Parachuting monkeys & volcanic eruptions: an extraordinary Victorian zoo
With parachuting monkeys, volcanic eruptions and performances of Beethoven’s symphonies, Surrey Zoo was no ordinary Victorian attraction. Dr Joanne Cormac joins Rob Attar to discuss the story of this ...
17 Tammi 202324min
Curious cures for medieval maladies
If you feel unwell today you can pick up a prescription or head to a medical centre, but how did ill people treat their ailments in the Middle Ages? A major new project at Cambridge University Library...
16 Tammi 202346min
Jane Austen’s England: everything you wanted to know
What was society’s attitude towards female writers in Regency England? How far did class affect the hopes of young couples looking to be wed? And did people really spend all day gossiping about grand ...
15 Tammi 202337min
Veggie Victorians
In the 19th century, Britain imagined itself as a bastion of beef-eating carnivores. But at a time when meat consumption was taken as a signifier of personal heartiness and national prosperity, a rebe...
13 Tammi 202343min
An environmental history of big business
As part of our series of conversations with winners of the 2022 Dan David Prize, Dr Bart Elmore discusses his research into the environmental impacts of global capitalism through history with Helen Ca...
12 Tammi 202333min
Tools, temples & tower blocks: how wood has shaped human history
For millennia, humans have cut down trees to create buildings, ships, tools, weapons and everyday objects we still use around the home. Author and archaeologist Max Adams tells Jon Bauckham what study...
11 Tammi 202342min
Weaponising food in the Third Reich
In Hitler’s Germany, what you ate was not a personal matter – sacrificing luxury was a way for German citizens to demonstrate their patriotism, while hunger was weaponised as a tool of war and oppress...
10 Tammi 202335min
“A serial killer of civilisations”: a history of climate change
From the Justinian plague to the fall of the Maya, climate change has been connected to many of history’s great catastrophes. Environmental journalist Eugene Linden speaks to Rhiannon Davies about the...
9 Tammi 202333min
