Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus whose names are entwined with the end of Rome's Republic and the rise of the Roman Emperors. As tribunes, they brought popular reforms to the Roman Republic at the end of the 2nd century BC. Tiberius (c163-133BC) brought in land reform so every soldier could have his farm, while Gaius (c154-121BC) offered cheap grain for Romans and targeted corruption among the elites. Those elites saw the reforms as such a threat that they had the brothers killed: Tiberius in a shocking murder led by the Pontifex Maximus, the high priest, in 133BC and Gaius 12 years later with the senate's approval. This increase in political violence was to destabilise the Republic, forever tying the Gracchi to the question of why Rome’s Republic gave way to the Rome of Emperors.

With

Catherine Steel

Federico Santangelo

And

Kathryn Tempest

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Appian (trans. John Carter), The Civil Wars (Penguin Classics, 2005)

Valentina Arena, Jonathan R. W. Prag and Andrew Stiles, A Companion to the Political Culture of the Roman Republic (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022), especially the chapter by Lea Beness and Tom Hillard

R. Cristofoli, A. Galimberti and F. Rohr Vio (eds.), Costruire la Memoria: Uso e abuso della storia fra tarda repubblica e primo principato (L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2017), especially ‘The 'Tyranny' of the Gracchi and the Concordia of the Optimates: An Ideological Construct.’ by Francisco Pina Polo

Suzanne Dixon, Cornelia: Mother of the Gracchi, (Routledge, 2007)

Peter Garnsey and Dominic Rathbone, ‘The Background to the Grain Law of Gaius Gracchus’ (Journal of Roman Studies 75, 1985)

O. Hekster, G. de Kleijn and D. Slootjes (eds.), Crises and the Roman Empire (Brill, 2007), especially ‘Tiberius Gracchus, Land and Manpower’ by John W. Rich

Josiah Osgood, Rome and the Making of a World State, 150 BCE-20 CE (Cambridge University Press, 2018)

Plutarch (trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert and Christopher Pelling), Rome in Crisis (Penguin Classics, 2010)

Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield, ed. Philip A. Stadter), Roman Lives (Oxford University Press, 2008)

Nathan Rosenstein, ‘Aristocrats and Agriculture in the Middle and Late Republic’ (Journal of Roman Studies 98, 2008)

A. N. Sherwin-White, ‘The Lex Repetundarum and the Political Ideas of Gaius Gracchus’ (Journal of Roman Studies 72, 1982)

Catherine Steel, The End of the Roman Republic, 146 to 44 BC: Conquest and Crisis (Edinburgh University Press, 2013)

David Stockton, The Gracchi (Oxford University Press, 1979)

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In this episode, on Poetry Day, we cross the Atlantic and. breakfast in Miami, where we talk to Cuban American poet Richard Blanco about his Homeland of my Body: New and Selected Poems, a rich, accomplished, intensely intimate collection with two full sections of new poems bookending Blanco’s selections from his five previous volumes. We also feature this year’s Strokestown International Poetry Festival, including the five poets shortlisted for the Strokestown Poetry Competition. 

If you’re around for the festival Enda will be giving  a poetry workshop and Peter will be giving a talk on The Life of the Poet.

Praise for Richard Blanco:

“An engineer, poet, Cuban American… his poetry bridges cultures and languages – a mosaic of our past, our present, and our future – reflecting a nation that is hectic, colorful, and still becoming.”

– President Joe Biden, conferring the National Humanities Medal on Richard Blanco

Sandra Cisneros describes Blanco’s poems as “sad, tender, and filled with longing. Like an old photograph, a saint’s statue worn away by the devout, a bolero on the radio on a night full of rain. Me emocionan. There is no other way to say it. They emotion me.”

This episode is supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it. Logo designed by Freya Sirr.

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The world isn’t made of atoms, it’s made of stories. I’ve never heard anyone speak so deeply about interviewing. Johann Hari has written four books, and for each one he travels the globe to record hundreds of conversations. In this episode, he’ll explain exactly how he does it, sharing stories of getting up close and personal with homeless people in Vegas and a crack dealer in New York. In the end you’ll hear a wild story of the apple in Vietnam that almost killed him. Enjoy!

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In their new BBC Radio 4 podcast, Drs Chris and Xand are on a mission to help us take better care of ourselves.

Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff approaches global finance with the same strategic foresight that made him a chess grandmaster. Author of the new book Our Dollar, Your Problem, Rogoff doesn't sugarcoat America's future: he foresees a significant inflation shock within a decade, far more severe than the post-COVID bout. When this second wave hits, he warns, "credibility's really going to be shot."

In this conversation, Ken and Tyler tackle international economic dynamics, unresolved macro puzzles, the state of chess, and more, including whether trade deficits are truly unsustainable, why China's investment-heavy growth model has reached its limits, how currency depreciation neutralizes tariff effects, Pakistan’s IMF bailouts, whether more Latin American countries should dollarize, Japan's deceptively peaceful economic decline, Europe's coming fiscal reckoning, how the US will eventually confront its ballooning debt, the puzzling absence of a recession during our recent disinflation, the potential of phasing out large denomination currency notes, the future relevance of stablecoins, whether America should start a CBDC, Argentina's chances under Milei, who will be the next dominant player in chess, hanging out with Bobby Fischer, drawing out against Magnus Carlsen, and how to save classical chess from excessive computer preparation.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded April 2nd, 2025.

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In The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky created his ultimate novel of ideas, with brothers Dmitri, Ivan, and Alyosha pursuing a range of philosophical, theological, and political arguments and questions even as a crime story takes shape. But there’s a shared, perplexing quality of all their grappling with ideas: they tend toward something beyond—beyond the conventions of routine debate and conversation.

The novelist Andrew Martin says in this latest episode of The Cosmic Library's Karamazov season: “This is a fundamental aspect of the Karamazov legacy, this interest in what can’t be said—it’s like in action and bodily things. Somehow that takes the form of both Dmitri’s wild, manic spree, and maybe the other side of the same coin is Alyosha’s desire for religious transcendence.”

In this episode, we think about how the novel's philosophizing goes beyond normal modes. Katherine Bowers describes the novel as “kind of a reaction chamber” to explore the interactions of multiple ideas with multiple people. The Brothers Karamazov, in that sense, shows us thinking and feeling that charge each other up, from person to person, in a process that compels characters just beyond what they can say or comprehend in the usual ways—toward a place beyond reason.

Guests for this season of The Cosmic Library:

Garth Risk Hallberg, author of the novel City on Fire

Andrew Martin, author of the story collection Cool for America

Hearty White, host of Miracle Nutrition on WFMU

Paulina Rowińska, author of Mapmatics

Robin Feuer Miller, professor of Russian literature at Brandeis University and author of The Brothers Karamazov: Worlds of the Novel  

Katherine Bowers, professor of Russian literature at the University of British Columbia and author of Writing Fear: Russian Realism and the Gothic

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The legendary opera star Maria Callas was lauded for her magnetic stage presence and extraordinary vocal range. Born in New York in 1923 to Greek immigrant parents, she moved with her mother and sister to Greece aged 13. In 1939 she attended the Athens Conservatoire where she embarked on a rigorous vocal training in the Italian "bel canto" tradition. After the Second World War she moved to Italy, where she was mentored by the leading conductor Tullio Serafin, and became one of the most celebrated opera stars of the day, making triumphant appearances at La Scala in Milan, Covent Garden in London and the Metropolitan in New York.

Labour MP and former Deputy Prime Minister Harriet Harman is a lifelong fan, who says that despite Callas' tremendous talent and hard work she was unfairly vilified for behaving like a "diva" in the pejorative sense. She says that Callas was one of the first celebrities to get the full "tabloid treatment", and endured prurient press interest in her relationship with the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. We hear from Robert Sutherland, a pianist who accompanied Maria Callas during her world tour in 1973-1974, about their friendship. Joining Harriet and Matthew in the studio is singer, musician, teacher and researcher Nina Horrocks, also known by her stage name Ziazan. She specialises in the "bel canto" technique that Callas trained in, and has a YouTube channel dedicated to the subject called Phantoms of the Opera (https://www.youtube.com/c/PhantomsoftheOpera).

Archive includes:

Presenter: Matthew Parris

Freddie Sayers hosts Michael Ignatieff, former Canadian Liberal leader, to dissect the 2025 Canadian election and Mark Carney’s leadership.

Ignatieff breaks down Carney’s global expertise, his strategy against Trump’s tariffs, and the possibility of a grand coalition with Canada's Conservatives.

While the Liberals narrowly edged out the Right, Ignatieff argues the results reflect a complex mix of liberal resilience, populist setbacks, and converging policies — hinting at a Canada craving change.

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Robert Macfarlane's latest book is his most personal and political yet, asking a question which may sound simple, but which forces the reader to look at rivers in a profoundly different way to simply being matter for human use. In this conversation he takes us from the cloud forest of Ecuador, to the industrially clogged waterways of India before sending us down the white waters of Canada and returning home to the source of a chalk stream near his home. Also telling the stories of three people whose proximity to death is radically altered by their encounters with these rivers, we hope that after listening, your answer to that bold question will be a resounding yes!

Your diet affects your sleep. What foods can help you be your most rested self? Nutrition scientist and researcher Marie-Pierre St-Onge has research-backed tips on which foods to eat — and, spoilers, a lot of them are foods you either have in your fridge already or can work into nearly any recipe.

Note: A previous version of this episode did not state the name of Marie-Pierre St. Onge's book, Eat Better, Sleep Better.

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