In Our Time

By BBC Radio 4History

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In Our Time episodes

March 19, 2020 Frankenstein
In a programme first broadcast in May 2019, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mary Shelley's (1797-1851) Gothic story of a Swiss natural philosopher, Victor Frankenstein, and the creature he makes from parts of cadavers and which he then abandons, horrified by his appearance, and never names. Rejected by all humans who see him, the monster takes his revenge on Frankenstein, killing those dear to him. Shelley started writing Frankenstein when she was 18, prompted by a competition she had with Byron and her husband Percy Shelley to tell a ghost story while they were rained in in the summer of 1816 at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva.
The image of Mary Shelley, above, was first exhibited in 1840.
With
Karen O'Brien
Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford
Michael Rossington
Professor of Romantic Literature at Newcastle University
And
Jane Thomas
Professor of Victorian and Early 20th Century Literature at the University of Hull
Producer: Simon Tillotson
This programme is a repeat
56 min
March 12, 2020 The Covenanters
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the bonds that Scottish Presbyterians made between themselves and their monarchs in the 16th and 17th Centuries, to maintain their form of worship. These covenants bound James VI of Scotland to support Presbyterians yet when he became James I he was also expected to support episcopacy. That tension came to a head under Charles I who found himself on the losing side of a war with the Covenanters, who later supported Parliament before backing the future Charles II after he had pledged to support them. Once in power, Charles II failed to deliver the religious settlement the Covenanters wanted, and set about repressing them violently. Those who refused to renounce the covenants were persecuted in what became known as The Killing Times, as reflected in the image above.
With
Roger Mason
Professor of Scottish History at the University of St Andrews
Laura Stewart
Professor of Early Modern British History at the University of York
And
Scott Spurlock
Professor of Scottish and Early Modern Christianities at the University of Glasgow
Producer: Simon Tillotson
54 min
March 05, 2020 Paul Dirac
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the theoretical physicist Dirac (1902-1984), whose achievements far exceed his general fame. To his peers, he was ranked with Einstein and, when he moved to America in his retirement, he was welcomed as if he were Shakespeare. Born in Bristol, he trained as an engineer before developing theories in his twenties that changed the understanding of quantum mechanics, bringing him a Nobel Prize in 1933 which he shared with Erwin Schrödinger. He continued to make deep contributions, bringing abstract maths to physics, beyond predicting anti-particles as he did in his Dirac Equation.
With
Graham Farmelo
Biographer of Dirac and Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge
Valerie Gibson
Professor of High Energy Physics at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College
And
David Berman
Professor of Theoretical Physics at Queen Mary University of London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
51 min
February 27, 2020 The Evolution of Horses
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins of horses, from their dog sized ancestors to their proliferation in the New World until hunted to extinction, their domestication in Asia and their development since. The genetics of the modern horse are the most studied of any animal, after humans, yet it is still uncertain why they only have one toe on each foot when their wider family had more, or whether speed or stamina has been more important in their evolution. What is clear, though, is that when humans first chose to ride horses, as well as eat them, the future of both species changed immeasurably.
With
Alan Outram
Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Exeter
Christine Janis
Honorary Professor in Palaeobiology at the University of Bristol and Professor Emerita in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown University
And
John Hutchinson
Professor in Evolutionary Biomechanics at the Royal Veterinary College
Producer: Simon Tillotson
51 min
February 20, 2020 The Valladolid Debate
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the debate in Valladolid, Spain in 1550, over Spanish rights to enslave the native peoples in the newly conquered lands. Bartolomé de Las Casas (pictured above), the Bishop of Chiapas, Mexico, was trying to end the encomienda system in which those who now owned the land could also take the people in forced labour. Juan Gines Sepulveda, a philosopher, argued for the colonists' property rights over people, asserting that some native Americans were 'natural slaves' as defined by Aristotle. Valladolid became seen as the first open attempt by European colonists to discuss the ethics of slavery, and Las Casas became known as 'Saviour of the Indians' and an advocate for human rights, although for some time he argued that African slaves be imported to do the work in place of the native people, before repenting.
With
Caroline Dodds Pennock
Senior Lecturer in International History at the University of Sheffield
John Edwards
Faculty Fellow in Spanish at the University of Oxford
And
Julia McClure
Lecturer in Late Medieval and Early Modern Global History at the University of Glasgow
Producer: Simon Tillotson
53 min
February 13, 2020 Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Roman military disaster of 9 AD when Germanic tribes under Arminius ambushed and destroyed three legions under Varus. According to Suetonius, emperor Augustus hit his head against the wall when he heard the news, calling on Varus to give him back his legions. The defeat ended Roman expansion east of the Rhine. Victory changed the development of the Germanic peoples, both in the centuries that followed and in the nineteenth century when Arminius, by then known as Herman, became a rallying point for German nationalism.
With
Peter Heather
Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London
Ellen O'Gorman
Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Bristol
And
Matthew Nicholls
Fellow and Senior Tutor at St John’s College, Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson
52 min
February 06, 2020 George Sand
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the works and life of one of the most popular writers in Europe in C19th, Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin (1804-1876) who wrote under the name George Sand. When she wrote her first novel under that name, she referred to herself as a man. This was in Indiana (1832), which had the main character breaking away from her unhappy marriage. It made an immediate impact as it overturned the social conventions of the time and it drew on her own early marriage to an older man, Casimir Dudevant. Once Sand's identity was widely known, her works became extremely popular in French and in translation, particularly her rural novels, outselling Hugo and Balzac in Britain, perhaps buoyed by an interest in her personal life, as well as by her ideas on the rights and education of women and strength of her writing.
With
Belinda Jack
Fellow and Tutor in French at Christ Church, University of Oxford
Angela Ryan
Senior Lecturer in French at University College Cork
And
Nigel Harkness
Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of French at Newcastle University
Producer: Simon Tillotson
55 min
January 30, 2020 Alcuin
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alcuin of York, c735-804AD, who promoted education as a goal in itself, and had a fundamental role in the renaissance at Charlemagne's court. He wrote poetry and many letters, hundreds of which survive and provide insight into his life and times. He was born in or near York and spent most of his life in Northumbria before accepting an invitation to Charlemagne's court in Aachen. To this he brought Anglo-Saxon humanism, encouraging a broad liberal education for itself and the better to understand Christian doctrine. He left to be abbot at Marmoutier, Tours, where the monks were developing the Carolingian script that influenced the Roman typeface.
The image above is Alcuin’s portrait, found in a copy of the Bible made at his monastery in Tours during the rule of his successor Abbot Adalhard (834–843). Painted in red on gold leaf, it shows Alcuin with a tonsure and a halo, signifying respect for his memory at the monastery where he had died in 804. His name and rank are spelled out alongside: Alcvinvs abba, ‘Alcuin the abbot’. It is held at the Staatsbibliothek Bamberg -Kaiser-Heinrich-Bibliothek - Msc.Bibl.1,fol.5v (photo by Gerald Raab).
With
Joanna Story
Professor of Early Medieval History at the University of Leicester
Andy Orchard
Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Pembroke College
And
Mary Garrison
Lecturer in History at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York
Producer: Simon Tillotson
57 min
January 23, 2020 Solar Wind
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the flow of particles from the outer region of the Sun which we observe in the Northern and Southern Lights, interacting with Earth's magnetosphere, and in comet tails that stream away from the Sun regardless of their own direction. One way of defining the boundary of the solar system is where the pressure from the solar wind is balanced by that from the region between the stars, the interstellar medium. Its existence was suggested from the C19th and Eugene Parker developed the theory of it in the 1950s and it has been examined and tested by a series of probes in C20th up to today, with more planned.
With
Andrew Coates
Professor of Physics and Deputy Director in charge of the Solar System at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London
Helen Mason OBE
Reader in Solar Physics at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Fellow at St Edmund's College
And
Tim Horbury
Professor of Physics at Imperial College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
56 min
January 16, 2020 The Siege of Paris 1870-71
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war and the social unrest that followed, as the French capital was cut off from the rest of the country and food was scarce. When the French government surrendered Paris to the Prussians, power gravitated to the National Guard in the city and to radical socialists, and a Commune established in March 1871 with the red flag replacing the trilcoleur. The French government sent in the army and, after bloody fighting, the Communards were defeated by the end of May 1871.
The image above is from an engraving of the fire in the Tuileries Palace, May 23, 1871
With
Karine Varley
Lecturer in French and European History at the University of Strathclyde
Robert Gildea
Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford
And
Julia Nicholls
Lecturer in French and European Studies at King’s College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
53 min