Podcast Episodes

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Melvyn Bragg and guests David Bradshaw, Daniel Pick and Michele Barrett discuss Aldous Huxley's dystopian 1932 novel, Brave New World.

In Act V Scene I of Shakespeare's The Tempest, the character Mir…

Published on 16 years, 8 months ago

Baconian Science

Patricia Fara, Stephen Pumfrey and Rhodri Lewis join Melvyn Bragg to discuss the Jacobean lawyer, political fixer and alleged founder of modern science Francis Bacon.In the introduction to Thomas Spr…

Published on 16 years, 8 months ago

The School of Athens

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The School of Athens – the fresco painted by the Italian Renaissance painter, Raphael, for Pope Julius II’s private library in the Vatican. The fresco depicts some of…

Published on 16 years, 8 months ago

The Boxer Rebellion

In the hot summer of 1900, Peking, the capital of China, was under heavy siege. But the surrounding forces were not foreign, they were Chinese. This was the Boxer Rebellion, the moment when the 'Soci…

Published on 16 years, 9 months ago

The Library of Alexandria

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Library at Alexandria. Founded by King Ptolemy in the 3rd century BC the library was the first attempt to collect all the knowledge of the ancient world in one pla…

Published on 16 years, 9 months ago

The Measurement Problem in Physics

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the deepest problems in contemporary physics. It’s called the measurement problem and it emerged from the flurry of activity in the early 20th century that gave…

Published on 16 years, 9 months ago

The Waste Land and Modernity

Melvyn Bragg and guests, including Steve Connor and Lawrence Rainey, discuss TS Eliot's seminal poem The Waste Land and its ambivalence to the modern world of technology, democracy and capitalism tha…

Published on 16 years, 9 months ago

The Observatory at Jaipur

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Observatory in Jaipur with its vast and beautiful instruments built to make astronomical measurements of the stars. Commissioned in the early 18th century by the R…

Published on 16 years, 10 months ago

Carthage's Destruction

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Destruction of Carthage. The North African city of Carthage was rich and powerful, but in the second century BC it suffered a terrible fate. The Greek historian Ap…

Published on 16 years, 10 months ago

The Brothers Grimm

Melvyn Bragg discusses the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm with Juliette Wood, Marina Warner and Tony Phelan. The German siblings who in 1812 published a collection of fairy tales including Rapunze…

Published on 16 years, 10 months ago