Influencing History
Arts & Ideas5 Joulu 2025

Influencing History

Do individuals or broader forces shape history? In the 2025 Reith lectures on BBC Radio 4, Rutger Bregman argues that small groups of individuals can have an outsize influence and he looks to examples in history from suffragism to the ending of slavery. In the Free Thinking studio for Radio 4's round-table discussion about the history of ideas, Matthew Sweet is joined by:

Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer prize winning historian and author of Autocracy Inc, which looks at the networks linking powerful people in our world Jake Subryan Richards, New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and AHRC which puts research on radio. His new book is The Bonds of Freedom: Liberated Africans and the End of the Slave Trade Selina Todd, historian and author of The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class Clare Jackson, historian of seventeenth century Britain, whose latest book is Mirror of Great Britain: A Life of James VI & I Rupert Read, philosopher, climate advocate and co author of Transformative Adaptation and The Climate Majority Project

Producer: Eliane Glaser

Jaksot(2000)

WOLVES

WOLVES

Wolves were once hunted and persecuted to the point of near extinction but are now enjoying a come back across Europe, if not the UK. What can explain the way they've been targeted, and even demonised...

23 Touko 202556min

Political Visions

Political Visions

What is the role of vision in politics? Must politicians have a vision of what kind of society they’re working towards, ultimately? What kind of role does this vision play in the day-to-day practice o...

16 Touko 202556min

Peace

Peace

On the 8th May 1945, the Allies declared victory over Nazi Germany. How has war and the threat of war shaped society in the intervening years? Do 'war' and 'peace' mean the same things, 80 years on? M...

9 Touko 202556min

Community

Community

Post local elections and pre VE day anniversary events across the UK, Shahidha Bari explores ideas about community. Mike Savage, Professor of Sociology at the LSE, explains how social capital enables ...

2 Touko 202556min

Decadence

Decadence

Some people think we live in an age of decline. Matthew Sweet investigates, with guests including political journalist Tim Stanley, art critic Louisa Buck, Professor Jane Desmarais who is head of the ...

25 Huhti 202556min

The Middle Classes

The Middle Classes

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss the impact of the shifting geo political and economic trends on the British class system with specialist guests. Muriel Zagha is a writer and critic and Author of Find...

28 Maalis 202556min

Isolation

Isolation

As Radio 4 marks the 5th anniversary of the first COVID lockdown, Free Thinking investigates one of the defining experiences of that period for many people: isolation. It's a word that entered the Eng...

21 Maalis 202556min

Evidence

Evidence

Matthew Sweet and his guests discuss our shifting relationship with evidence from the law, to science, academic study and the paranormal. He's joined by Uncanny TV presenter Danny Robins, the former S...

14 Maalis 202557min

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