Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the epic poem on the wrath of Achilles in the Trojan War. Read more
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The Iliad
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the epic poem on the wrath of Achilles in the Trojan War.
Automata
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of machines imitating living beings.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the German theologian, killed for plotting against Hitler
Edith Wharton
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Wharton's novels of America's Gilded Age.
Is Shakespeare History? The Plantagenets
Melvyn Bragg discusses the impact of Shakespeare's approach to history (programme 1 of 2)
Is Shakespeare History? The Romans
Melvyn Bragg discusses the impact of Shakespeare's approach to history (programme 2 of 2).
The Fable of the Bees
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mandeville's work on the public benefit of private vices.
Free Radicals
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the molecules linked to cell functioning and ageing
Marie Antoinette
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Austrian princess, guillotined as Queen of France.
Horace
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman poet Horace, who flourished under Augustus.
Hope
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the philosophy of hope - a weakness or a strength?
The Long March
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Red Army's retreat across China, from October 1934
The Thirty Years War
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the devastating war across the Holy Roman Empire 1618-1648
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest poems from medieval England
The Poor Laws
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Poor Law of 1834 and the rise of the workhouse
Venus
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the planet closest to Earth, sometimes called Earth's twin
Papal Infallibility
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that Popes cannot err in exercise of their office
Samuel Beckett
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the playwright and novelist, author of Waiting for Godot
Emmy Noether
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas of one of the great 20th-century mathematicians.
Owain Glyndwr
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the fight for Welsh independence in the early 15th century
Aristotle's Biology
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the scientific study of life, originated by Aristotle.
Judith beheading Holofernes
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how this Bible story has inspired artists for centuries.
Pheromones
A discussion of the chemicals that animals use in order to affect others of their species.
Antarah ibn Shaddad
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry and context of this pre-Islamic Arabian knight
William Cecil
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most powerful man in the court of Elizabeth I.
Authenticity
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what it means to be oneself
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 'the only influential poet of the Victorian age'.
The Danelaw
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Danish impact on England in 9th and 10th centuries.
The Great Irish Famine
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the causes and consequences of the Famine of 1845-49.
The Evolution of Teeth
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how teeth evolved in our toothless ancestors - and why.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's comedy, one of his most popular plays
Nero
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most notorious rulers of ancient Rome.
The Gordon Riots
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the causes of the violence of June 1780 and repercussions.
Bergson and Time
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Henri Bergson's ideas about our experience of time passing
Frankenstein
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mary Shelley's Gothic story of a monster brought to life
Kinetic Theory
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how we know gas molecules move rather than keep still.
President Ulysses S Grant
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Grant's role in reconstructing the USA after the Civil War
Sir Thomas Browne
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the physician with a curious mind in dangerous times
The Inca
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the advanced Andean empire, dominant until Pizarro arrived
The Mytilenaean Debate
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Athenians' change of mind in the Peloponnesian War.
Doggerland
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Stone Age human habitats now covered by the North Sea.
Lorca
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Spanish poet and playwright's work, life and death.
Echolocation (Summer Repeat)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how some animals sense their world with sound not sight.
Frederick Douglass (Summer Repeat)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of Frederick Douglass, born to slavery
Edith Wharton (Summer Repeat)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Wharton's novels of America's Gilded Age
Venus (Summer Repeat)
Hope (Summer Repeat)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Summer Repeat)
Emmy Noether (Summer Repeat)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas of one of the great 20th-century mathematicians
Augustine's Confessions (Summer Repeat)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss St Augustine's account of his conversion to Christianity
Picasso's Guernica (Summer Repeat)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the events behind and impact of Picasso's iconic work
Free Will (Summer Repeat)
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss free will.
Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why Napoleon's apparent victory turned to defeat in 1812.
The Rapture
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that believers will vanish from the world.
Dorothy Hodgkin
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Rousseau on Education
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ideas on the education of children
The Time Machine
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the science and ideas in HG Wells' story of time travel.
Robert Burns
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry, ideas and life of Robert Burns (1759-1796).
Hybrids
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how parents from different species can reproduce
The Treaty of Limerick
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the treaty ending the Williamite War in Ireland in 1691
Crime and Punishment
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Dostoevsky's novel. The hero thinks he's above the law....
Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most powerful woman in the C12th Kingdom of Jerusalem
Li Shizhen
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the heights of medical knowledge under the Ming dynasty
Lawrence of Arabia
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Lawrence of Arabia for this year's Listener Week