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In Our Time

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.

Radio 4,1063 episodes

Episodes

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Pollination
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the interplay between plants and pollinators.
06 Mar 2025,50 mins
Kali
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss this Hindu goddess in her many remarkable forms
27 Feb 2025,57 mins
Oliver Goldsmith
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss this influential and prolific 18th-century Irish writer.
20 Feb 2025,54 mins
Catherine of Aragon
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the woman so important that two Tudor royals married her.
13 Feb 2025,52 mins
Sir John Soane
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential English architect John Soane.
06 Feb 2025,53 mins
Pope Joan
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the legend of Pope Joan.
30 Jan 2025,46 mins
Socrates in Prison
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the inspiring last days of the great Athenian philosopher.
23 Jan 2025,50 mins
The Battle of Valmy
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the day in 1792 when the French Revolution risked defeat.
16 Jan 2025,47 mins
Slime Moulds
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable world of slime mould.
02 Jan 2025,51 mins
Vase-mania
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the eighteenth century mania for classical vases.
26 Dec 2024,56 mins
Plutarch's Parallel Lives
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential Greek biographer and his main work
19 Dec 2024,56 mins
The Habitability of Planets
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas about where life may begin in the universe and how.
12 Dec 2024,52 mins
Nizami Ganjavi
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great 12th-century Persian epic romantic poet.
05 Dec 2024,52 mins
The Hanoverian Succession
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the politics that led to the coronation of George I.
28 Nov 2024,50 mins
Italo Calvino
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential 20th-century Italian novelist and essayist
21 Nov 2024,48 mins
The Antikythera Mechanism
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the mysterious ancient Greek astronomical computer.
14 Nov 2024,50 mins
George Herbert
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss arguably the greatest devotional poem writer in English.
07 Nov 2024,52 mins
The Venetian Empire
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rise and eventual decline of the Venetian Empire.
31 Oct 2024,51 mins
Little Women
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Louisa May Alcott's influential story of the March sisters
24 Oct 2024,48 mins
Hayek's The Road to Serfdom
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Hayek's ideas on a state-planned economy's link to tyranny
17 Oct 2024,50 mins
Robert Graves
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the fine poet of love and war and author of I, Claudius.
10 Oct 2024,54 mins
The Haymarket Affair
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1886 bombing in Chicago amid violent labour conflict.
03 Oct 2024,51 mins
Wormholes
Melvyn Bragg and guests test the idea that there are shortcuts between distant galaxies.
26 Sep 2024,60 mins
Benjamin Disraeli
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most prominent Victorian politicians.
19 Sep 2024,51 mins
Bacteriophages
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how viruses can help us track and cure bacterial illnesses
04 Jul 2024,50 mins
Monet in England
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Claude Monet's fascination with the foggy Thames.
27 Jun 2024,50 mins
Karma
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the doctrine on how you answer for your own actions.
20 Jun 2024,50 mins
Fielding's Tom Jones
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great English comic novels.
13 Jun 2024,54 mins
The Orkneyinga Saga
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Saga of the Earls of Orkney up to the 13th century.
06 Jun 2024,51 mins
Marsilius of Padua
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great figures in the history of political ideas
30 May 2024,56 mins

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