94. Silicon Valley Part 2

“Liberté, égalité, fraternité!” Alongside violence, the French Revolution is a story of principles and values. It is the ultimate intersection of brutality and Enlightenment idealism, as epitomised b...

5 Aug 202458min

“It was violence that made the revolution revolutionary”. The storming of the Bastille is viewed by many across the world as a moment of celebration, when the French people were liberated from the sh...

4 Aug 202459min

In the summer of 1788, a monstrous storm swept across France, wiping out the crucial wheat harvest. With the nation already in the throes of political and financial calamity, this meteorological disas...

1 Aug 20241h 8min

With seismic antecedents such as the Glorious Revolution in England and the American War of Independence, what was it about the French Revolution that saw it become arguably the most important episode...

31 Juli 20241h

In August 1785 a shocking affair came to light which would prove so detrimental to the reputation and standing of the French King Louis XVI, and more especially his already unpopular wife, Queen Marie...

29 Juli 202451min

The French Revolution is one of the great seismic events of global history. A devouring conflagration of bloodshed, violence and utopianism, it changed France and then latterly the whole of Europe for...

28 Juli 202455min

“The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime” In the early days of August 1914, the British press has become increasingly vocal about the prospect of war b...

25 Juli 20241h 7min

“We have been forced to draw the sword”. Following the expiry of Austria’s Ultimatum on Saturday 25th July 1914, the Kaiser and the Tsar - friends and cousins, long desirous of peace between their two...

24 Juli 202455min