Misha Glenny and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.
Radio 4,·1103 episodes
How the cult of personality around this German WWI figurehead helped usher in Hitler.
22 May 2025,·52 mins
The evolution of copyright.
15 May 2025,·60 mins
The Austrian-Jewish physicist who, in 1938, solved the question of nuclear fission.
08 May 2025,·57 mins
How Korea embraced modernisation at the end of the 19th Century in a bid for independence.
01 May 2025,·47 mins
The great French playwright and comic actor who flourished at the court of Louis XIV.
24 Apr 2025,·51 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss biblical typology.
17 Apr 2025,·50 mins
Brian Boru's celebrated defeat of Hiberno-Norse forces and allies outside Dublin in 1014.
10 Apr 2025,·51 mins
Why two brothers became linked to the fall of the Roman Republic and rise of the emperors.
03 Apr 2025,·49 mins
Insights into the relationship between the body and the mind, habits, language and thought
27 Mar 2025,·59 mins
The prolific and versatile Jacobean playwright tasked with 'improving' some of Shakespeare
20 Mar 2025,·56 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great.
13 Mar 2025,·50 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the interplay between plants and pollinators.
06 Mar 2025,·50 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss this Hindu goddess in her many remarkable forms
27 Feb 2025,·57 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss this influential and prolific 18th-century Irish writer.
20 Feb 2025,·54 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the woman so important that two Tudor royals married her.
13 Feb 2025,·52 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential English architect John Soane.
06 Feb 2025,·53 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the legend of Pope Joan.
30 Jan 2025,·46 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the inspiring last days of the great Athenian philosopher.
23 Jan 2025,·50 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the day in 1792 when the French Revolution risked defeat.
16 Jan 2025,·47 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable world of slime mould.
02 Jan 2025,·51 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the eighteenth century mania for classical vases.
26 Dec 2024,·56 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential Greek biographer and his main work
19 Dec 2024,·56 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas about where life may begin in the universe and how.
12 Dec 2024,·52 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great 12th-century Persian epic romantic poet.
05 Dec 2024,·52 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the politics that led to the coronation of George I.
28 Nov 2024,·50 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential 20th-century Italian novelist and essayist
21 Nov 2024,·48 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the mysterious ancient Greek astronomical computer.
14 Nov 2024,·50 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss arguably the greatest devotional poem writer in English.
07 Nov 2024,·52 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rise and eventual decline of the Venetian Empire.
31 Oct 2024,·51 mins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Louisa May Alcott's influential story of the March sisters
24 Oct 2024,·48 mins
