Free Thinking

As a best-selling German biography of Hitler is published in English Anne McElvoy explores the way German historians view Hitler now talking to Volker Ullrich and historian Richard J Evans from the University of Cambridge. New Generation Thinker Catherine Fletcher reviews Botticelli Reimagined at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Botticelli Reimagined runs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from 5 March - 3 July 2016.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

In the year that John Osborne's Look Back In Anger turns 60 Philip Dodd considers the eruption of rage in the recent politics of the US and India with Jonah Goldberg, Kit Davis, Pankaj Mishra and Sunil Khilnani.

Pause for a moment and you realise it's impossible to ignore the Black Lives Matter protests or the urgent polemics of the writer and activist Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose passionately angry new book about race in the US, The Beautiful Struggle, comes out this week. It's difficult to turn a blind eye to the rearguard action that's being fought by Indian writers and intellectuals such as Arundhati Roy, targeted by Hindu nationalists determined to seize control of the political agenda on the Subcontinent.

Who is angry with whom and why; and what about the populist anger that seems to be propelling Donald Trump towards the Republican presidential nomination and the White House. Join Philip Dodd and his guests as they search for the answers.

Sunil Khilnani is the author of Incarnations: India in 50 Lives. He is currently presenting a series based on the book on BBC Radio 4.

Neil Jordan talks to Matthew Sweet about his novel The Drowned Detective and the difference between writing fiction and making films. Olivia Laing and John Haldane explore loneliness and solitude in art, philosophy and religion. Rowan Moore on creating contemporary global cities that answer the needs of the people who live and work in them.

The Drowned Detective by Neil Jordan is published by Bloomsbury

The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing is published by Canongate

Slow Burn City: London in the 21st Century by Rowan Moore is published by Picador

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Anne McElvoy investigates the role of culture within historic Soviet expansionism and current Russian geopolitics.

Historian Polly Jones, author of Myth Memory Trauma: Rethinking the Soviet past, 1953-70 and Clem Cecil, in-coming Director of Pushkin House, are in the studio to discuss the extent of Soviet interest in soft power alongside Mark Nash, curator of Red Africa and Ian Christie, co-curator of Unexpected Eisenstein, two new exhibitions in London.

The continuing cultural legacy of Cold War relations between the Soviet Union and Africa is the subject of Red Africa, a season of film, art exhibition, talks and events, runs at Calvert 22 in London while at the same time Unexpected Eisenstein, a new exhibition at GRAD gallery in London, tells the story of the anglophile tendencies of a the great Soviet film-maker, Sergei Eisenstein. Eisenstein, whose epic and patriotic films Battleship Potemkin, Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible, together constitute a visual retrospective of Russian power, was himself hugely influenced by British writers from Shakespeare to Dickins. But as Anne McElvoy hears, the director went on to influence generations of British artists and film-makers, one legacy of his six-week sojourn in London in 1929. It was, as Christie explains, a trip ordered but not precisely sponsored, by Stalin.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

The novelist, Karl Ove Knausgård , talks to Philip Dodd as the fifth instalment of his acclaimed My Struggle series is published in the UK. The programme also considers what it means to be Scandinavian today with the Swedish journalist, Ingrid Carlberg - author of a new biography of Raoul Wallenberg; the Danish writer and translator, Dorthe Nors; and Nicholas Aylott, an expert on models of democracy in Nordic and Baltic Europe who teaches in Stockholm.

Some Rain Must Fall by Karl Ove Knausgard is published now in the UK.

Raoul Wallenberg - The Biography by Ingrid Carlberg is published now in the UK

Karate Chop and Minna Needs Rehearsal Space by Dorthe Nors is out now in the UK

Nikolai Astrup: Painting Norway is on show at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London from until 15 May 2016

Producer: Zahid Warley

The novelist, Karl Ove Knausgård , talks to Philip Dodd as the fifth instalment of his acclaimed My Struggle series is published in the UK. The programme also considers what it means to be Scandinavian today with the Swedish journalist, Ingrid Carlberg - author of a new biography of Raoul Wallenberg; the Danish writer and translator, Dorthe Nors; and Nicholas Aylott, an expert on models of democracy in Nordic and Baltic Europe who teaches in Stockholm.

Some Rain Must Fall by Karl Ove Knausgard is published now in the UK.

Raoul Wallenberg - The Biography by Ingrid Carlberg is published now in the UK

Karate Chop and Minna Needs Rehearsal Space by Dorthe Nors is out now in the UK

Nikolai Astrup: Painting Norway is on show at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London from until 15 May 2016

Producer: Zahid Warley

Rana Mitter discusses religion and modernity, including a conversation with Buddhist thinker Stephen Batchelor on how ancient traditions can adapt to meet modern needs.

They are joined by Kader Abdolah, who's recently produced a new translation of The Qur'an, classicist Tim Whitmarsh, who has written on atheism in the Ancient Greek World, and the sociologist of religion Linda Woodhead who has investigated what people really mean when they tick the 'No Religion' box on surveys.

Tim Whitmarsh is the author of Battling The Gods: Atheism In The Ancient World.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Is politics about building a better world, or simply the art of the possible? In a special debate recorded at the London School of Economics to mark the anniversary of Thomas More's Utopia, politicians and historians debate the balance between idealism and realism in politics, international relations and political history. Chaired by Anne McElvoy. With

Utopia is a work of fiction and political philosophy by Thomas More published in 1516 in Latin. The LSE literature festival which runs from February 22nd - 27th is themed on the idea of Utopias.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Jonathan Lynn, author of Yes, Minister talks to Philip Dodd about his new play Patriotic Traitor which imagines the relationship between Petain and de Gaulle as that of father and son and follows them from their first meeting in World War I to the end of the Second World War, by which time, each had sentenced the other to death.

Suhdir Hazareesingh, author of In The Shadow of the General: Modern France and the Myth of de Gaulle, and writer and political columnist, Anne Elisabeth Moutet join Daniel Lee, New Generation Thinker and author of Pétain's Jewish Children to discuss with Philip Dodd the different notions of France that Petain and de Gaulle fought for and their post-war legacies.

And as a new exhibition Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art opens at London's National Gallery, Philip Dodd talks to curator Christopher Riopelle about the romantic pessmism of Eugene Delacroix and his visions for both art and the future of society.

The Patriotic Traitor is at the Park Theatre in London from February 17th to March 19th.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Tom Shakespeare, film director Peter Greenaway and art historian Matthijs Ilsink join Matthew Sweet in Holland for an exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of the death of artist Hieronymus Bosch. Matthew also talks to Plebaan Geertjan van Rossem, priest at St John's Cathedral in 's-Hertogenbosch, to get a religious perspective on Bosch's work.

Het Noordbrabants Museum in 's-Hertogenbosch, Holland, presents the Jheronimus Bosch – Visions of a Genius exhibition from February 13 to May 8, 2016. 20 paintings (panels and triptychs) and 19 drawings are on display.

You might also be interested listening to Saturday 13 February, 1302-1500: Saturday Classics: Ahead of his BBC4 series Renaissance Unchained, art critic Waldemar Januszczak conjures up the sound world of this epoch of huge passions and powerful religious emotions across all of Europe. The term 'Renaissance', or 'rinascita', was coined by Giorgio Vasari in 16th-century Florence, and his assertion that it had fixed origins in Italy has since influenced all of art history. But what of Flanders, Germany and the rest of Northern Europe? Waldemar presents music from the time of the Renaissance greats: Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling, Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo and El Greco.

Producer: Laura Thomas