BeethovenBeethoven

In Our Time

Hamlet

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's best known, longest and most quoted play.

43 mins

In Our Time

The Siege of Malta, 1565

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Ottoman attack on the Knights Hospitaller in Malta.

43 mins

In Our Time

Anna Akhmatova

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of the celebrated Russian poet.

43 mins

In Our Time

Cicero

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the political philosophy of Marcus Tullius Cicero.

43 mins

In Our Time

Cephalopods

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the biology of squid, octopus, cuttlefish and nautilus.

43 mins

In Our Time

Frederick Douglass

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of Frederick Douglass, born to slavery.

43 mins

In Our Time

Fungi

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss fungi.

43 mins

In Our Time

Rosalind Franklin

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering scientist Rosalind Franklin.

43 mins

In Our Time

Sun Tzu and The Art of War

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential ancient Chinese work on military strategy.

43 mins

In Our Time

The Highland Clearances

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss evictions and migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries.

43 mins

In Our Time

Augustine's Confessions

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss St Augustine's account of his conversion to Christianity.

43 mins

In Our Time

Tocqueville: Democracy in America

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexis de Tocqueville's analysis of American democracy.

43 mins

In Our Time

Hildegard of Bingen (Repeat)

With no new programme scheduled today, here's Hildegard of Bingen (Rpt)

45 mins

In Our Time

Roman Slavery

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the relationship between slavery and the power of Rome.

43 mins

In Our Time

George and Robert Stephenson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George and Robert Stephenson and the birth of railways.

43 mins

In Our Time

Middlemarch

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Eliot's greatest novel, published 1871-72.

43 mins

In Our Time

The Proton

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Proton, found in the nuclei of all elements.

43 mins

In Our Time

The Almoravid Empire

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great empires of the Islamic west.

43 mins

In Our Time

The Mabinogion

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the medieval Welsh stories of Celtic mythology.

43 mins

In Our Time

The Emancipation of the Serfs

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the freeing of a third of Russians from serfdom in 1861.

43 mins

In Our Time

Margaret of Anjou

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Queen of England at the start of the Wars of the Roses

43 mins

In Our Time

Henrik Ibsen

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the playwright and his tragedies of middle-class life.

43 mins

In Our Time

Persepolis

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Achaemenid Empire's great ceremonial capital.

43 mins

In Our Time

Montesquieu

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss republicanism, despotism and the separation of powers.

43 mins

In Our Time

Echolocation

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how some animals sense their world with sound not sight.

43 mins

In Our Time

The Mexican-American War

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1846-48 war that cost Mexico half its territory.

43 mins

In Our Time

William Morris

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a great cultural figure of the 19th century.

43 mins

In Our Time

Jane Eyre (Summer Repeat)

Charlotte Brontë's story of Jane Eyre, governess, and Mr Rochester, master of Thornfield

46 mins

In Our Time

The Science of Glass (Summer Repeat)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the liquid qualities of brittle glass

46 mins

In Our Time

Four Quartets (Summer Repeat)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss TS Eliot's Four Quartets, known as his great last work

49 mins

In Our Time

The 12th Century Renaissance (Summer Repeat)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a period of great change in Western Europe

49 mins

In Our Time

The Gin Craze (Summer Repeat)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the cause and impact of the gin craze in the 18th Century

52 mins

In Our Time

Circadian Rhythms (Summer Repeat)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss our body clocks

48 mins

In Our Time

Margery Kempe and English Mysticism (Summer Repeat)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Margery Kempe, the medieval English mystic.

45 mins

In Our Time

Robert Hooke (Summer Repeat)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the scientist Robert Hooke

48 mins

In Our Time

Hannah Arendt (Summer Repeat)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas of Hannah Arendt, political philosopher

47 mins

In Our Time

The Iliad

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the epic poem on the wrath of Achilles in the Trojan War.

43 mins

In Our Time

Automata

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of machines imitating living beings.

42 mins

In Our Time

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the German theologian, killed for plotting against Hitler

42 mins

In Our Time

Edith Wharton

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Wharton's novels of America's Gilded Age.

42 mins

In Our Time

Is Shakespeare History? The Plantagenets

Melvyn Bragg discusses the impact of Shakespeare's approach to history (programme 1 of 2)

42 mins

In Our Time

Is Shakespeare History? The Romans

Melvyn Bragg discusses the impact of Shakespeare's approach to history (programme 2 of 2).

42 mins

In Our Time

The Fable of the Bees

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mandeville's work on the public benefit of private vices.

42 mins

In Our Time

Free Radicals

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the molecules linked to cell functioning and ageing

42 mins

In Our Time

Marie Antoinette

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Austrian princess, guillotined as Queen of France.

49 mins

In Our Time

Horace

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman poet Horace, who flourished under Augustus.

48 mins

In Our Time

Hope

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the philosophy of hope - a weakness or a strength?

53 mins

In Our Time

The Long March

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Red Army's retreat across China, from October 1934

50 mins

In Our Time

The Thirty Years War

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the devastating war across the Holy Roman Empire 1618-1648

50 mins

In Our Time

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest poems from medieval England

51 mins

In Our Time

The Poor Laws

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Poor Law of 1834 and the rise of the workhouse

50 mins

In Our Time

Venus

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the planet closest to Earth, sometimes called Earth's twin

50 mins

In Our Time

Papal Infallibility

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that Popes cannot err in exercise of their office

51 mins

In Our Time

Samuel Beckett

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the playwright and novelist, author of Waiting for Godot

48 mins

In Our Time

Emmy Noether

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas of one of the great 20th-century mathematicians.

48 mins

In Our Time

Owain Glyndwr

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the fight for Welsh independence in the early 15th century

48 mins

In Our Time

Aristotle's Biology

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the scientific study of life, originated by Aristotle.

50 mins

In Our Time

Judith beheading Holofernes

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how this Bible story has inspired artists for centuries.

49 mins

In Our Time

Pheromones

A discussion of the chemicals that animals use in order to affect others of their species.

49 mins

In Our Time

Antarah ibn Shaddad

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry and context of this pre-Islamic Arabian knight

49 mins

In Our Time

William Cecil

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most powerful man in the court of Elizabeth I.

51 mins

In Our Time

Authenticity

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what it means to be oneself

50 mins

In Our Time

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 'the only influential poet of the Victorian age'.

47 mins

In Our Time

The Danelaw

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Danish impact on England in 9th and 10th centuries.

50 mins

In Our Time

The Great Irish Famine

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the causes and consequences of the Famine of 1845-49.

57 mins

In Our Time

The Evolution of Teeth

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how teeth evolved in our toothless ancestors - and why.

49 mins

In Our Time

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's comedy, one of his most popular plays

54 mins

In Our Time

Nero

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most notorious rulers of ancient Rome.

51 mins

In Our Time

The Gordon Riots

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the causes of the violence of June 1780 and repercussions.

50 mins

In Our Time

Bergson and Time

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Henri Bergson's ideas about our experience of time passing

51 mins

In Our Time

Frankenstein

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mary Shelley's Gothic story of a monster brought to life

55 mins

In Our Time

Kinetic Theory

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how we know gas molecules move rather than keep still.

51 mins

In Our Time

President Ulysses S Grant

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Grant's role in reconstructing the USA after the Civil War

55 mins

In Our Time

Sir Thomas Browne

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the physician with a curious mind in dangerous times

52 mins

In Our Time

The Inca

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the advanced Andean empire, dominant until Pizarro arrived

52 mins

In Our Time

The Mytilenaean Debate

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Athenians' change of mind in the Peloponnesian War.

54 mins

Stonewall: The Riots That Triggered the Gay Revolution

Tom Robinson examines the legacy of the Stonewall protests for the gay community.

60 mins

The Documentary Podcast

Training to save the treasures of Iraq

Eight female archaeologists from Mosul travel to London to train with the British Museum

51 mins

Pete Wilson

Newent Church

Pete Wilson explores the characters and communities that make Gloucestershire great.

60 mins

Witness History

The fat acceptance movement

The National Association to Aid Fat Americans, NAAFA, held its first meeting in June 1969

9 mins

Noise: A Human History

Shell Shock

Soldiers in WW1 experienced a sonic onslaught. Prof Hendy considers life under bombardment

15 mins