In Our Time

Montesquieu

14 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas of Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755) whose works on liberty, monar...

Persepolis

07 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the role of the great 'City of the Persians' founded by Darius I as the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire th...

Henrik Ibsen

31 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Norwegian playwright and poet, best known for his middle class tragedies such as The Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler...

Margaret of Anjou

24 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most remarkable queens of the Middle Ages who took control when her husband, Henry VI, was incapable. Marga...

The Emancipation of the Serfs

17 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1861 declaration by Tsar Alexander II that serfs were now legally free of their landlords. Until then, over a thir...

The Mabinogion

10 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the eleven stories of Celtic mythology and Arthurian romance known as The Mabinogion, most of which were told and reto...

The Almoravid Empire

03 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Berber people who grew to dominate the western Maghreb, founded Marrakesh and took control of Al-Andalus. They wer...

The Proton

26 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the discovery and growing understanding of the Proton, formed from three quarks close to the Big Bang and found in the...

Middlemarch

19 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what Virginia Woolf called 'one of the few English novels written for grown-up people'. It was written by George Eliot...

George and Robert Stephenson

12 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In a programme first broadcast on April 12th 2018, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the contribution of George Stephenson (1781-1848) and his son Rober...

Roman Slavery

05 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the role of slavery in the Roman world, from its early conquests to the fall of the Western Empire. The system became ...

Tocqueville: Democracy in America

22 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) and his examination of the American democratic system. He wrote De La Démocratie en...

Augustine's Confessions

15 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss St Augustine of Hippo's account of his conversion to Christianity and his life up to that point. Written c397AD, it ha...

The Highland Clearances

08 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how and why Highlanders and Islanders were cleared from their homes in waves in C18th and C19th, following the break u...

Sun Tzu and The Art of War

01 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas attributed to Sun Tzu (544-496BC, according to tradition), a legendary figure from the beginning of the Iron...

Rosalind Franklin

22 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering scientist Rosalind Franklin (1920 - 1958). During her distinguished career, Franklin carried out ground...

Fungi

15 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss fungi. These organisms are not plants or animals but a kingdom of their own. Millions of species of fungi live on the ...

Frederick Douglass

08 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In a programme first broadcast in 2018, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery in Marylan...

Cephalopods

01 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The octopus, the squid, the nautilus and the cuttlefish are some of the most extraordinary creatures on this planet, intelligent and yet apparently un...

Cicero

25 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas developed by Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43BC) to support and reinvigorate the Roman Republic when, as it tra...

Anna Akhmatova

18 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work, ideas and life of the Russian poet whose work was celebrated in C20th both for its quality and for what it r...

The Siege of Malta, 1565

11 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the event of which Voltaire, two hundred years later, said 'nothing was more well known'. In 1565, Suleiman the Magnif...

Hamlet

28 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's best known, most quoted and longest play, written c1599 - 1602 and rewritten throughout his lifetime. It...

Beethoven

21 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great composers, who was born into a family of musicians in Bonn. His grandfather was an eminent musician a...

Thomas Becket

14 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the man who was Henry II's Chancellor and then Archbishop of Canterbury and who was murdered by knights in Canterbury ...

Moby Dick

07 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Herman Melville's (1819-1891) epic novel, published in London in 1851, the story of Captain Ahab's pursuit of a great ...

Carl Friedrich Gauss

30 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Gauss (1777-1855), widely viewed as one of the greatest mathematicians of all ...

Thebes

23 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the myths and history of the ancient Greek city of Thebes and its depiction in Athenian drama. In myths it was said to...

Germaine de Stael

16 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and impact of Germaine de Staël (1766-1817) who Byron praised as Europe's greatest living writer, and was at...

The Picts

09 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Picts and, to mark our twentieth season, that discussion takes place in front of a student audience at the Univers...

Picasso's Guernica

02 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the context and impact of Pablo Picasso's iconic work, created soon after the bombing on 26th April 1937 that oblitera...

Feathered Dinosaurs

26 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

After 27 years, Melvyn Bragg has decided to step down from the In Our Time presenter’s chair. With over a thousand episodes to choose from, he has s...

The Congress of Vienna

19 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the conference convened by the victorious powers of the Napoleonic Wars and the earlier French Revolutionary Wars, whi...

Aphra Behn

12 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aphra Behn (1640-1689), who made her name and her living as a playwright, poet and writer of fiction under the Restora...

Constantine the Great

05 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life, reputation and impact of Constantine I, known as Constantine the Great (c280s -337AD). Born in modern day Se...

Wuthering Heights

28 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emily Bronte (1818-1848) and her only novel, published in 1847 under the name ...

Kant's Categorical Imperative

21 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how, in the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) sought to define the difference between right and wrong by applyi...

al-Biruni

31 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Central Asian polymath al-Biruni and his eleventh-century book the India.Born in around 973 in the central Asi...

Bird Migration

06 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

After 27 years, Melvyn Bragg has decided to step down from the In Our Time presenter’s chair. With over a thousand episodes to choose from, he has s...

Plato's Republic

29 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Is it always better to be just than unjust? That is the central question of Plato's Republic, discussed here by Melvyn Bragg and guests. Writing in c3...

Eugene Onegin

22 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexander Pushkin's verse novel, the story of Eugene Onegin, widely regarded as his masterpiece. Pushkin (pictured abo...

The American Populists

15 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what, in C19th America's Gilded Age, was one of the most significant protest movements since the Civil War with reperc...

Christine de Pizan

08 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and works of Christine de Pizan, who wrote at the French Court in the late Middle Ages and was celebrated by ...

Enzymes

01 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss enzymes, the proteins that control the speed of chemical reactions in living organisms. Without enzymes, these reactio...

Purgatory

25 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the flourishing of the idea of Purgatory from C12th, when it was imagined as a place alongside Hell and Heaven in whic...

Louis Pasteur

18 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) and his extraordinary contribution to medicine and science. It is said ...

Emily Dickinson

11 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and works of Emily Dickinson, arguably the most startling and original poet in America in the C19th. Accordin...

The Battle of Lincoln 1217

04 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Battle of Lincoln on 20th May 1217, when two armies fought to keep, or to win, the English crown. This was a strug...

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

27 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the text and context of The Book of the Dead, also known as the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the ancient Egyptian coll...

Roger Bacon

20 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The 13th-century English philosopher Roger Bacon is perhaps best known for his major work the Opus Maius. Commissioned by Pope Clement IV, this extens...

Rosa Luxemburg

13 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg discusses the life and times of Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), 'Red Rosa', who was born in Poland under the Russian Empire and became one of...

Pauli's Exclusion Principle

06 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

After 27 years, Melvyn Bragg has decided to step down from the In Our Time presenter’s chair. With over a thousand episodes to choose from, he has s...

Hokusai

30 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), the Japanese artist whose views of Mt Fuji such as The Great Wave off Kanagawa (pictur...

The Battle of Salamis

23 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what is often called one of the most significant battles in history. In 480BC in the Saronic Gulf near Athens, between...

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum

16 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the high temperatures that marked the end of the Paleocene and start of the Eocene periods, about 50m years ago. Over ...

North and South

09 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Elizabeth Gaskell's novel North and South, published in 1855 after serialisation in Dickens' Household Words magazine....

The Kuiper Belt

02 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Kuiper Belt, a vast region of icy objects at the fringes of our Solar System, beyond Neptune, in which we find the...

Seneca the Younger

23 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Seneca the Younger, who was one of the first great writers to live his entire life in the world of the new Roman empir...

Maths in the Early Islamic World

16 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the flourishing of maths in the early Islamic world, as thinkers from across the region developed ideas in places such...

John Clare

09 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Northamptonshire poet John Clare who, according to one of Melvyn's guests ...

Hannah Arendt

02 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt. She developed many of her ideas in ...

Parasitism

26 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the relationship between parasites and hosts, where one species lives on or in another to the benefit of the parasite ...

Mary, Queen of Scots

19 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had potential to be one of the most p...

Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality

12 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Nietzsche's On The Genealogy of Morality - A Polemic, which he published in 1887 towards the end of his working life a...

Johannes Kepler

29 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571 - 1630). Although he is overshadowed today by Isaac Newton and Galileo, he...

Four Quartets

22 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Four Quartets, TS Eliot's last great work which he composed, against a background of imminent and actual world war, as...

The Gin Craze

15 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In a programme first broadcast in December 2016, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the craze for gin in Britain in the mid-18th century and the attempts...

Harriet Martineau

08 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Harriet Martineau who, from a non-conformist background in Norwich, became one of the best known writers in the C19th....

Garibaldi and the Risorgimento

01 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Italian Risorgimento. According to the historian AJP Taylor, Garibaldi was the only wholly ...

Baltic Crusades

24 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Baltic Crusades, the name given to a series of overlapping attempts to convert the pagans of North East Europe to ...

Justinian's Legal Code

17 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas brought together under Justinian I, Byzantine emperor in the 6th century AD, which were rediscovered in West...

The Fighting Temeraire

10 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This image: Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Fighting Temeraire, 1839 (c) The National Gallery, LondonMelvyn Bragg and guests discuss "The Fighting ...

Epic of Gilgamesh

03 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

"He who saw the Deep" are the first words of the standard version of The Epic of Gilgamesh, the subject of this discussion between Melvyn Bragg and hi...

John Dalton

27 Oct 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The scientist John Dalton was born in North England in 1766. Although he came from a relatively poor Quaker family, he managed to become one of the mo...

The 12th Century Renaissance

20 Oct 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the changes in the intellectual world of Western Europe in the 12th Century, and their origins. This was a time of Cru...

Plasma

13 Oct 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss plasma, the fourth state of matter after solid, liquid and gas. As over ninety-nine percent of all observable matter i...

Lakshmi

06 Oct 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, and of the traditions that have built around her for over 3,000 years. Accor...

Animal Farm

29 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

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

Zeno's Paradoxes

22 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

After 27 years, Melvyn Bragg has decided to step down from the In Our Time presenter’s chair. With over a thousand episodes to choose from, he has s...

The Invention of Photography

07 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the development of photography in the 1830s, when techniques for 'drawing with light' evolved to the stage where, in 1...

Sovereignty

30 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of the idea of Sovereignty, the authority of a state to govern itself and the relationship between the sov...

Songs of Innocence and of Experience

23 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Blake's collection of illustrated poems "Songs of Innocence and of Experience." He published Songs of Innocenc...

The Bronze Age Collapse

16 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Bronze Age Collapse, the name given by many historians to what appears to have been a sudden, uncontrolled destruc...

Penicillin

09 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss penicillin, discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. It is said he noticed some blue-green penicillium mould on an unc...

Margery Kempe and English Mysticism

02 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the English mystic Margery Kempe (1373-1438) whose extraordinary life is recorded in a book she dictated, "The Book of...

The Gettysburg Address

26 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, ten sentences long, delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemete...

The Muses

19 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

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 Greek...

Titus Oates and his 'Popish Plot'

12 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

05 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, originally serialised in The Graphic in 1891 and, with some significant cha...

Euclid's Elements

28 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Euclid's Elements, a mathematical text book attributed to Euclid and in use from its appearance in Alexandria, Egypt a...

1816, the Year Without a Summer

21 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

The Neutron

14 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

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 p...

The Sikh Empire

07 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Agrippina the Younger

31 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

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 Ca...

Aurora Leigh

24 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

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, bo...

Bedlam

17 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

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,...

The Maya Civilization

10 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Maya Civilization, developed by the Maya people, which flourished in central America from around 250 AD in great c...

The Dutch East India Company

03 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Mary Magdalene

25 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

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. Acco...

Robert Hooke

18 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...