Bacteriophages
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most abundant lifeform on Earth: the viruses that 'eat' bacteria. Early in the 20th century, scientists noticed that something in their Petri dishes was making ba...
1 Aug 202450min
Monet in England
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work of the great French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926) in London, initially in 1870 and then from 1899. He spent his first visit in poverty, escaping from ...
25 Jul 202450min
Karma
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the doctrine of Karma as developed initially among Hindus, Jains and Buddhists in India from the first millennium BCE. Common to each is an idea, broadly, that you rea...
18 Jul 202450min
Fielding's Tom Jones
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss "The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling" (1749) by Henry Fielding (1707-1754), one of the most influential of the early English novels and a favourite of Dickens. Coleri...
11 Jul 202454min
The Orkneyinga Saga
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Saga of the Earls of Orkney, as told in the 13th Century by an unknown Icelander. This was the story of arguably the most important, strategically, of all the islan...
4 Jul 202451min
Marsilius of Padua
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the canonical figures from the history of political thought. Marsilius of Padua (c1275 to c1343) wrote 'Defensor Pacis' (The Defender of the Peace) around 1324 w...
27 Jun 202456min
Empress Dowager Cixi
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the woman who, for almost fifty years, was the most powerful figure in the Chinese court. Cixi (1835-1908) started out at court as one of the Emperor's many concubines...
20 Jun 202450min
Philippa Foot
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most significant philosophers of the twentieth century, Philippa Foot (1920 - 2010). Her central question was, “Why be moral?” Drawing on Aristotle and Aq...
13 Jun 202458min
