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IN OUR TIME
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PROGRAMME INFO |
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The big ideas which form the intellectual agenda of our age are illuminated by some of the best minds in the world. Melvyn Bragg and three guests investigate the history of ideas and debate their application in modern life. |
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LISTEN AGAIN |
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PRESENTER |
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BIOGRAPHY |
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| "I'm fascinated by the fact that we live in a time when so many people are doing fantastic work, and thinking in areas which it's not remotely possible for me to keep up with & and these people are prepared to talk about it. They're prepared to come on In Our Time and other programmes on Radio 4 and try and talk to the rest of us ..." |
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LATEST PROGRAMME |
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A HISTORY OF DRUGS
Throughout history people have taken drugs to alter their perceptions and change their moods. The attractions lie in the promise of instant pleasure and the possibility of heightened perceptions. Nietzche said that no art could exist without intoxication and believed that a dream-like state was an essential precondition to superior vision and understanding.
But artists and writers from De Quincey to Coleridge to Huxley have found drugs to be both a creative and a destructive force in their lives and work. Coleridge said in his poem about opium:
Fantastic Passions! Maddening Brawl!
And shame and terror over all!
The world of drugs is a topsy-turvy world of ambivalence and paradox: a world of clarity and confusion; stimulation and stupefaction; medicine and poison; vitality and death.
Can drugs really stimulate creativity? What is the impact of drugs on the body? And what role have narcotics and stimulants played in the history of medicine?
Guests
Richard Davenport-Hines
Historian and author of The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics, Phoenix Press
Sadie Plant
Author of Writing on Drugs, Faber and Faber
Mike Jay
Historian and author of Emperors of Dreams, Drugs in the Nineteenth Century, Dedalus Ltd
Next programme: The Grand Tour
In the 18th century it was fashionable for the younger members of the aristocracy to go on an extensive tour of Europe. On these journeys, which took up to three years, the travellers were introduced to the wonders of Rome, the glories of ancient civilisation and the refined customs of their gentlemen counterparts abroad. The primary purpose of travel was education - notions of enjoyment and leisure only entered at a relatively late stage. Discussing the origins of tourism and the impact of these travels on British ideas about art and culture will be Jeremy Black, Edward Chaney and Chloe Chard.
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