Modernism Redux
Will Self broadcasts an imaginary archive of modernist radio and discusses the influence of modernism today. In a secret laboratory underneath the BBC archive there is a small room containing a specia...
4 Feb 201343min
A Brief History of Being Cold
Sunday Feature: Alexandra Harris presents a cultural history of the cold. With the help of writers including Simon Armitage, A.S. Byatt, Katherine Swift and Adam Gopnik Alex looks at the way our liter...
29 Jan 201343min
Tolstoy and Napoleon. 1 - On Napoleon
In 1812 Napoleon led his army to Moscow. In War and Peace Tolstoy gave his account of the great invasion, the battle of Borodino, and the subsequent burning of Moscow. Rosamund Bartlett, translator of...
5 Des 201243min
The Essay: Anglo-Saxon Portraits 1: Vortigern
Barry Cunliffe on the king whom history has often held responsible for inviting in the first Anglo-Saxons. First in a series of portraits of thirty ground-breaking Anglo-Saxon men and women.
15 Okt 201214min
Sunday Feature: After the Gold Rush - The Poetry of California
Californian poetry found fame with The Beats in the 1950s. Dana Gioia reveals developments since - Language, ecological, Hispanic poetry - and before, back to the Gold Rush.
4 Okt 201244min
Piano Tales - A Social History of the Piano
Sunday Feature: Michael Goldfarb explores the development and enduring appeal of the piano across social and geographic divides.
25 Sep 201244min
Jacquetta Hawkes and The Personal Past
Sunday Feature: Jacquetta Hawkes and The Personal Past. Christine Finn excavates clues in the personal and public life of once acclaimed archaeologist and writer, Jacquetta Hawkes, to explain why she ...
13 Sep 201244min
Dr Adam Smith on Britain in the American Civil War
The American Civil War: Blockade Runners and Black Minstrels. What did Britain do in the American Civil War? Louise Welsh investigates blockade running, blackface minstrelsy, spy-wars and abolitionist...
27 Jul 201243min
