In Our Time

By BBC Radio 4History

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In Our Time episodes

April 17, 2014 The Domesday Book
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Domesday Book, a vast survey of the land and property of much of England and Wales completed in 1086. Twenty years after the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror sent officials to most of his new territories to compile a list of land holdings and to gather information about settlements, the people who lived there and even their farm animals. Almost without parallel in European history, the resulting document was of immense importance for many centuries, and remains a central source for medieval historians.
With:
Stephen Baxter
Reader in Medieval History at Kings College London
Elisabeth van Houts
Honorary Professor of Medieval European History at the University of Cambridge
David Bates
Professorial Fellow in Medieval History at the University of East Anglia
Producer: Thomas Morris.
48 min
April 10, 2014 Strabo's Geographica
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Strabo's Geographica. Written almost exactly two thousand years ago by a Greek scholar living in Rome, the Geographica is an ambitious attempt to describe the entire world known to the Romans and Greeks at that time. Strabo seems to have based his book on accounts of distant lands given to him by contemporary travellers and imperial administrators, and on earlier works of scholarship by other Greek writers. One of the earliest systematic works of geography, Strabo's book offers a revealing insight into the state of ancient scholarship, and remained influential for many centuries after the author's death.
With:
Paul Cartledge
AG Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge
Maria Pretzler
Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at Swansea University
Benet Salway
Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at UCL
Producer: Thomas Morris.
48 min
April 03, 2014 States of Matter
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the science of matter and the states in which it can exist. Most people are familiar with the idea that a substance like water can exist in solid, liquid and gaseous forms. But as much as 99% of the matter in the universe is now believed to exist in a fourth state, plasma. Today scientists recognise a number of other exotic states or phases, such as glasses, gels and liquid crystals - many of them with useful properties that can be exploited.
With:
Andrea Sella
Professor of Chemistry at University College London
Athene Donald
Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge
Justin Wark
Professor of Physics and Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Oxford
Producer: Thomas Morris.
48 min
March 27, 2014 Weber's The Protestant Ethic
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Max Weber's book the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Published in 1905, Weber's essay proposed that Protestantism had been a significant factor in the emergence of capitalism, making an explicit connection between religious ideas and economic systems. Weber suggested that Calvinism, with its emphasis on personal asceticism and the merits of hard work, had created an ethic which had enabled the success of capitalism in Protestant countries. Weber's essay has come in for some criticism since he published the work, but is still seen as one of the seminal texts of twentieth-century sociology.
With:
Peter Ghosh
Fellow in History at St Anne's College, Oxford
Sam Whimster
Honorary Professor in Sociology at the University of New South Wales
Linda Woodhead
Professor of Sociology of Religion at Lancaster University.
Producer: Thomas Morris.
51 min
March 20, 2014 Bishop Berkeley
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the work of George Berkeley, an Anglican bishop who was one of the most important philosophers of the eighteenth century. Bishop Berkeley believed that objects only truly exist in the mind of somebody who perceives them - an idea he called immaterialism. His interests and writing ranged widely, from the science of optics to religion and the medicinal benefits of tar water. His work on the nature of perception was a spur to many later thinkers, including David Hume and Immanuel Kant. The clarity of Berkeley's writing, and his ability to pose a profound problem in an easily understood form, has made him one of the most admired early modern thinkers.
With:
Peter Millican
Gilbert Ryle Fellow and Professor of Philosophy at Hertford College, Oxford
Tom Stoneham
Professor of Philosophy at the University of York
Michela Massimi
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Science at the University of Edinburgh.
Producer: Thomas Morris.
48 min
March 13, 2014 The Trinity
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Trinity. The idea that God is a single entity, but one known in three distinct forms - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - has been a central belief for most Christians since the earliest years of the religion. The doctrine was often controversial in the early years of the Church, until clarified by the Council of Nicaea in the late 4th century. Later thinkers including St Augustine and Thomas Aquinas recognised that this religious mystery posed profound theological questions, such as whether the three persons of the Trinity always acted together, and whether they were of equal status. The Trinity's influence on Christian thought and practice is considerable, although it is interpreted in different ways by different Christian traditions.
With:
Janet Soskice
Professor of Philosophical Theology at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Jesus College
Martin Palmer
Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education, and Culture
The Reverend Graham Ward
Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford and a Canon of Christ Church.
Producer: Thomas Morris.
43 min
March 06, 2014 Spartacus
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life of Spartacus, the gladiator who led a major slave rebellion against the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. He was an accomplished military leader, and the campaign he led contributed significantly to the instability of the Roman state in this period. Spartacus was celebrated by some ancient historians and reviled by others, and became a hero to revolutionaries in 19th-century Europe. Modern perceptions of his character have been influenced by Stanley Kubrick's 1960 film - but ancient sources give a rather more complex picture of Spartacus and the aims of his rebellion.
With:
Mary Beard
Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge
Maria Wyke
Professor of Latin at University College, London
Theresa Urbainczyk
Associate Professor of Classics at University College, Dublin.
Producer: Victoria Brignell.
42 min
February 27, 2014 The Eye
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the eye. Humans have been attempting to understand the workings and significance of the organ for at least 2500 years. Some ancient philosophers believed that the eye enabled creatures to see by emitting its own light. The function and structures of the eye became an area of particular interest to doctors in the Islamic Golden Age. In Renaissance Europe the work of thinkers including Kepler and Descartes revolutionised thinking about how the organ worked, but it took several hundred years for the eye to be thoroughly understood. Eyes have long attracted more than purely scientific interest, known even today as the 'windows on the soul'.
With:
Patricia Fara
Senior Tutor of Clare College, University of Cambridge
William Ayliffe
Gresham Professor of Physic at Gresham College
Robert Iliffe
Professor of Intellectual History and History of Science at the University of Sussex
Producer: Thomas Morris.
43 min
February 20, 2014 Social Darwinism
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Social Darwinism. After the publication of Charles Darwin's masterpiece On the Origin of Species in 1859, some thinkers argued that Darwin's ideas about evolution could also be applied to human society. One thinker particularly associated with this movement was Darwin's near-contemporary Herbert Spencer, who coined the phrase 'survival of the fittest'. He argued that competition among humans was beneficial, because it ensured that only the healthiest and most intelligent individuals would succeed. Social Darwinism remained influential for several generations, although its association with eugenics and later adoption as an ideological position by Fascist regimes ensured its eventual downfall from intellectual respectability.
With:
Adam Kuper
Centennial Professor of Anthropology at the LSE, University of London
Gregory Radick
Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds
Charlotte Sleigh
Reader in the History of Science at the University of Kent.
Producer: Thomas Morris.
42 min
February 13, 2014 Chivalry
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss chivalry, the moral code observed by knights of the Middle Ages. Chivalry originated in the military practices of aristocratic French and German soldiers, but developed into an elaborate system governing many different aspects of knightly behaviour. It influenced the conduct of medieval military campaigns and also had important religious and literary dimensions. It gave rise to the phenomenon of courtly love, the subject of much romance literature, as well as to the practice of heraldry. The remnants of the chivalric tradition linger in European culture even today.
Miri Rubin
Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History and Head of the School of History at Queen Mary, University of London
Matthew Strickland
Professor of Medieval History at the University of Glasgow
Laura Ashe
Associate Professor in English at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Worcester College
Producer: Thomas Morris.
43 min