In Our Time
Episodes
Thermopylae
05 Feb 2004
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Battle of Thermopylae. For the historian Herodotus, the Battle of Thermopylae was the defining clash between East ...
Cryptography
29 Jan 2004
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins and history of codes. In October 1586, in the forbidding hall of Fotheringhay Castle, Mary Queen of Scots ...
Lamarck and Natural Selection
24 Dec 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg discusses Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, the 18th century French scientist.Charles Darwin defined Natural Selection in On the Origin of Species, ...
The Alphabet
18 Dec 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the feat of astonishing intellectual engineering which provides us with millions of words in hundreds of languages. At...
The Devil
11 Dec 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of the Devil. In the Gospel according to John he is ‘a murderer from the beginning’, ‘a liar and the...
Wittgenstein
04 Dec 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life, work and legacy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. There is little doubt that he was a towering figure of the twentieth...
St Bartholomew's Day Massacre
27 Nov 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the infamous St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. In Paris, in the high summer of 1572, a very unusual wedding was happeni...
Ageing the Earth
20 Nov 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the age of the Earth. It was once thought that the world began in 4004 BC. Lord Kelvin calculated the cooling temperat...
Duty
13 Nov 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the concept of duty. George Bernard Shaw wrote in his play Caesar and Cleopatra, “When a stupid man is doing somethi...
Sensation
06 Nov 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss sensation, a Victorian literary phenomenon. The Archbishop of York fulminated against them in his sermons, they spread...
Robin Hood
30 Oct 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the centuries old myth of the most romantic noble outlaw. The first printed version of the Robin Hood story begins lik...
Infinity
23 Oct 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the nature and existence of mathematical infinity. Jonathan Swift encapsulated the counter-intuitive character of infi...
The Schism
16 Oct 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss events surrounding the medieval division of the Christian Church. In 1054, Cardinal Humbert stormed into the Cathedral...
Bohemianism
09 Oct 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 19th century Parisian philosophy of life lived for art. In 1848 the young Parisian Henri Murger wrote of his bohem...
Maxwell
02 Oct 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discusses the life and ideas of James Clerk Maxwell whose work is not widely known, but whose genius and contribution to the a...
The Apocalypse
17 Jul 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Apocalypse. George Bernard Shaw dismissed it as “the curious record of the visions of a drug addict” and if th...
Nature
10 Jul 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the attempt to define humanity’s part in the natural world. In Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Lord Byron wrote:“Ther...
Vulcanology
03 Jul 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the formation of volcanoes. In 79AD Mount Vesuvius erupted on the Bay of Naples, buried Pompeii in ash and drowned nea...
The East India Company
23 Jun 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the private trading company that helped forge the British Empire. At its peak, its influence stretched from western In...
The Aristocracy
19 Jun 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the British aristocracy. The Greeks gave us the word aristocracy; it takes its root from ‘aristo’, meaning best an...
The Art of War
12 Jun 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history and philosophy of warfare. The British historian Edward Gibbon wrote: “Every age, however destitute of s...
The Lunar Society
05 Jun 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Lunar Society. In the late 18th century, with the ascendant British Empire centred on London, a small group of fri...
Memory
29 May 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the function and significance of memory. The great writer of remembrance, Marcel Proust, declared “We are able to fi...
Blood
22 May 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss blood. For more than 1500 years popular imagination, western science and the Christian Church colluded in a belief tha...
The Holy Grail
15 May 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Holy Grail.Tennyson wrote:“A cracking and a riving of the roofs,And rending, and a blast, and overheadThunder, a...
The Jacobite Rebellion
08 May 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discusses the Jacobite Rebellion. In the summer of 1745, a young man in a small French frigate landed on the West Coast of Sco...
Roman Britain
01 May 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Romans in Britain. About 2000 years ago, Tacitus noted that “the climate is wretched”, Herodian said, “the a...
Youth
17 Apr 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea of youth. In 1898 Joseph Conrad wrote, “I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any m...
Proust
10 Apr 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work Marcel Proust whose novel À La Recherche du Temps Perdu, or In Search of Lost Time, has been calle...
The Spanish Civil War
03 Apr 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Spanish Civil War which was a defining war of the twentieth century. It was a brutal conflict that polarised Spain...
The Life of Stars
27 Mar 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life cycle of stars. In his poem Bright Star John Keats wrote, "Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art". ...
Originality
20 Mar 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests explore the creative force of originality. How far is it to do with origins, how far with the combination of the discoveries o...
Redemption
13 Mar 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss redemption. In St Paul's letter to the Galatians, he wrote: "Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not ...
Meteorology
06 Mar 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss meteorology. The Book of Genesis resounds with a terrible act of vengeance, carried out by an angry God seeking to pun...
The Aztecs
27 Feb 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Aztec Empire. According to legend, the origins of it lie on a mythical island called Aztlan - "place of the white ...
The Lindisfarne Gospels
20 Feb 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Lindisfarne Gospels. In 597 Pope Gregory the Great ordered that a mission of monks be sent from Rome to convert Br...
Chance and Design
13 Feb 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the theories of a grand design in the universe. The late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould argued that if you r...
The Epic
06 Feb 2003
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of the epic. In his essay 'Why the novel matters', DH Lawrence argued that the novel contained all aspects...
The Calendar
19 Dec 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the calendar, which shapes the lives of millions of people. It is an invention that gives meaning to the passing of ti...
Man and Disease
12 Dec 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss man and disease. The Book of Exodus makes clear that when God wants to strike humankind, he does so with plague and di...
The Enlightenment in Scotland
05 Dec 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century. In 1696 the Edinburgh student, Thomas Aitkenhead, claimed theology was...
Imagination
28 Nov 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg investigates the creatives forces of the imagination. Immanuel Kant said, "Imagination is a blind but indispensable function of the soul ...
Muslim Spain
21 Nov 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Muslim Spain. In 711 a small army of North African Berbers invaded Spain and established an Iberian Islamic culture th...
Victorian Realism
14 Nov 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Victorian realism. Henry James said “Realism is what in some shape or form we might encounter, whereas romanticism i...
Human Nature
07 Nov 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the vexing issue of human nature. Some argue that we are born as blank slates and our natures are defined by upbringin...
Architecture and Power
31 Oct 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the role which architecture has played in our public life throughout history, whether in homage to an individual or as...
The Scientist
24 Oct 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origin of the concept and historical role of the scientist. The word "science" first appeared in the English langu...
Slavery and Empire
17 Oct 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss slavery and empire; two themes that run right through this country’s history. Britain’s imperial project dominated...
Heritage
18 Jul 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the role history and heritage have played in the formation of the British national identity. Historians have often mai...
Psychoanalysis and Democracy
11 Jul 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact of politics on psychoanalysis. The 20th century saw the birth and rise of psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud led...
Freedom
04 Jul 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg considers what it is to be free and how freedom became such a powerful value. Freedom has been a subject of enquiry for philosophers, the...
Cultural Imperialism
27 Jun 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how a dominant power can exert a cultural influence on its empire. An empire rests on many things: powerful armies, go...
Wagner
20 Jun 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Richard Wagner who, perhaps more than any other composer, would seem to capture the greatest triumphs and most terrify...
The American West
13 Jun 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the myths and harsh reality of the 19th century American pioneers. In 1845 the editor of The New York Morning News wro...
The Soul
06 Jun 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Soul. In his poem ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ WB Yeats wrote:An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upo...
The Grand Tour
30 May 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins and cultural impact of 18th century tourism. Samuel Johnson observed in 1776 that "A man who has not been ...
Drugs
23 May 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of drugs. Throughout history people have taken them to alter their perceptions and change their moods. The...
Chaos Theory
16 May 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg examines whether world is a fundamentally chaotic or orderly place. When Newton published his Principia Mathematica in 1687 his work was ...
The Examined Life
09 May 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss self-examination. Socrates, the Greek philosopher of the 4th century BC, famously declared that "The unexamined life i...
The Physics of Reality
02 May 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg examines the physics of reality. When Quantum Mechanics was developed in the early 20th century reality changed forever. In the quantum w...
Tolstoy
25 Apr 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of the 19th century Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy.The Russian novel has been acclaimed as one of the ...
Bohemia
11 Apr 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the medieval kingdom of Bohemia which was at the crossroads of Europe and, during the 15th century, at the heart of th...
Extra Terrestrials
04 Apr 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg examines Extra Terrestrials. New planets have been observed far beyond our solar system and telescopes are being built that will enable u...
The Artist
28 Mar 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of the artist. The sculptors who created the statues of ancient Greece were treated with disdain by their ...
Marriage
21 Mar 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of marriage.‘To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in ...
The Buddha
14 Mar 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and teachings of The Buddha. Two and a half thousand years ago a young man meditated on life and death and fo...
Milton
07 Mar 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg examines the literary and political career of the poet John Milton. If it wasn't for the poet Andrew Marvell we wouldn't have his later w...
Virtue
28 Feb 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of virtue. When Socrates asked the question ‘How should man live?’ Plato and Aristotle answered that m...
The Celts
21 Feb 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Celts. Around 400 BC a great swathe of Western Europe from Ireland to Southern Russia was dominated by one civilis...
Anatomy
14 Feb 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg examines the history of mankind's quest to understand the human body. The Greeks thought we were built like pigs, and when Renaissance ma...
The Universe's Shape
07 Feb 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the shape of the universe. In the Beginning, runs one account, was the Big Bang. All matter in existence today origin...
Yeats and Mysticism
31 Jan 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg explores the strange and mystical world of the poet W B Yeats. Celtic folklore, the Theosophical society, the Golden Dawn group, seances ...
Happiness
24 Jan 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss whether 'happiness' means living a life of pleasure, or of virtue. It is an old question, and the Roman poet Horace a...
Catharism
17 Jan 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Cathars, a medieval European Christian sect accused of heresy. In 1215 Pope Innocent III called the greatest meeti...
Nuclear Physics
10 Jan 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg examines one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century, and certainly the most controversial; the development of nucle...
Sensibility
03 Jan 2002
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg examines the 18th century idea of Sensibility. In Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey, the lead character Yorick comforts a young w...
Food
27 Dec 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg explores the history of food in Modern Europe. The French philosopher of food Brillat-Savarin wrote in his Physiology of Taste, 'The plea...
Rome and European Civilization
20 Dec 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg assesses the role Rome has played in European civilization. The myths that surround the foundation of Rome are a potent brew. Romulus an...
Genetics
13 Dec 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg looks at the development of the science of genetics. In the 1850s and 60s, in a monastery garden in Burno in Moravia, a Franciscan monk w...
Oscar Wilde
06 Dec 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg examines Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetes. In February 1895 Oscar Wilde was at the height of his powers, he was known on both sides of the A...
Third Crusade
29 Nov 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the highs and lows of the Third Crusade. In 1095 Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade and by the end of the 11th c...
Oceanography
22 Nov 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the science of Oceanography. In 1870 Jules Verne described the deep ocean in 2,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He wrote: “...
Surrealism
15 Nov 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss surrealism. ‘Si vous aimez L’amour, vous aimerez Surrealisme!’. If you like Love, you’ll love Surrealism! Thu...
The British Empire
08 Nov 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg examines the British Empire. It was officially created on 1st January 1877 when Disraeli had Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India, ...
Confucius
01 Nov 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg examines the philosophy of Confucius. In the 5th century BC a wise man called Kung Fu Tzu said, 'study the past if you would divine the f...
Napoleon and Wellington
25 Oct 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the histories of Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington. On the morning of the battle of Waterloo Napoleon told his loyal...
Democracy
18 Oct 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins of democracy. In the Gettysburg Address Abraham Lincoln called it “Government of the people, by the peop...
Byzantium
19 Jul 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the culture, history and legacy of the eastern Byzantine Empire. In 453 with the Barbarians at the gate, through the g...
Dickens
12 Jul 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the achievements of the 19th-century literary giant Charles Dickens. George Bernard Shaw said of Little Dorrit that it...
The Earth's Origins
05 Jul 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg discusses the origin of the Earth. Ideas used to be very clear about its origins. Bishop Ussher, in 1654 arrived at an exact figure and s...
Existentialism
28 Jun 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss existentialism. Imagine being back inside the bustling cafes on the Left Bank of Paris in the 1930s, cigarette smoke, ...
The Sonnet
21 Jun 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Sonnet, the most enduring form in the poet’s armoury. For over five hundred years its fourteen lines have exerci...
The French Revolution's Legacy
14 Jun 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the French Revolution. In 1789 the Bastille was stormed, the King Louis XVI was put under national guard and the calen...
Evil
03 May 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the concept of evil. When Nietzsche killed off God he had it in for evil as well: In Beyond Good and Evil, he construc...
Literary Modernism
26 Apr 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss literary modernism. In James Joyce’s Ulysses he writes, “Greater love than this, he said, no man hath that a man m...
The Glorious Revolution
19 Apr 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the the Glorious Revolution. In 1688, with a fair wind behind him and no naval opposition in front, William of Orange ...
Black Holes
12 Apr 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Black Holes. They are the dead collapsed ghosts of massive stars and they have an irresistible pull: their dark swirli...
The Roman Empire's Collapse in the 5th century
05 Apr 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire. Edward Gibbon wrote of its decline, "While that great body was invaded by ...
The Philosophy of Love
29 Mar 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the philosophy of love. In Plato’s Symposium a character called Aristophanes tells a story about Love. He says that ...
Fossils
22 Mar 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the significance of fossils. In the middle of the nineteenth century the discoveries of the fossil hunters used to wor...