowledge of ancient India and its chronology, and how this aligns with the history of Europe, is largely dependent on this important set of inscriptions, which were deciphered only in the nineteenth century.

With:

Jessica Frazier Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Kent and a Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Naomi Appleton Chancellor's Fellow in Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh

Richard Gombrich Founder and Academic Director of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies and Emeritus Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the ancient Greek historian Thucydides. In the fifth century BC Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, an account of a conflict in which he had himself taken part. This work is now seen as one of the first great masterpieces of history writing, a book which influenced writers for centuries afterwards. Thucydides was arguably the first historian to make a conscious attempt to be objective, bringing a rational and impartial approach to his scholarship. Today his work is still widely studied at military colleges and in the field of international relations for the insight it brings to bear on complex political situations.

With:

Paul Cartledge Emeritus Professor of Greek Culture and AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, Cambridge

Katherine Harloe Associate Professor in Classics and Intellectual History at the University of Reading

Neville Morley Professor of Ancient History at the University of Bristol

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss phenomenology, a style of philosophy developed by the German thinker Edmund Husserl in the first decades of the 20th century. Husserl's initial insights underwent a radical transformation in the work of his student Martin Heidegger, and played a key role in the development of French philosophy at the hands of writers like Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Phenomenology has been a remarkably adaptable approach to philosophy. It has given its proponents a platform to expose and critique the basic assumptions of past philosophy, and to talk about everything from the foundations of geometry to the difference between fear and anxiety. It has also been instrumental in getting philosophy out of the seminar room and making it relevant to the lives people actually lead.

GUESTS

Simon Glendinning, Professor of European Philosophy in the European Institute at the London School of Economics

Joanna Hodge, Professor of Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University

Stephen Mulhall, Professor of Philosophy and Tutor at New College at the University of Oxford

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting of 1559, 'The Fight Between Carnival And Lent'. Created in Antwerp at a time of religious tension between Catholics and Protestants, the painting is rich in detail and seems ripe for interpretation. But Bruegel is notoriously difficult to interpret. His art seems to reject the preoccupations of the Italian Renaissance, drawing instead on techniques associated with the new technology of the 16th century, print. Was Bruegel using his art to comment on the controversies of his day? If so, what comment was he making?

CONTRIBUTORS

Louise Milne, Lecturer in Visual Culture in the School of Art at the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh Napier University

Jeanne Nuechterlein, Senior Lecturer in the Department of History of Art, University of York

Miri Rubin, Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History and Head of the School of History at Queen Mary, University of London

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the philosophy of truth. Pontius Pilate famously asked: what is truth? In the twentieth century, the nature of truth became a subject of particular interest to philosophers, but they preferred to ask a slightly different question: what does it mean to say of any particular statement that it is true? What is the difference between these two questions, and how useful is the second of them?

With:

Simon Blackburn Fellow of Trinity College, University of Cambridge, and Professor of Philosophy at the New College of the Humanities

Jennifer Hornsby Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London

Crispin Wright Regius Professor of Logic at the University of Aberdeen, and Professor of Philosophy at New York University

Producer: Victoria Brignell and Luke Mulhall.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Behavioural Ecology, the scientific study of animal behaviour.

What factors influence where and what an animal chooses to eat? Why do some animals mate for life whilst others are promiscuous? Behavioural ecologists approach questions like these using Darwin's theory of natural selection, along with ideas drawn from game theory and the economics of consumer choice.

Scientists had always been interested in why animals behave as they do, but before behavioural ecology this area of zoology never got much beyond a collection of interesting anecdotes. Behavioural ecology gave researchers techniques for constructing rigorous mathematical models of how animals act under different circumstances, and for predicting how they will react if circumstances change. Behavioural ecology emerged as a branch of zoology in the second half of the 20th century and proponents say it revolutionized our understanding of animals in their environments.

GUESTS

Steve Jones, Emeritus Professor of Genetics at University College London

Rebecca Kilner, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Cambridge

John Krebs, Principal of Jesus College at the University of Oxford

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Zen. It's often thought of as a form of Buddhism that emphasises the practice of meditation over any particular set of beliefs. In fact Zen belongs to a particular intellectual tradition within Buddhism that took root in China in the 6th century AD. It spread to Japan in the early Middle Ages, where Zen practitioners set up religious institutions like temples, monasteries and universities that remain important today.

GUESTS

Tim Barrett, Emeritus Professor in the Department of the Study of Religions at SOAS, University of London

Lucia Dolce, Numata Reader in Japanese Buddhism at SOAS, University of London

Eric Greene, Lecturer in East Asian Religions at the University of Bristol

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Franz Kafka's novel of power and alienation 'The Trial', in which readers follow the protagonist Joseph K into a bizarre, nightmarish world in which he stands accused of an unknown crime; courts of interrogation convene in obscure tenement buildings; and there seems to be no escape from a crushing, oppressive bureaucracy.

Kafka was a German-speaking Jew who lived in the Czech city of Prague, during the turbulent years which followed the First World War. He spent his days working as a lawyer for an insurance company, but by night he wrote stories and novels considered some of the high points of twentieth century literature. His explorations of power and alienation have chimed with existentialists, Marxists, psychoanalysts, postmodernists - and Radio 4 listeners, who suggested this as our topic for listener week on In Our Time.

GUESTS

Elizabeth Boa, Professor Emerita of German at the University of Nottingham Steve Connor, Grace 2 Professor of English at the University of Cambridge Ritchie Robertson, Taylor Professor of the German Language and Literature at the University of Oxford

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aesop. According to some accounts, Aesop was a strikingly ugly slave who was dumb until granted the power of speech by the goddess Isis. In stories of his life he's often found outwitting his masters using clever wordplay, but he's best known today as the supposed author of a series of fables that are some of the most enduringly popular works of Ancient Greek literature. Some modern scholars question whether he existed at all, but the body of work that has come down to us under his name gives us a rare glimpse of the popular culture of the Ancient World.

WITH

Pavlos Avlamis, Junior Research Fellow in Classics at Trinity College at the University of Oxford

Simon Goldhill, Professor of Greek Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge

Lucy Grig, Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Edinburgh

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Victorian engineer responsible for bridges, tunnels and railways still in use today more than 150 years after they were built. Brunel represented the cutting edge of technological innovation in Victorian Britain, and his life gives us a window onto the social changes that accompanied the Industrial Revolution. Yet his work was not always successful, and his innovative approach to engineering projects was often greeted with suspicion from investors.

Guests:

Julia Elton, former President of the Newcomen Society for the History of Engineering and Technology

Ben Marsden, Senior Lecturer in the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen

Crosbie Smith, Professor of the History of Science at the University of Kent

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut, whose name means 'foremost of noble ladies'. She ruled Egypt from about 1479 - 1458 BC and some scholars argue that she was one of the most successful and influential pharaohs. When she came to the throne, Egypt was still recovering from a period of turbulence known as the Second Intermediate Period a few generations earlier. Hatshepsut reasserted Egyptian power by building up international trade and commissioned buildings considered masterpieces of Egyptian architecture. She also made significant changes to the ideology surrounding the pharaoh and the gods. However, following her death, her name was erased from the records and left out of ancient lists of Egyptian kings.

With:

Elizabeth Frood Associate Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford

Kate Spence Lecturer in Egyptian Archaeology at the University of Cambridge

Campbell Price Curator of Egypt and Sudan at The Manchester Museum

Producer: Victoria Brignell.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss nuclear fusion, the process that powers stars. In the 1920s physicists predicted that it might be possible to generate huge amounts of energy by fusing atomic nuclei together, a reaction requiring enormous temperatures and pressures. Today we know that this complex reaction is what keeps the Sun shining. Scientists have achieved fusion in the laboratory and in nuclear weapons; today it is seen as a likely future source of limitless and clean energy.

Guests:

Philippa Browning, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Manchester

Steve Cowley, Chief Executive of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

Justin Wark, Professor of Physics and fellow of Trinity College at the University of Oxford

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Haitian Revolution. In 1791 an uprising began in the French colonial territory of St Domingue. Partly a consequence of the French Revolution and partly a backlash against the brutality of slave owners, it turned into a complex struggle involving not just the residents of the island but French, English and Spanish forces. By 1804 the former slaves had won, establishing the first independent state in Latin America and the first nation to be created as a result of a successful slave rebellion. But the revolution also created one of the world's most impoverished societies, a legacy which Haiti has struggled to escape.

Contributors

Kate Hodgson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in French at the University of Liverpool

Tim Lockley, Reader in American Studies at the University of Warwick

Karen Salt, Fellow in History in the School of Language and Literature at the University of Aberdeen

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of Rudyard Kipling. Born in Bombay in 1865, Kipling has been described as the poet of Empire, celebrated for fictional works including Kim and The Jungle Book. Today his poem 'If--' remains one of the best known in the English language. Kipling was amongst the first writers in English to develop the short story as a literary form in its own right, and was the first British recipient of a Nobel Prize for Literature. A literary celebrity of the Edwardian era, Kipling's work for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission played a major role in Britain's cultural response to the First World War.

Contributors:

Howard Booth, Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Manchester

Daniel Karlin, Winterstoke Professor of English Literature at the University of Bristol

Jan Montefiore, Professor of Twentieth Century English Literature at the University of Kent

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Battle of Talas, a significant encounter between Arab and Chinese forces which took place in central Asia in 751 AD. It brought together two mighty empires, the Abbasid Caliphate and the Tang Dynasty, and although not well known today the battle had profound consequences for the future of both civilisations. The Arabs won the confrontation, but the battle marks the point where the Islamic Empire halted its march eastwards, and the Chinese stopped their expansion to the west. It was also a point of cultural exchange: some historians believe that it was also the moment when the technology of paper manufacture found its way from China to the Western world.

GUESTS

Hilde de Weerdt, Professor of Chinese History at Leiden University

Michael Höckelmann, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at King's College London

Hugh Kennedy, Professor of Arabic at SOAS, University of London

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life, work and reputation of Julius Caesar. Famously assassinated as he entered the Roman senate on the Ides of March, 44 BC, Caesar was an inspirational general who conquered much of Europe. He was a ruthless and canny politician who became dictator of Rome, and wrote The Gallic Wars, one of the most admired and studied works of Latin literature. Shakespeare is one of many later writers to have been fascinated by the figure of Julius Caesar.

With:

Christopher Pelling Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford

Catherine Steel Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow

Maria Wyke Professor of Latin at University College London

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Euler's number, also known as e. First discovered in the seventeenth century by the Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli when he was studying compound interest, e is now recognised as one of the most important and interesting numbers in mathematics. Roughly equal to 2.718, e is useful in studying many everyday situations, from personal savings to epidemics. It also features in Euler's Identity, sometimes described as the most beautiful equation ever written.

With:

Colva Roney-Dougal Reader in Pure Mathematics at the University of St Andrews

June Barrow-Green Senior Lecturer in the History of Maths at the Open University

Vicky Neale Whitehead Lecturer at the Mathematical Institute and Balliol College at the University of Oxford

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Sun. The object that gives the Earth its light and heat is a massive ball of gas and plasma 93 million miles away. Thanks to the nuclear fusion reactions taking place at its core, the Sun has been shining for four and a half billion years. Its structure, and the processes that keep it burning, have fascinated astronomers for centuries. After the invention of the telescope it became apparent that the Sun is not a placid, steadily shining body but is subject to periodic changes in its appearance and eruptions of dramatic violence, some of which can affect us here on Earth. Recent space missions have revealed fascinating new insights into our nearest star.

With:

Carolin Crawford Gresham Professor of Astronomy and Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Yvonne Elsworth Poynting Professor of Physics at the University of Birmingham

Louise Harra Professor of Solar Physics at UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. First published in 1925, it charts a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a prosperous member of London society, as she prepares to throw a party. Writing in her diary during the writing of the book, Woolf explained what she had set out to do: 'I want to give life and death, sanity and insanity. I want to criticize the social system, and to show it at work at its most intense.' Celebrated for its innovative narrative technique and distillation of many of the preoccupations of 1920s Britain, Mrs Dalloway is now seen as a landmark of twentieth-century fiction, and one of the finest products of literary modernism.

With:

Professor Dame Hermione Lee President of Wolfson College, Oxford

Jane Goldman Reader in English Literature at the University of Glasgow

Kathryn Simpson Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss one of the most remarkable figures of the Middle Ages, Hildegard of Bingen. The abbess of a Benedictine convent, Hildegard experienced a series of mystical visions which she documented in her writings. She was an influential person in the religious world and much of her extensive correspondence with popes, monarchs and other important figures survives. Hildegard was also celebrated for her wide-ranging scholarship, which as well as theology covered the natural world, science and medicine. Officially recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church in 2012, Hildegard is also one of the earliest known composers. Since their rediscovery in recent decades her compositions have been widely recorded and performed.

With:

Miri Rubin Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History and Head of the School of History at Queen Mary, University of London

William Flynn Lecturer in Medieval Latin at the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds

Almut Suerbaum Professor of Medieval German and Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford.

Producer: Thomas Morris.