Start the Week

Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (on BBC iPlayer) adapted from the final book in Hilary Mantel’s trilogy, and directed by the BAFTA award winner Peter Kosminsky, traces the final four years of Thomas Cromwell’s life. After the execution of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s fixer and royal secretary, Cromwell, continues his climb to power and wealth, becoming the most feared and influential figure of his time. But as the King becomes more irascible and Cromwell’s enemies circle, it’s only a matter of time before he’s brought down.

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham was King James I’s favourite and then Charles I’s confidante and first minister. But he too fell spectacularly from grace, amid political and sexual intrigue. In her biography, Scapegoat, Lucy Hughes-Hallett dramatizes the Duke’s transformation from a young man who traded on his beauty to one with immense wealth and political power.

The late novelist Hilary Mantel compared Cromwell with Boris Johnson’s political advisor Dominic Cummings, another outsider whose political influence spread far and wide. The columnist and Associate Editor at the Financial Times, Stephen Bush, considers the role of today’s fixers and ‘special advisors’; how much power they can wield; and as the political cycle turns, whether their downfall is inevitable.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Sex has become one of the most controversial topics in the history of the Church. But the historian Diarmaid MacCulloch shows in his book, Lower Than the Angels, that in the last 2,500 years Christianity has encompassed a much greater diversity of beliefs, including on homosexuality and the role of women. He argues that far from there being a single Christian theology of sex, there have always been a wide range of readings and attitudes.

In one of the foundational stories of the Bible, in Genesis, Eve is created as an afterthought, from one of Adam’s ribs, to be his companion. The classicist Helen King puts the female body at the centre of her book, Immaculate Forms, and examines the ways in which religion, and medicine, have played a gatekeeping role over women’s bodies.

The prize-winning poet, Ruth Padel, re-imagines the Christian story of the Virgin Mary – a girl in a Primark t-shirt facing a life shaped by divine will. Her new collection, Girl, unravels the myths and icons surrounding girlhood, and also paints a portrait of the Cretan ‘snake goddess’ as she’s unearthed and reshaped at the hands of a male archaeologist.

Presenter: Amanda Vickery is Professor in Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London

Producer: Katy Hickman

The farmer James Rebanks recounts a season he spent on a remote Norwegian island learning the ancient trade of caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down. In The Place of Tides he tells the story of Anna, a ‘duck woman’ who helped revive this centuries-old tradition. As he traces the rough pattern of her work and her relationship with the wild, Rebanks reassess his own relationship with his Lake District farm, his family and home.

Alice Robinson is a designer who has never shied away from the inescapable link between agriculture and luxury fashion. In Field Fork Fashion she looks back at the origins of her chosen material, leather, and traces the full life of Bullock 374 from farm to abattoir, tannery to cutting table. And in retelling this story she asks whether it’s possible to create a more transparent, traceable and sustainable system.

There are many crafts classified as ‘endangered’ in Britain, but one that has had a renaissance in the last 50 years is the ancient tradition of thatching. Protections put in place by Historic England in the 1970s not only kickstarted a thatching revival, but also helped save heritage crop varieties. Andrew Raffle from the National Thatching Association says the relationship with local farmers is vital for the tradition, and there are an estimated 600-900 thatchers working today.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Does ambition have to be seen as corrupting, or like a kind of illness’? These are the questions the business writer Stefan Stern asks in his book, Fair or Foul: the Lady Macbeth Guide to Ambition. He argues that far from the cliché of a scheming wife, Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth demonstrates a more sophisticated understanding of human nature, that could help us navigate the pitfalls of ambition today.

The playwright Zinnie Harris made Lady Macbeth the hero of her adaptation of the classic play last year. But now she’s focused on the figure of The Duchess of Malfi, in a contemporary retelling. Played by the actor Jodie Whittaker, the Duchess defies her family’s wishes and control, and asserts her own desires, with devastating results. The Duchess is on at the Trafalgar Theatre, London until 20th December.

Mary Queen of Scots spent nearly two decades imprisoned under the orders of Elizabeth I. From her chambers she wrote countless letters, many of them in code. Now 400 years after her death a new cache of encrypted letters has been uncovered. Jade Scott, a historian and expert on Mary’s correspondence, brings her captivity to life in Captive Queen: The Decrypted History of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Adam Rutherford gets to grips with the crisis in adult social care and asks, whose responsibility is it to fix it?

David Goodhart, from the Policy Exchange think tank, writes about the huge changes that have been wrought on family life over the past 60 years and how they have impacted the way in which we live and care for each other. In his new book, The Care Dilemma, he argues that we are in desperate need of a new policy settlement that not only supports gender equality, but also recognises the importance of strong family and community bonds, and the traditional role women have played as carers.

Bringing us her own personal story from the frontline of adult social care is Kathryn Faulke. She worked for years in a senior role at the NHS and then became a home care worker. In Every Kind of People she tells the stories of individuals who are part of the system, the cared-for and the carers, and shows how these issues affect us all. This is a story about real lives and real people, revealing the challenges, and the benefits, of working with some of the most vulnerable members of society. Every Kind of People will be Radio 4's Book of the Week, starting on Monday 28th October.

So how can we improve the lives of those who require care and also support the carers themselves? Anna Coote is Principal Fellow at the New Economics Foundation and has written extensively on public health policy, public involvement and gender and equality. She believes in taking practical action to change the way we work and value time and believes in our ability to build a fairer and more sustainable social security system – both for ourselves and for future generations.

Producer: Natalia Fernandez

Yuval Noah Harari’s best-selling Sapiens explored human’s extraordinary progress alongside the capacity to spin stories. In Nexus he focuses on how those stories have been shared and manipulated, and how the flow of information has made, and unmade, our world. With examples from the ancient world, to contemporary democracies and authoritarian regimes, he pits the pursuit of truth against the desire to control the narrative. And warns against the dangers of allowing AI to dominate information networks, leading to the possible end of human history.

The classicist, Professor Edith Hall, looks at how information flowed in Ancient Greece, and how the great libraries of Alexandria and Pergamon were precursors to the World Wide Web. Homer wrote about intelligent machines in his epic poetry, which suggests that the human desire for AI goes back a long way, along with the hubris about being in control. By understanding and appreciating the past, Professor Hall argues we can look more clearly at our current condition.

Madhumita Murgia is the first Artificial Intelligence Editor of the Financial Times and the author of Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI. She investigates the impact AI can have on individual lives and how we interact with each other. And while there are fears that companies have unleashed exploitative technologies with little public oversight, cutting edge software has unprecedented capacity to speed up scientific discoveries.

Producer: Katy Hickman

The prize-winning writer Richard Powers moves from the forests and outer space in his last two novels The Overstory and Bewilderment, to dive into the vast and mysterious ocean in his latest work, Playground. Through the lives of four main characters he explores the ubiquity of play in the natural world, and the role technology is playing in the game of evolution.

The scuba diving philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith concludes his three part exploration of the origins of intelligence, with Living on Earth: Life, Consciousness and the Making of the Natural World. As he looks back at the origins of life and its divergence, he places humans within this 3.8 billion year history, and their shared sentience with other life forms, and weighs their current responsibilities on an evolving planet.

The marine biologist Professor Heather Koldewey takes her responsibilities very seriously, acting to protect the oceans from over-fishing and plastic pollution. One of the world’s leading authorities on seahorses, Koldewey has looked at forming partnerships with others to solve problems, from working with a manufacturer to turn discarded fishing nets into high-end carpets, to creating conservation areas alongside local fishing communities in projects across the Indian Ocean.

Producer: Katy Hickman

The best-selling historian William Dalrymple presents India as the great superpower of ancient times in The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World. He argues that for more than a millennium India art, religions, technology, astronomy, music and mathematics spread far and wide from the Red Sea to the Pacific, and its influence was unprecedented, but now largely forgotten.

China’s significance has long been celebrated and understood, with reference to the ancient trading routes linking the east and west. The historian Susan Whitfield is an expert on the Silk Roads. She talks to Adam Rutherford about the extraordinary discovery of manuscripts in a cave in Dunhuang, in Northern China, which provide a detailed picture of the vibrant religious and cultural life of the town. An exhibition of the manuscripts, A Silk Road Oasis: Life in Ancient Dunhuang, runs at the British Library until 23rd February 2025.

But what of India’s cultural and artistic influence and expression in modern times? Shanay Jhaveri is the new Head of Visual Arts at the Barbican and curator of their new exhibition, The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998 (October 2024 until January 2025). This landmark group show explores the way artists have responded to a period of significant political and social change in India in the 20th century.

Producer: Katy Hickman

‘Professor Risk’ David Spiegelhalter delves into the data and statistics to explore the forces of chance, ignorance and luck in The Art of Uncertainty. Whereas life is uncertain, he shows how far the circumstances of how, when and where you were born have an overriding influence on your future. But he warns against confusing the improbable with the impossible.

The novelist Roddy Doyle returns to the fortunes of one of his iconic characters, Paula Spencer, in his new book, The Woman Behind The Door. Mother, grandmother, widow, addict and survivor Paula Spencer is finally laying the ghosts of the past to rest, but how much is passed on to the next generation?

The historian Eliza Filby is interested in inheritance of a different kind – money and housing. In Inheritocracy: It’s Time to Talk About the Bank of Mum and Dad, she explores the nature of privilege through her own family’s experience. Filby’s grandfather had the lucky fortune of winning a house in a card game and the family went on to become ‘working class accidental millionaires’ who could pass on their fortune to later generations.

Producer: Katy Hickman

The historian Timothy Snyder is famous for his work on the horrors of the 20th century and his call to arms to fight against tyranny in the 21st. Now, in ‘On Freedom’ he explores what liberty really means. He challenges the idea that this is freedom ‘from’ state or other obligations, and explores how across the US, Russia and Ukraine, true liberty is the freedom ‘to’ thrive and take risks.

The Ukrainian poet, Oskana Maksymchuk also considers the question of freedom in her collection, Still City, a book that started as a poetic journal on the eve of the Russian invasion in 2021. The fragmentary poems detail the everyday moments amid the violence and fear and precarity of a country at war.

The Russian Orthodox Church has managed to survive the turbulent history of the country, from tsarist demagoguery to Soviet atheism, and is now free to flourish under Vladimir Putin. But in her new book, The Baton and the Cross, the journalist Lucy Ash reveals how the religion has formed an unholy alliance with politics, state security and big money.

Producer: Katy Hickman