In Our Time

By BBC Radio 4History

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In Our Time episodes

April 23, 2015 Fanny Burney
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.
45 min
April 16, 2015 Matteo Ricci and the Ming Dynasty
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.
46 min
April 09, 2015 Sappho
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.
47 min
April 02, 2015 The California Gold Rush
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.
46 min
March 26, 2015 The Curies
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.
48 min
March 19, 2015 Al-Ghazali
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.
45 min
March 12, 2015 Dark Matter
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.
46 min
March 05, 2015 Beowulf
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.
47 min
February 26, 2015 The Eunuch
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.
47 min
February 19, 2015 The Wealth of Nations
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.
47 min