List of In Our Time programmes

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In Our Time is a radio discussion programme exploring a wide variety of historical, scientific, cultural, religious and philosophical topics, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the United Kingdom since 1998 and hosted by Melvyn Bragg until 03 July 2025, [1] and Misha Glenny as of January 2026. [2] All episodes are available to download as individual podcasts.[3]

Programmes

[edit]

1998–1999

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors and positions held at time of broadcast
15 October 1998War in the 20th Century
22 October 1998Politics in the 20th Century
29 October 1998Science's Revelations
5 November 1998Science in the 20th century
12 November 1998The City in the 20th Century
19 November 1998The Brain and Consciousness
26 November 1998Work in the 20th Century
3 December 1998History's relevance in the 20th century
  • Simon Schama, Old Dominion Professor of Humanities, Columbia University in New York and currently filming a 16-part series for BBC Television on the history of Britain
  • Lady Antonia Fraser, historian, writer and author of biographies of Mary Queen of Scots, Cromwell and Charles II
10 December 1998Cultural rights in the 20th Century
17 December 1998The American Century
24 December 1998Neuroscience in the 20th Century
31 December 1998The British Empire's Legacy
7 January 1999Feminism
14 January 1999Genetic Engineering
21 January 1999Modern Culture
28 January 1999Ageing
4 February 1999Psychoanalysis and its Legacy
11 February 1999Language and the Mind
18 February 1999Space in Religion and Science
25 February 1999The Avant Garde's Decline and Fall in the 20th Century
4 March 1999Shakespeare and Literary Criticism
11 March 1999History as Science
18 March 1999Animal Experiments and Rights
25 March 1999Architecture in the 20th Century
1 April 1999Good and Evil
8 April 1999Writing and Political Oppression
15 April 1999Evolution
22 April 1999Fundamentalism
29 April 1999Artificial Intelligence
  • Igor Aleksander, professor, Imperial College London and inventor of Magnus – a neural computer which he says is an artificially conscious machine
  • John Searle, Professor of Philosophy, University of California and one of only two people in the world to invent an argument, the Chinese Room Argument, which destroys the plausibility of the idea of conscious machines
6 May 1999Mathematics
13 May 1999Multiculturalism
20 May 1999The Universe's Origins
27 May 1999Memory and Culture
3 June 1999Just War
10 June 1999The Monarchy
17 June 1999The Great Disruption
24 June 1999Capitalism
1 July 1999Intelligence
8 July 1999Africa
15 July 1999Truth, Lies and fiction
  • Elena Lappin, novelist and author of an investigative essay published in Granta called "Truth and Lies", where she questions the veracity of the account of the Holocaust in the book Fragments by Binjamin Wilkomirski
  • Nick Groom, lecturer in English, University of Exeter
22 July 1999Pain

1999–2000

[edit]

From 6 April 2000, with the discussion on "The Natural Order", the programme moved from 30 minutes to a 45-minute format.

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
23 September 1999Genetic Determinism
30 September 1999Maths and Storytelling
7 October 1999Utopia
14 October 1999The Nation State
21 October 1999The Individual
28 October 1999Atrocity in the 20th Century
4 November 1999Education
11 November 1999The Novel
18 November 1999Progress
25 November 1999Consciousness
2 December 1999Tragedy
9 December 1999Childhood
16 December 1999Medical Ethics
23 December 1999Prayer
30 December 1999Time
6 January 2000Climate change
13 January 2000Information Technology
  • Charles Leadbeater, Demos Research Associate and author of Living on Thin Air: The New Economy
  • Ian Angell, Professor of Information Systems, London School of Economics and author of The New Barbarian Manifesto: How to Survive the Information Age
20 January 2000Masculinity in Literature
27 January 2000Economic Rights
3 February 2000Republicanism
  • Sarah Barber, lecturer in the Department of History, Lancaster University and author of Regicide and Republicanism: Politics and Ethics in the English Revolution 1646–1659
  • Andrew Roberts, historian, journalist, conservative thinker and author of Salisbury: Victorian Titan
10 February 2000Goethe and the Science of the Enlightenment
17 February 2000Reading
24 February 2000Grand Unified Theory
2 March 2000Metamorphosis
9 March 2000The Age of Doubt
  • A. N. Wilson, novelist, biographer, journalist and author of God's Funeral
  • Victoria Glendinning, author, journalist and biographer of Anthony Trollope and Jonathan Swift
16 March 2000Lenin
23 March 2000Materialism and the Consumer
30 March 2000History and Understanding the Past
6 April 2000The Natural Order
  • Colin Tudge, writer, scientist and author of The Variety of Life: A Survey and a Celebration of all the Creatures that Have Ever Lived
  • Sandy Knapp, Research Botanist, Department of Botany, Natural History Museum, London
  • Henry Gee, Senior Editor of Nature and author of Deep Time: Cladistics, the Revolution in Evolution
13 April 2000New Wars
20 April 2000Englishness
27 April 2000Human Origins
4 May 2000Death
11 May 2000Shakespeare's Work
18 May 2000The Wars of the Roses
25 May 2000Chemical elements
1 June 2000The American Ideal
8 June 2000The Renaissance
15 June 2000Inspiration and Genius
22 June 2000Biography
29 June 2000Imagination and Consciousness

2000–2001

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
28 September 2000London
5 October 2000Hitler in History
12 October 2000The Romantics
19 October 2000Laws of Nature
26 October 2000The Tudor State
2 November 2000Evolutionary Psychology
9 November 2000Psychoanalysis and Literature
16 November 2000Nihilism
4 January 2001Gothic
11 January 2001Mathematics and Platonism
18 January 2001The Enlightenment in Britain
25 January 2001Science and Religion
1 February 2001Imperial Science
8 February 2001Humanism
15 February 2001The Restoration
22 February 2001Quantum Gravity
1 March 2001Money
15 March 2001Shakespeare's Life
22 March 2001Fossils
29 March 2001The Philosophy of Love
5 April 2001The Roman Empire's Collapse in the 5th century
12 April 2001Black Holes
19 April 2001The Glorious Revolution
26 April 2001Literary Modernism
3 May 2001Evil
14 June 2001The French Revolution's Legacy
21 June 2001The Sonnet
28 June 2001Existentialism
5 July 2001The Earth's Origins
12 July 2001Dickens
19 July 2001Byzantium

2001–2002

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
18 October 2001Democracy
25 October 2001Napoleon and Wellington
1 November 2001Confucius
8 November 2001The British Empire
15 November 2001Surrealism
22 November 2001Oceanography
29 November 2001Third Crusade
6 December 2001Oscar Wilde
13 December 2001Genetics
20 December 2001Rome and European Civilization
27 December 2001Food
3 January 2002Sensibility
10 January 2002Nuclear Physics
17 January 2002Catharism
24 January 2002Happiness
31 January 2002Yeats and Mysticism
7 February 2002The Universe's Shape
14 February 2002Anatomy
  • Harold Ellis, Clinical Anatomist, School of Biomedical Sciences, King's College, London
  • Ruth Richardson, historian and author of Death, Dissection and the Destitute, Phoenix Press
  • Andrew Cunningham, Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in the History of Medicine, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University
21 February 2002The Celts
28 February 2002Virtue
7 March 2002Milton
14 March 2002The Buddha
21 March 2002Marriage
28 March 2002The Artist
4 April 2002Extra Terrestrials
11 April 2002Bohemia
25 April 2002Tolstoy
2 May 2002The Physics of Reality
9 May 2002The Examined Life
16 May 2002Chaos Theory
23 May 2002Drugs
  • Richard Davenport-Hines, historian and author of The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics
  • Sadie Plant, author of Writing on Drugs
  • Mike Jay, historian and author of Emperors of Dreams: Drugs in the Nineteenth Century
30 May 2002The Grand Tour
6 June 2002The Soul
13 June 2002The American West
20 June 2002Wagner
27 June 2002Cultural Imperialism
4 July 2002Freedom
11 July 2002Psychoanalysis and democracy
18 July 2002Heritage

2002–2003

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
17 October 2002Slavery and Empire
24 October 2002The Scientist
31 October 2002Architecture and Power
7 November 2002Human Nature
14 November 2002Victorian Realism
21 November 2002Muslim Spain
  • Tim Winter, a convert to Islam and lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University
  • Martin Palmer, Anglican lay preacher and theologian and author of The Sacred History of Britain
  • Mehri Niknam, executive director of the Maimonides Foundation, a joint Jewish-Muslim Interfaith Foundation in London
28 November 2002Imagination
5 December 2002The Enlightenment in Scotland
12 December 2002Man and Disease
19 December 2002The Calendar
6 February 2003The Epic
13 February 2003Chance and Design
20 February 2003The Lindisfarne Gospels
  • Richard Gameson, Reader in Medieval History at Kent University and editor of St Augustine and the Conversion of England
  • Clare Lees, Professor of Medieval Literature at King's College London and author of Tradition and Belief: Religious Writing in Late Anglo-Saxon England
  • Michelle Brown, Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library and author of A Guide to Western Historical Scripts
27 February 2003The Aztecs
6 March 2003Meteorology
13 March 2003Redemption
20 March 2003Originality
27 Mar 2003The Life of Stars
3 April 2003The Spanish Civil War
17 April 2003Proust
24 April 2003Youth
1 May 2003Roman Britain
8 May 2003The Jacobite Rebellion
15 May 2003The Holy Grail
22 May 2003Blood
29 May 2003Memory
5 June 2003The Lunar Society
12 June 2003The Art of War
19 June 2003The Aristocracy
26 June 2003The East India Company
3 July 2003Vulcanology
10 July 2003Nature
17 July 2003The Apocalypse

2003–2004

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
2 October 2003Maxwell
9 October 2003Bohemianism
16 October 2003The Schism
23 October 2003Infinity
30 October 2003Robin Hood
6 November 2003Sensation
13 November 2003Duty
20 November 2003Ageing the Earth
27 November 2003St Bartholomew's Day Massacre
4 December 2003Wittgenstein
11 December 2003The Devil
18 December 2003The Alphabet
26 December 2003Lamarck and Natural Selection
29 January 2004Cryptography
5 February 2004Thermopylae
12 February 2004The Sublime
19 February 2004Rutherford
26 February 2004The Mughal Empire
4 March 2004Dreams
11 March 2004The Norse Gods
25 March 2004Theories of Everything
1 April 2004China's Warring States period
8 April 2004The Fall
15 April 2004The Later Romantics
22 April 2004Hysteria
  • Juliet Mitchell, Professor of Psychoanalysis and Gender Studies at the University of Cambridge and author of Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming Hysteria and the Effects of Sibling Relations on the Human Condition
  • Rachel Bowlby, Professor of English at the University of York who has written the introduction to the latest Penguin translation of Sigmund Freud and Joseph Breuer's Studies in Hysteria
  • Brett Kahr, Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy and Mental Health at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London
29 April 2004Tea
6 May 2004Heroism
13 May 2004Zero
20 May 2004Toleration
27 May 2004The Planets
3 June 2004Babylon
10 June 2004Empiricism
17 June 2004Renaissance Magic
24 June 2004Washington and the American Revolution

2004–2005

[edit]

In 2005 listeners were invited to vote in a poll for the greatest philosopher in history. The winner was the subject of the final programme before the summer break. The result of the vote was:[4]

  1. Karl Marx (with 27.9% of the votes)
  2. David Hume (12.7%)
  3. Ludwig Wittgenstein (6.8%)
  4. Friedrich Nietzsche (6.5%)
  5. Plato (5.6%)
  6. Immanuel Kant (5.6%)
  7. Thomas Aquinas (4.8%)
  8. Socrates (4.8%)
  9. Aristotle (4.5%)
  10. Karl Popper (4.2%)
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
2 September 2004Pi
9 September 2004The Odyssey
16 September 2004Agincourt
23 September 2004The Origins of Life
30 September 2004Politeness
7 October 2004Sartre
14 October 2004The Han Synthesis
21 October 2004Witchcraft
28 October 2004Rhetoric
4 November 2004Electrickery
11 November 2004Zoroastrianism
18 November 2004Higgs Boson
25 November 2004The Venerable Bede
2 December 2004Jung
  • Brett Kahr, Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy and Mental Health at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London and a practising Freudian
  • Ronald Hayman, writer and biographer of Jung
  • Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology at the University of Essex and a Jungian analyst in clinical practice
9 December 2004Machiavelli and the Italian City States
16 December 2004The Second Law of Thermodynamics
23 December 2004Faust
30 December 2004The Roman Republic
6 January 2005Tsar Alexander II's assassination
13 January 2005The Mind/Body Problem
17 February 2005The Cambrian Period
24 February 2005Alchemy
3 March 2005Stoicism
10 March 2005Modernist Utopias
17 March 2005Dark Energy
24 March 2005Angels
31 March 2005John Ruskin
7 April 2005Alfred and the Battle of Edington
14 April 2005Archaeology and Imperialism
21 April 2005The Aeneid
28 April 2005Perception and the Senses
5 May 2005Abelard and Heloise
19 May 2005Beauty
26 May 2005The French Revolution's Reign of Terror
2 June 2005Renaissance Maths
9 June 2005The Scriblerus Club
16 June 2005Paganism in the Renaissance
23 June 2005The KT Boundary
30 June 2005Merlin
7 July 2005Marlowe
14 July 2005Marx

2005–2006

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
29 September 2005Magnetism
6 October 2005The Field of the Cloth of Gold
13 October 2005Mammals
20 October 2005Cynicism
27 October 2005Johnson
3 November 2005Asteroids
10 November 2005Greyfriars and Blackfriars
17 November 2005Pragmatism
24 November 2005The Graviton
1 December 2005Hobbes
8 December 2005Artificial Intelligence
15 December 2005The Peterloo Massacre
22 December 2005Heaven
29 December 2005The Oresteia
5 January 2006The Oath
12 January 2006Prime Numbers
19 January 2006Relativism
26 January 2006Seventeenth Century Print Culture
2 February 2006The Abbasid Caliphs
9 February 2006Chaucer
16 February 2006Human Evolution
23 February 2006Catherine the Great
2 March 2006Friendship
9 March 2006Negative numbers
16 March 2006Don Quixote
23 March 2006The Royal Society
30 March 2006The Carolingian Renaissance
6 April 2006Goethe
13 April 2006The Oxford Movement
20 April 2006Immunisation
27 April 2006The Great Exhibition of 1851
4 May 2006Astronomy and Empire
11 May 2006Fairies
18 May 2006Mill
25 May 2006Mathematics and Music
1 June 2006The Heart
8 June 2006Uncle Tom's Cabin
15 June 2006Carbon
22 June 2006The Spanish Inquisition
29 June 2006Galaxies
6 July 2006Pastoral Literature
13 July 2006Comedy in Ancient Greek Theatre

2006–2007

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
28 September 2006Humboldt
5 October 2006Averroes
12 October 2006The Diet of Worms
19 October 2006The Needham Question
26 October 2006The Encyclopédie
2 November 2006The Poincaré conjecture
9 November 2006Pope
16 November 2006The Peasants' Revolt
23 November 2006Altruism
30 November 2006The Speed of Light
7 December 2006Anarchism
14 December 2006Indian Mathematics
21 December 2006Hell
28 December 2006Constantinople Siege and Fall
4 January 2007Jorge Luis Borges
11 January 2007Mars
18 January 2007The Jesuits
25 January 2007Archimedes
1 February 2007Genghis Khan
8 February 2007Popper
15 February 2007Heart of Darkness
22 February 2007WilberforceThis programme was a documentary rather than a discussion. The programme can be streamed rather than downloaded.
1 March 2007Optics
8 March 2007Microbiology
15 March 2007Epistolary Literature
22 March 2007Bismarck
29 March 2007Anaesthetics
5 April 2007St Hilda
12 April 2007The Opium Wars
19 April 2007Symmetry
26 April 2007Greek and Roman Love Poetry
3 May 2007Spinoza
10 May 2007Victorian Pessimism
17 May 2007Gravitational Waves
24 May 2007The Siege of Orléans
31 May 2007Ockham's Razor
7 June 2007Siegfried Sassoon
14 June 2007Renaissance Astrology
21 June 2007Common Sense Philosophy
28 June 2007The Permian-Triassic Boundary
5 July 2007The Pilgrim Fathers
12 July 2007Madame Bovary

2007–2008

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
27 September 2007Socrates
4 October 2007Antimatter
11 October 2007The Divine Right of Kings
18 October 2007The Arabian Nights
25 October 2007Taste
1 November 2007Guilt
8 November 2007Avicenna
15 November 2007Oxygen
22 November 2007The Prelude
29 November 2007The Fibonacci Sequence
6 December 2007Genetic Mutation
13 December 2007The Sassanid Empire
20 December 2007The Four Humours
27 December 2007The Nicene Creed
3 January 2008Camus
10 January 2008The Charge of the Light Brigade
17 January 2008The Fisher King
24 January 2008Plate Tectonics
31 January 2008Rudolph II
7 February 2008The Social Contract
14 February 2008The Statue of Liberty
21 February 2008The Multiverse
28 February 2008Lear
6 March 2008Ada Lovelace
13 March 2008The Greek Myths
20 March 2008Kierkegaard
27 March 2008The Dissolution of the Monasteries
3 April 2008The Laws of Motion
10 April 2008The Norman Yoke
17 April 2008Yeats and Irish Politics
24 April 2008Materialism
1 May 2008The Enclosures of the 18th Century
8 May 2008The Brain
15 May 2008The Library at Nineveh
22 May 2008The Black Death
29 May 2008Probability
5 June 2008Lysenkoism
12 June 2008The Riddle of the Sands
19 June 2008The Music of the Spheres
26 June 2008The Arab Conquests
3 July 2008The Metaphysical Poets
10 July 2008Tacitus and the Decadence of Rome

2008–2009

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
25 September 2008Miracles
2 October 2008The Translation Movement
9 October 2008Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems
16 October 2008Vitalism
23 October 2008Dante's Inferno
30 October 2008Bolivar
6 November 2008Aristotle's Politics
13 November 2008Neuroscience
20 November 2008The Baroque Movement
27 November 2008The Great Reform Act
4 December 2008Heat
11 December 2008The Fire of London
18 December 2008The Physics of Time
1 January 2009The Consolations of Philosophy
5 January 2009Darwin: On the Origins of Charles Darwin
6 January 2009Darwin: The Voyage of the Beagle
7 January 2009Darwin: On the Origin of Species
8 January 2009Darwin: Life After Origins
15 January 2009Thoreau and the American Idyll
22 January 2009History of History
29 January 2009Swift's A Modest Proposal
5 February 2009The Brothers Grimm
12 February 2009Carthage's Destruction
19 February 2009The Observatory at Jaipur
26 February 2009The Waste Land and Modernity
5 March 2009The Measurement problem in Physics
12 March 2009The Library of Alexandria
19 March 2009The Boxer Rebellion
26 March 2009The School of Athens
2 April 2009Baconian Science
9 April 2009Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
16 April 2009Suffragism
23 April 2009The Building of St Petersburg
30 April 2009The Vacuum of Space
7 May 2009The Magna Carta
14 May 2009The Siege of Vienna
21 May 2009The Whale - A History
28 May 2009St Paul
4 June 2009The Trial of Charles I
11 June 2009The Augustan Age
18 June 2009Elizabethan Revenge
25 June 2009Sunni and Shia Islam
2 July 2009Logical Positivism
9 July 2009Ediacara Biota

2009–2010

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
17 September 2009St Thomas Aquinas
24 September 2009Calculus
1 October 2009Akhenaten
8 October 2009The Dreyfus Affair
15 October 2009The Death of Elizabeth I
22 October 2009The Geological Formation of Britain
29 October 2009Schopenhauer
5 November 2009The Siege of Munster
12 November 2009Radiation
19 November 2009Sparta
26 November 2009Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
3 December 2009The Silk Road
10 December 2009Pythagoras
24 December 2009The Samurai
31 December 2009Mary Wollstonecraft
4 January 2010The Royal Society and British Science: Episode 1Documentary format
5 January 2010The Royal Society and British Science: Episode 2Documentary format
6 January 2010The Royal Society and British Science: Episode 3Documentary format
7 January 2010The Royal Society and British Science: Episode 4Documentary format
14 January 2010The Frankfurt School
21 January 2010The Glencoe Massacre
28 January 2010Silas Marner
4 February 2010Ibn Khaldun
11 February 2010The Unintended Consequences of Mathematics
18 February 2010The Indian Mutiny
25 February 2010Calvinism
4 March 2010The Infant Brain
11 March 2010Boudica
18 March 2010Munch and The Scream
25 March 2010The City - a history, part 1
1 April 2010The City - a history, part 2
8 April 2010William Hazlitt
15 April 2010The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation
22 April 2010Roman Satire
29 April 2010The Great Wall of China
6 May 2010The Cool Universe
13 May 2010William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience
20 May 2010The Cavendish Family in Science
27 May 2010Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists
3 June 2010Edmund Burke
10 June 2010Al-Biruni
17 June 2010The Neanderthals
24 June 2010Antarctica
1 July 2010Athelstan
8 July 2010Pliny's Natural History

2010–2011

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
23 September 2010Imaginary numbers
30 September 2010The Delphic Oracle
7 October 2010The Spanish Armada
14 October 2010Sturm und Drang
21 October 2010Logic
28 October 2010The Unicorn
4 November 2010Women and Enlightenment Science
11 November 2010The Volga Vikings
18 November 2010Foxe's Book of Martyrs
25 November 2010History of Metaphor
2 December 2010Cleopatra
9 December 2010Thomas Edison
16 December 2010Daoism
23 December 2010The Industrial Revolution
30 December 2010Consequences of the Industrial Revolution
6 January 2011Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
13 January 2011Random and Pseudorandom
20 January 2011The Mexican Revolution
27 January 2011Aristotle's Poetics
3 February 2011The Battle of Bannockburn
10 February 2011The Nervous System
17 February 2011Maimonides
24 February 2011The Taiping Rebellion
3 March 2011The Age of the Universe
10 March 2011Free Will
(500th programme)
17 March 2011The Medieval University
24 March 2011The Iron Age
31 March 2011The Bhagavad Gita
7 April 2011Octavia Hill
14 April 2011The Neutrino
21 April 2011The Pelagian Controversy
28 April 2011Cogito Ergo Sum
5 May 2011Islamic Law and its Origins
12 May 2011The Anatomy of Melancholy
19 May 2011Custer's Last Stand
26 May 2011Xenophon
2 June 2011The Battle of Stamford Bridge
9 June 2011The Origins of Infectious Disease
16 June 2011Wyclif and the Lollards
  • Anthony Kenny, Philosopher and former Master of Balliol College, Oxford
  • Anne Hudson, Emeritus Professor of Medieval English at the University of Oxford
  • Rob Lutton, Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Nottingham
23 June 2011Malthusianism
30 June 2011Tennyson's In Memoriam
7 July 2011The Minoan Civilisation

2011–2012

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
15 September 2011The Hippocratic Oath
22 September 2011Shinto
29 September 2011The Etruscan Civilisation
6 October 2011David Hume
13 October 2011The Ming Voyages
20 October 2011Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People
27 October 2011The Siege of Tenochtitlan
3 November 2011The Moon
10 November 2011The Continental-Analytic Split
17 November 2011Ptolemy and Ancient Astronomy
24 November 2011Judas Maccabeus
1 December 2011Christina Rossetti
8 December 2011Heraclitus
15 December 2011The Concordat of Worms
22 December 2011Robinson Crusoe
29 December 2011Macromolecules
2 January 2012The Written World: Episode 1Documentary format
3 January 2012The Written World: Episode 2Documentary format
4 January 2012The Written World: Episode 3Documentary format
5 January 2012The Written World: Episode 4Documentary format
6 January 2012The Written World: Episode 5Documentary format
12 January 2012The Safavid dynasty
19 January 20121848: Year of Revolution
26 January 2012The Scientific method
2 February 2012The Kama Sutra
9 February 2012Erasmus
16 February 2012The An Lushan Rebellion
23 February 2012Conductors and Semiconductors
1 March 2012Benjamin Franklin
8 March 2012Lyrical Ballads
15 March 2012Vitruvius and De Architectura
22 March 2012Moses Mendelssohn
29 March 2012The Measurement of Time
5 April 2012George Fox and the Quakers
12 April 2012Early Geology
19 April 2012Neoplatonism
26 April 2012The Battle of Bosworth Field
3 May 2012Voltaire's Candide
10 May 2012Game theory
17 May 2012Clausewitz and On War
24 May 2012Marco Polo
31 May 2012The Trojan War
7 June 2012King Solomon
14 June 2012James Joyce's Ulysses
21 June 2012Annie Besant
28 June 2012Al-Kindi
5 July 2012Scepticism
12 July 2012Hadrian's Wall

2012–2013

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
13 September 2012The Cell
20 September 2012The Druids
27 September 2012The Ontological Argument
4 October 2012Gerald of Wales
11 October 2012Hannibal
18 October 2012Caxton and the Printing Press
25 October 2012Fermat's Last Theorem
1 November 2012The Anarchy
8 November 2012The Upanishads
15 November 2012Simone Weil
22 November 2012The Borgias
29 November 2012Crystallography
6 December 2012Bertrand Russell
13 December 2012Shahnameh of Ferdowsi
20 December 2012The South Sea Bubble
27 December 2012The Cult of Mithras
10 January 2013Le Morte d'Arthur
17 January 2013Comets
24 January 2013Romulus and Remus
31 January 2013The War of 1812
7 February 2013Epicureanism
14 February 2013Ice ages
21 February 2013Decline and Fall
28 February 2013Pitt Rivers
7 March 2013Absolute Zero
14 March 2013Chekhov
21 March 2013Alfred Russel Wallace
28 March 2013Water
4 April 2013Japan's Sakoku Period
11 April 2013The Amazons
18 April 2013The Putney Debates
25 April 2013Montaigne
2 May 2013Gnosticism
9 May 2013Icelandic Sagas
16 May 2013Cosmic rays
23 May 2013Lévi-Strauss
30 May 2013Queen Zenobia
6 June 2013Relativity
13 June 2013Prophecy
20 June 2013The Physiocrats
27 June 2013Romance of the Three Kingdoms
4 July 2013The Invention of Radio

2013–2014

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
19 September 2013Pascal
26 September 2013The Mamluks
3 October 2013Exoplanets
10 October 2013Galen
17 October 2013The Book of Common Prayer
24 October 2013The Corn Laws
31 October 2013The Berlin Conference
7 November 2013Ordinary language philosophy
14 November 2013The Tempest
21 November 2013Pocahontas
28 November 2013The Microscope
5 December 2013Hindu Ideas of Creation
12 December 2013Pliny the Younger
19 December 2013Complexity
26 December 2013The Medici
3 January 2014Plato's Symposium
16 January 2014The Battle of Tours
23 January 2014Sources of Early Chinese History
30 January 2014Catastrophism
6 February 2014The Phoenicians
13 February 2014Chivalry
20 February 2014Social Darwinism
  • Adam Kuper, Centennial Professor of Anthropology at the LSE, University of London
  • Gregory Radick, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds
  • Charlotte Sleigh, Reader in the History of Science at the University of Kent
27 February 2014The Eye
6 March 2014Spartacus
13 March 2014The Trinity
20 March 2014Bishop Berkeley
27 March 2014Weber's The Protestant Ethic
3 April 2014States of Matter
10 April 2014Strabo's Geographica
17 April 2014The Domesday Book
24 April 2014Tristram Shandy
1 May 2014The Tale of Sinuhe
8 May 2014The Sino-Japanese War
15 May 2014Photosynthesis
22 May 2014The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
29 May 2014The Talmud
5 June 2014The Bluestockings
12 June 2014Robert Boyle
19 June 2014The Philosophy of Solitude
26 June 2014Hildegard of Bingen
3 July 2014Mrs Dalloway
10 July 2014The Sun

2014–2015

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
25 September 2014e
2 October 2014Julius Caesar
9 October 2014The Battle of Talas
16 October 2014Rudyard Kipling
23 October 2014The Haitian Revolution
30 October 2014Nuclear Fusion
6 November 2014Hatshepsut
13 November 2014Brunel
20 November 2014Aesop
27 November 2014Kafka's The Trial
4 December 2014Zen
11 December 2014Behavioural ecology
18 December 2014Truth
15 January 2015Bruegel's The Fight Between Carnival and Lent
22 January 2015Phenomenology
29 January 2015Thucydides
5 February 2015Ashoka the Great
12 February 2015The Photon
19 February 2015The Wealth of Nations
26 February 2015The Eunuch
5 March 2015Beowulf
12 March 2015Dark matter
19 March 2015Al-Ghazali
26 March 2015The Curies
2 April 2015The California Gold Rush
9 April 2015Sappho
16 April 2015Matteo Ricci and the Ming dynasty
23 April 2015Fanny Burney
30 April 2015The Earth's core
7 May 2015Tagore
14 May 2015The Lancashire Cotton Famine
21 May 2015Josephus
28 May 2015The Science of Glass
4 June 2015Prester John
11 June 2015Utilitarianism
18 June 2015Jane Eyre
25 June 2015Extremophiles
2 July 2015Frederick the Great
9 July 2015Frida Kahlo

2015–2016

[edit]

From the start of 2016 (Saturn) the podcast version of the programme started to include a few minutes of unbroadcast extra material, which would generally be prompted by the question So, what did we miss?

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
24 September 2015Perpetual motion
1 October 2015Alexander the Great
15 October 2015Holbein at the Tudor Court
22 October 2015Simone de Beauvoir
29 October 2015The Empire of Mali
5 November 2015P v NP
12 November 2015The Battle of Lepanto
19 November 2015Emma
29 November 2015The Salem Witch Trials
3 December 2015Voyages of James Cook
10 December 2015Chinese Legalism
17 December 2015Circadian rhythms
25 December 2015Michael Faraday
31 December 2015Tristan and Iseult
14 January 2016Saturn
21 January 2016Thomas Paine's Common Sense
28 January 2016Eleanor of Aquitaine
4 February 2016Chromatography
11 February 2016Rumi's Poetry
18 February 2016Robert Hooke
25 February 2016Mary Magdalene
3 March 2016The Dutch East India Company
10 March 2016The Maya Civilization
17 March 2016Bedlam
24 March 2016Aurora Leigh
31 March 2016Agrippina the Younger
7 April 2016The Sikh Empire
14 April 2016The Neutron
21 April 20161816, the Year Without a Summer
28 April 2016Euclid's Elements
5 May 2016Tess of the d'Urbervilles
12 May 2016Titus Oates and his 'Popish Plot'
19 May 2016The Muses
26 May 2016The Gettysburg Address
2 June 2016Margery Kempe and English Mysticism
9 June 2016Penicillin
16 June 2016The Bronze Age Collapse
John Bennet, Director of the British School at Athens and Professor of Aegean Archaeology at the University of Sheffield
23 June 2016Songs of Innocence and of Experience
30 June 2016Sovereignty
7 July 2016The Invention of Photography

2016–2017

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
22 September 2016Zeno's paradoxes
29 September 2016Animal Farm
6 October 2016Lakshmi
13 October 2016Plasma
20 October 2016The 12th Century Renaissance
27 October 2016John Dalton
3 November 2016Epic of Gilgamesh
10 November 2016The Fighting Temeraire
17 November 2016Justinian's Legal Code
24 November 2016Baltic Crusades
1 December 2016Garibaldi and the Risorgimento
8 December 2016Harriet Martineau
15 December 2016The Gin Craze
21 December 2016Four Quartets
29 December 2016Johannes Kepler
12 January 2017Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality
19 January 2017Mary, Queen of Scots
26 January 2017Parasitism
2 February 2017Hannah Arendt
9 February 2017John Clare
16 February 2017Maths in the Early Islamic World
23 February 2017Seneca the Younger
2 March 2017The Kuiper belt
9 March 2017North and South
16 March 2017The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
23 March 2017The Battle of Salamis
30 March 2017Hokusai
6 April 2017Pauli's exclusion principle
13 April 2017Rosa Luxemburg
20 April 2017Roger Bacon
27 April 2017The Egyptian Book of the Dead
4 May 2017The Battle of Lincoln 1217
11 May 2017Emily Dickinson
18 May 2017Louis Pasteur
25 May 2017Purgatory
1 June 2017Enzymes
8 June 2017Christine de Pizan
15 June 2017The American Populists
22 June 2017Eugene Onegin
29 June 2017Plato's Republic
6 July 2017Bird migration

2017–2018

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
21 September 2017Kant's Categorical Imperative
28 September 2017Wuthering Heights
5 October 2017Constantine the Great
12 October 2017Aphra Behn
19 October 2017The Congress of Vienna
26 October 2017Feathered dinosaurs
2 November 2017Picasso's Guernica
  • Mary Vincent, Professor of Modern European History at the University of Sheffield
  • Gijs van Hensbergen, Historian of Spanish Art and Fellow of the LSE Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies
  • Dacia Viejo Rose, Lecturer in Heritage in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, Fellow of Selwyn College
9 November 2017The Picts
16 November 2017Germaine de Staël
23 November 2017Thebes
30 November 2017Carl Friedrich Gauss
7 December 2017Moby Dick
14 December 2017Thomas Becket
21 December 2017Beethoven
28 December 2017Hamlet
11 January 2018The Siege of Malta, 1565
18 January 2018Anna Akhmatova
25 January 2018Cicero
1 February 2018Cephalopods
9 February 2018Frederick Douglass
15 February 2018Fungi
22 February 2018Rosalind Franklin
1 March 2018Sun Tzu and The Art of War
8 March 2018The Highland Clearances
15 March 2018Augustine's Confessions
22 March 2018Tocqueville: Democracy in America
5 April 2018Roman Slavery
11 April 2018George and Robert Stephenson
  • Michael Bailey, Railway historian and editor of the most recent biography of Robert Stephenson
  • Julia Elton, Past President of the Newcomen Society for the History of Engineering and Technology
  • Colin Divall, Professor Emeritus of Railway Studies at the University of York
18 April 2018Middlemarch
26 April 2018The Proton
3 May 2018The Almoravid Empire
10 May 2018The Mabinogion
17 May 2018The Emancipation of the Serfs
25 May 2018Margaret of Anjou
31 May 2018Henrik Ibsen
7 June 2018Persepolis
14 June 2018Montesquieu
21 June 2018Echolocation
28 June 2018The Mexican-American War
5 July 2018William Morris

2018–2019

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
13 September 2018The Iliad
20 September 2018Automata
27 September 2018Dietrich Bonhoeffer
4 October 2018Edith Wharton
11 October 2018Is Shakespeare History? The Plantagenets
18 October 2018Is Shakespeare History? The Romans
25 October 2018The Fable of the Bees
1 November 2018Free Radicals
8 November 2018Marie Antoinette
15 November 2018Horace
22 November 2018Hope
29 November 2018The Long March
6 December 2018The Thirty Years War
13 December 2018Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
20 December 2018The Poor Laws
27 December 2018Venus
10 January 2019Papal Infallibility
17 January 2019Samuel Beckett
24 January 2019Emmy Noether
31 January 2019Owain Glyndŵr
7 February 2019Aristotle's biology
14 February 2019Judith beheading Holofernes
21 February 2019Pheromones
28 February 2019Antarah ibn Shaddad
7 March 2019William Cecil
14 March 2019Authenticity
21 March 2019Gerard Manley Hopkins
28 March 2019The Danelaw
4 April 2019The Great Irish Famine
11 April 2019The Evolution of Teeth
18 April 2019A Midsummer Night's Dream
25 April 2019Nero
2 May 2019 The Gordon Riots
9 May 2019Bergson and Time
16 May 2019Frankenstein
23 May 2019Kinetic Theory
30 May 2019President Ulysses S Grant
6 June 2019 Sir Thomas Browne
13 June 2019 The Inca
20 June 2019 The Mytilenaean Debate
27 June 2019 Doggerland
4 July 2019 Lorca

2019–2020

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
19 September 2019Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow
26 September 2019The Rapture
3 October 2019Dorothy Hodgkin
10 October 2019Rousseau on Education
17 October 2019The Time Machine
24 October 2019Robert Burns
31 October 2019Hybrids
7 November 2019The Treaty of Limerick
14 November 2019Crime and Punishment
21 November 2019Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem
28 November 2019Li Shizhen
5 December 2019Lawrence of Arabia
12 December 2019Coffee
19 December 2019Auden
26 December 2019Tutankhamun
11 January 2020Catullus
16 January 2020The Siege of Paris (1870-71)
23 January 2020Solar Wind
30 January 2020Alcuin
6 February 2020George Sand
13 February 2020Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
20 February 2020The Valladolid Debate
27 February 2020The Evolution of Horses
5 March 2020Paul Dirac
12 March 2020The Covenanters

The 2019–2020 series was truncated because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

2020–2021

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
17 September 2020Pericles
24 September 2020Cave Art
1 October 2020Macbeth
8 October 2020Deism
15 October 2020Alan Turing
22 October 2020Maria Theresa
29 October 2020Piers Plowman
5 November 2020Mary Astell
12 November 2020Albrecht Dürer
26 November 2020The Zong Massacre
3 December 2020Fernando Pessoa
10 December 2020John Wesley and Methodism
17 December 2020The Cultural Revolution
31 December 2020Eclipses
14 January 2021The Great Gatsby
21 January 2021The Plague of Justinian
28 January 2021Saint Cuthbert
4 February 2021Emilie du Châtelet
11 February 2021The Rosetta Stone
18 February 2021Medieval Pilgrimage
25 February 2021Marcus Aurelius
4 March 2021The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
11 March 2021The Late Devonian Extinction
18 March 2021The Bacchae
25 March 2021David Ricardo
1 April 2021The Russo-Japanese War
8 April 2021Pierre-Simon Laplace
15 April 2021Arianism
22 April 2021The Franco-American Alliance 1778
29 April 2021Ovid
6 May 2021The Second Barons' War
13 May 2021Longitude
20 May 2021Journey to the West
27 May 2021The Interregnum
3 June 2021Kant's Copernican Revolution
10 June 2021Booth's Life and Labour Survey
17 June 2021Edward Gibbon
24 June 2021Shakespeare's Sonnets

2021–2022

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
16 September 2021The Evolution of Crocodiles
23 September 2021Herodotus
30 September 2021The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
7 October 2021The Manhattan Project
14 October 2021The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
21 October 2021Iris Murdoch
28 October 2021Corals
4 November 2021The Song of Roland
11 November 2021William and Caroline Herschel
18 November 2021The Decadent Movement
25 November 2021Plato's Gorgias
2 December 2021The Battle of Trafalgar
  • James Davey, Lecturer in Naval and Maritime History at the University of Exeter
  • Marianne Czisnik, Independent researcher on Nelson and editor of his letters to Lady Hamilton
  • Kenneth Johnson, Research Professor of National Security at Air University, Alabama
9 December 2021The May Fourth Movement
16 December 2021A Christmas Carol
23 December 2021The Hittites
30 December 2021Fritz Lang
13 January 2022Thomas Hardy's Poetry
20 January 2022The Gold Standard
27 January 2022Colette
3 February 2022The Temperance Movement
10 February 2022Walter Benjamin
17 February 2022Romeo and Juliet
24 February 2022Peter Kropotkin
3 March 2022The Arthashastra
10 March 2022Seismology
17 March 2022Charisma
24 March 2022Antigone
31 March 2022The Sistine Chapel
07 April 2022Polidori's The Vampyre
14 April 2022Homo erectus
21 April 2022Olympe de Gouges
28 April 2022Early Christian Martyrdom
5 May 2022The Davidian Revolution
12 May 2022Tang Era Poetry
19 May 2022Comenius
26 May 2022Hegel's Philosophy of History
9 June 2022The Death of Stars
16 June 2022Dylan Thomas
23 June 2022Angkor Wat
  • Piphal Heng, postdoctoral scholar at the Cotsen Institute and the Programme for Early Modern Southeast Asia at University of California, Los Angeles
  • Ashley Thompson, Hiram W Woodward Chair of Southeast Asian Art at SOAS University of London
  • Simon Warrack, stone conservator who has worked extensively at Angkor Wat
30 June 2022John Bull

2022–2023

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
15 September 2022Nineteen Eighty-Four
22 September 2022Plato's Atlantis
29 September 2022The Electron
6 October 2022The Knights Templar
13 October 2022Berthe Morisot
20 October 2022The Fish-Tetrapod Transition
27 October 2022Wilfred Owen
3 November 2022The Morant Bay Rebellion
10 November 2022Bauhaus
17 November 2022Demosthenes' Philippics
24 November 2022The Challenger Expedition 1872-1876
1 December 2022The Nibelungenlied
8 December 2022The Irish Rebellion of 1798
15 December 2022Citizen Kane
22 December 2022Persuasion
29 December 2022The Great Stink
12 January 2023John Donne
19 January 2023Rawls' Theory of Justice
26 January 2023Superconductivity
2 February 2023Tycho Brahe
9 Feb 2023Chartism
16 Feb 2023Stevie Smith
23 Feb 2023Paul Erdős
2 Mar 2023Megaliths
9 March 2023The Ramayana
16 March 2023Mercantilism
23 March 2023Solon the Lawgiver
30 March 2023A Room of One's Own
6 April 2023Cnut
13 April 2023The Battle of Crécy
20 April 2023Linnaeus
27 April 2023Walt Whitman
4 May 2023The Dead Sea Scrolls
11 May 2023The Shimabara Rebellion
18 May 2023Virgil's Georgics
25 May 2023Louis XIV: The Sun King
01 June 2023Mitochondria
08 June 2023Oedipus Rex
15 June 2023Death in Venice
22 June 2023Elizabeth Anscombe
29 June 2023Jupiter

2023–2024

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors and positions held at time of broadcast
14 September 2023Albert Einstein
21 September 2023The Seventh Seal

(1000th program)

21 September 2023Melvyn Bragg talks to Mishal Husain
28 September 2023The Economic Consequences of the Peace
05 October 2023Plankton
12 October 2023The Federalist Papers
19 October 2023Julian of Norwich
26 October 2023Germinal
02 November 2023Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
09 November 2023The Barbary Corsairs
16 November 2023The Theory of the Leisure Class
23 November 2023Marguerite de Navarre
30 November 2023Edgar Allan Poe
07 December 2023Karl Barth
14 December 2023Tiberius
21 December 2023Vincent van Gogh
28 December 2023Twelfth Night, or What You Will
11 January 2024Condorcet
18 January 2024Nefertiti
25 January 2024Panpsychism
1 February 2024The Hanseatic League
8 February 2024Hormones
15 February 2024Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
22 February 2024The Sack of Rome 1527
29 February 2024Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
07 March 2024The Mokrani Revolt
14 March 2024The Waltz
21 March 2024Julian the Apostate
28 March 2024The Kalevala
04 April 2024Nikola Tesla
11 April 2024Lysistrata
18 April 2024Napoleon's Hundred Days
25 April 2024Bertolt Brecht
02 May 2024Mercury
09 May 2024Sir Thomas Wyatt
16 May 2024Philippa Foot
23 May 2024Empress Dowager Cixi
30 May 2024Marsilius of Padua
06 June 2024The Orkneyinga Saga
13 June 2024Fielding's Tom Jones
20 June 2024Karma
27 June 2024Monet in England
04 July 2024Bacteriophages

2024–2025

[edit]
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors and positions held at time of broadcast
19 September 2024Benjamin Disraeli
26 September 2024Wormholes
3 October 2024The Haymarket Affair
10 October 2024Robert Graves
17 October 2024Hayek's The Road to Serfdom
24 October 2024Little Women
31 October 2024The Venetian Empire
07 November 2024George Herbert
14 November 2024The Antikythera Mechanism
21 November 2024Italo Calvino
28 November 2024The Hanoverian Succession
05 December 2024Nizami Ganjavi
12 December 2024The Habitability of Planets
19 December 2024Plutarch's Parallel Lives
26 December 2024Vase-mania
02 January 2025Slime Moulds
16 January 2025The Battle of Valmy
23 January 2025Socrates in Prison
30 January 2025Pope Joan
06 February 2025Sir John Soane
  • Frances Sands, the Curator of Drawings and Books at Sir John Soane's Museum
  • Frank Salmon, Associate Professor of the History of Art at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Ax:son Johnson Centre for the Study of Classical Architecture
  • Gillian Darley, historian and author of Soane's biography.
13 February 2025Catherine of Aragon
20 February 2025Oliver Goldsmith
27 February 2025Kali
06 March 2025Pollination
13 March 2025Cyrus the Great
20 March 2025Thomas Middleton
27 March 2025Maurice Merleau-Ponty
03 April 2025The Gracchi
10 April 2025The Battle of Clontarf
17 April 2025Typology
24 April 2025Molière
01 May 2025The Korean Empire
08 May 2025Lise Meitner
15 May 2025Copyright
22 May 2025Paul von Hindenburg
29 May 2025Hypnosis
05 June 2025The Vienna Secession
12 June 2025The Evolution of Lungs
19 June 2025Barbour's 'Brus'
26 June 2025Dragons
03 July 2025Civility: talking with those who disagree with you

The 2024–2025 series was the last to be hosted by Melvyn Bragg.


References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Melvyn Bragg steps down from BBC Radio 4's In Our Time after 26 years". BBC News. 3 September 2025. Retrieved 3 September 2025.
  2. ^ https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2025/misha-glenny-in-our-time-bbc-radio-4
  3. ^ "The complete in Our Time now available as podcasts". Radio Times. 15 September 2011. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
  4. ^ "In Our Time's Greatest Philiosopher Vote". BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on 13 February 2021. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
[edit]

    In Our Time is a radio discussion programme exploring a wide variety of historical, scientific, cultural, religious and philosophical topics, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the United Kingdom since 1998 and hosted by Melvyn Bragg until 03 July 2025, [1] and Misha Glenny as of January 2026. [2] All episodes are available to download as individual podcasts.[3]

    Programmes

    1998–1999

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors and positions held at time of broadcast
    15 October 1998War in the 20th Century
    22 October 1998Politics in the 20th Century
    29 October 1998Science's Revelations
    5 November 1998Science in the 20th century
    12 November 1998The City in the 20th Century
    19 November 1998The Brain and Consciousness
    26 November 1998Work in the 20th Century
    3 December 1998History's relevance in the 20th century
    • Simon Schama, Old Dominion Professor of Humanities, Columbia University in New York and currently filming a 16-part series for BBC Television on the history of Britain
    • Lady Antonia Fraser, historian, writer and author of biographies of Mary Queen of Scots, Cromwell and Charles II
    10 December 1998Cultural rights in the 20th Century
    17 December 1998The American Century
    24 December 1998Neuroscience in the 20th Century
    31 December 1998The British Empire's Legacy
    7 January 1999Feminism
    14 January 1999Genetic Engineering
    21 January 1999Modern Culture
    28 January 1999Ageing
    4 February 1999Psychoanalysis and its Legacy
    11 February 1999Language and the Mind
    18 February 1999Space in Religion and Science
    25 February 1999The Avant Garde's Decline and Fall in the 20th Century
    4 March 1999Shakespeare and Literary Criticism
    11 March 1999History as Science
    18 March 1999Animal Experiments and Rights
    25 March 1999Architecture in the 20th Century
    1 April 1999Good and Evil
    8 April 1999Writing and Political Oppression
    15 April 1999Evolution
    22 April 1999Fundamentalism
    29 April 1999Artificial Intelligence
    • Igor Aleksander, professor, Imperial College London and inventor of Magnus – a neural computer which he says is an artificially conscious machine
    • John Searle, Professor of Philosophy, University of California and one of only two people in the world to invent an argument, the Chinese Room Argument, which destroys the plausibility of the idea of conscious machines
    6 May 1999Mathematics
    13 May 1999Multiculturalism
    20 May 1999The Universe's Origins
    27 May 1999Memory and Culture
    3 June 1999Just War
    10 June 1999The Monarchy
    17 June 1999The Great Disruption
    24 June 1999Capitalism
    1 July 1999Intelligence
    8 July 1999Africa
    15 July 1999Truth, Lies and fiction
    • Elena Lappin, novelist and author of an investigative essay published in Granta called "Truth and Lies", where she questions the veracity of the account of the Holocaust in the book Fragments by Binjamin Wilkomirski
    • Nick Groom, lecturer in English, University of Exeter
    22 July 1999Pain

    1999–2000

    From 6 April 2000, with the discussion on "The Natural Order", the programme moved from 30 minutes to a 45-minute format.

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    23 September 1999Genetic Determinism
    30 September 1999Maths and Storytelling
    7 October 1999Utopia
    14 October 1999The Nation State
    21 October 1999The Individual
    28 October 1999Atrocity in the 20th Century
    4 November 1999Education
    11 November 1999The Novel
    18 November 1999Progress
    25 November 1999Consciousness
    2 December 1999Tragedy
    9 December 1999Childhood
    16 December 1999Medical Ethics
    23 December 1999Prayer
    30 December 1999Time
    6 January 2000Climate change
    13 January 2000Information Technology
    • Charles Leadbeater, Demos Research Associate and author of Living on Thin Air: The New Economy
    • Ian Angell, Professor of Information Systems, London School of Economics and author of The New Barbarian Manifesto: How to Survive the Information Age
    20 January 2000Masculinity in Literature
    27 January 2000Economic Rights
    3 February 2000Republicanism
    • Sarah Barber, lecturer in the Department of History, Lancaster University and author of Regicide and Republicanism: Politics and Ethics in the English Revolution 1646–1659
    • Andrew Roberts, historian, journalist, conservative thinker and author of Salisbury: Victorian Titan
    10 February 2000Goethe and the Science of the Enlightenment
    17 February 2000Reading
    24 February 2000Grand Unified Theory
    2 March 2000Metamorphosis
    9 March 2000The Age of Doubt
    • A. N. Wilson, novelist, biographer, journalist and author of God's Funeral
    • Victoria Glendinning, author, journalist and biographer of Anthony Trollope and Jonathan Swift
    16 March 2000Lenin
    23 March 2000Materialism and the Consumer
    30 March 2000History and Understanding the Past
    6 April 2000The Natural Order
    • Colin Tudge, writer, scientist and author of The Variety of Life: A Survey and a Celebration of all the Creatures that Have Ever Lived
    • Sandy Knapp, Research Botanist, Department of Botany, Natural History Museum, London
    • Henry Gee, Senior Editor of Nature and author of Deep Time: Cladistics, the Revolution in Evolution
    13 April 2000New Wars
    20 April 2000Englishness
    27 April 2000Human Origins
    4 May 2000Death
    11 May 2000Shakespeare's Work
    18 May 2000The Wars of the Roses
    25 May 2000Chemical elements
    1 June 2000The American Ideal
    8 June 2000The Renaissance
    15 June 2000Inspiration and Genius
    22 June 2000Biography
    29 June 2000Imagination and Consciousness

    2000–2001

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    28 September 2000London
    5 October 2000Hitler in History
    12 October 2000The Romantics
    19 October 2000Laws of Nature
    26 October 2000The Tudor State
    2 November 2000Evolutionary Psychology
    9 November 2000Psychoanalysis and Literature
    16 November 2000Nihilism
    4 January 2001Gothic
    11 January 2001Mathematics and Platonism
    18 January 2001The Enlightenment in Britain
    25 January 2001Science and Religion
    1 February 2001Imperial Science
    8 February 2001Humanism
    15 February 2001The Restoration
    22 February 2001Quantum Gravity
    1 March 2001Money
    15 March 2001Shakespeare's Life
    22 March 2001Fossils
    29 March 2001The Philosophy of Love
    5 April 2001The Roman Empire's Collapse in the 5th century
    12 April 2001Black Holes
    19 April 2001The Glorious Revolution
    26 April 2001Literary Modernism
    3 May 2001Evil
    14 June 2001The French Revolution's Legacy
    21 June 2001The Sonnet
    28 June 2001Existentialism
    5 July 2001The Earth's Origins
    12 July 2001Dickens
    19 July 2001Byzantium

    2001–2002

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    18 October 2001Democracy
    25 October 2001Napoleon and Wellington
    1 November 2001Confucius
    8 November 2001The British Empire
    15 November 2001Surrealism
    22 November 2001Oceanography
    29 November 2001Third Crusade
    6 December 2001Oscar Wilde
    13 December 2001Genetics
    20 December 2001Rome and European Civilization
    27 December 2001Food
    3 January 2002Sensibility
    10 January 2002Nuclear Physics
    17 January 2002Catharism
    24 January 2002Happiness
    31 January 2002Yeats and Mysticism
    7 February 2002The Universe's Shape
    14 February 2002Anatomy
    • Harold Ellis, Clinical Anatomist, School of Biomedical Sciences, King's College, London
    • Ruth Richardson, historian and author of Death, Dissection and the Destitute, Phoenix Press
    • Andrew Cunningham, Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in the History of Medicine, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University
    21 February 2002The Celts
    28 February 2002Virtue
    7 March 2002Milton
    14 March 2002The Buddha
    21 March 2002Marriage
    28 March 2002The Artist
    4 April 2002Extra Terrestrials
    11 April 2002Bohemia
    25 April 2002Tolstoy
    2 May 2002The Physics of Reality
    9 May 2002The Examined Life
    16 May 2002Chaos Theory
    23 May 2002Drugs
    • Richard Davenport-Hines, historian and author of The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics
    • Sadie Plant, author of Writing on Drugs
    • Mike Jay, historian and author of Emperors of Dreams: Drugs in the Nineteenth Century
    30 May 2002The Grand Tour
    6 June 2002The Soul
    13 June 2002The American West
    20 June 2002Wagner
    27 June 2002Cultural Imperialism
    4 July 2002Freedom
    11 July 2002Psychoanalysis and democracy
    18 July 2002Heritage

    2002–2003

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    17 October 2002Slavery and Empire
    24 October 2002The Scientist
    31 October 2002Architecture and Power
    7 November 2002Human Nature
    14 November 2002Victorian Realism
    21 November 2002Muslim Spain
    • Tim Winter, a convert to Islam and lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University
    • Martin Palmer, Anglican lay preacher and theologian and author of The Sacred History of Britain
    • Mehri Niknam, executive director of the Maimonides Foundation, a joint Jewish-Muslim Interfaith Foundation in London
    28 November 2002Imagination
    5 December 2002The Enlightenment in Scotland
    12 December 2002Man and Disease
    19 December 2002The Calendar
    6 February 2003The Epic
    13 February 2003Chance and Design
    20 February 2003The Lindisfarne Gospels
    • Richard Gameson, Reader in Medieval History at Kent University and editor of St Augustine and the Conversion of England
    • Clare Lees, Professor of Medieval Literature at King's College London and author of Tradition and Belief: Religious Writing in Late Anglo-Saxon England
    • Michelle Brown, Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library and author of A Guide to Western Historical Scripts
    27 February 2003The Aztecs
    6 March 2003Meteorology
    13 March 2003Redemption
    20 March 2003Originality
    27 Mar 2003The Life of Stars
    3 April 2003The Spanish Civil War
    17 April 2003Proust
    24 April 2003Youth
    1 May 2003Roman Britain
    8 May 2003The Jacobite Rebellion
    15 May 2003The Holy Grail
    22 May 2003Blood
    29 May 2003Memory
    5 June 2003The Lunar Society
    12 June 2003The Art of War
    19 June 2003The Aristocracy
    26 June 2003The East India Company
    3 July 2003Vulcanology
    10 July 2003Nature
    17 July 2003The Apocalypse

    2003–2004

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    2 October 2003Maxwell
    9 October 2003Bohemianism
    16 October 2003The Schism
    23 October 2003Infinity
    30 October 2003Robin Hood
    6 November 2003Sensation
    13 November 2003Duty
    20 November 2003Ageing the Earth
    27 November 2003St Bartholomew's Day Massacre
    4 December 2003Wittgenstein
    11 December 2003The Devil
    18 December 2003The Alphabet
    26 December 2003Lamarck and Natural Selection
    29 January 2004Cryptography
    5 February 2004Thermopylae
    12 February 2004The Sublime
    19 February 2004Rutherford
    26 February 2004The Mughal Empire
    4 March 2004Dreams
    11 March 2004The Norse Gods
    25 March 2004Theories of Everything
    1 April 2004China's Warring States period
    8 April 2004The Fall
    15 April 2004The Later Romantics
    22 April 2004Hysteria
    • Juliet Mitchell, Professor of Psychoanalysis and Gender Studies at the University of Cambridge and author of Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming Hysteria and the Effects of Sibling Relations on the Human Condition
    • Rachel Bowlby, Professor of English at the University of York who has written the introduction to the latest Penguin translation of Sigmund Freud and Joseph Breuer's Studies in Hysteria
    • Brett Kahr, Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy and Mental Health at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London
    29 April 2004Tea
    6 May 2004Heroism
    13 May 2004Zero
    20 May 2004Toleration
    27 May 2004The Planets
    3 June 2004Babylon
    10 June 2004Empiricism
    17 June 2004Renaissance Magic
    24 June 2004Washington and the American Revolution

    2004–2005

    In 2005 listeners were invited to vote in a poll for the greatest philosopher in history. The winner was the subject of the final programme before the summer break. The result of the vote was:[4]

    1. Karl Marx (with 27.9% of the votes)
    2. David Hume (12.7%)
    3. Ludwig Wittgenstein (6.8%)
    4. Friedrich Nietzsche (6.5%)
    5. Plato (5.6%)
    6. Immanuel Kant (5.6%)
    7. Thomas Aquinas (4.8%)
    8. Socrates (4.8%)
    9. Aristotle (4.5%)
    10. Karl Popper (4.2%)
    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    2 September 2004Pi
    9 September 2004The Odyssey
    16 September 2004Agincourt
    23 September 2004The Origins of Life
    30 September 2004Politeness
    7 October 2004Sartre
    14 October 2004The Han Synthesis
    21 October 2004Witchcraft
    28 October 2004Rhetoric
    4 November 2004Electrickery
    11 November 2004Zoroastrianism
    18 November 2004Higgs Boson
    25 November 2004The Venerable Bede
    2 December 2004Jung
    • Brett Kahr, Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy and Mental Health at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London and a practising Freudian
    • Ronald Hayman, writer and biographer of Jung
    • Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology at the University of Essex and a Jungian analyst in clinical practice
    9 December 2004Machiavelli and the Italian City States
    16 December 2004The Second Law of Thermodynamics
    23 December 2004Faust
    30 December 2004The Roman Republic
    6 January 2005Tsar Alexander II's assassination
    13 January 2005The Mind/Body Problem
    17 February 2005The Cambrian Period
    24 February 2005Alchemy
    3 March 2005Stoicism
    10 March 2005Modernist Utopias
    17 March 2005Dark Energy
    24 March 2005Angels
    31 March 2005John Ruskin
    7 April 2005Alfred and the Battle of Edington
    14 April 2005Archaeology and Imperialism
    21 April 2005The Aeneid
    28 April 2005Perception and the Senses
    5 May 2005Abelard and Heloise
    19 May 2005Beauty
    26 May 2005The French Revolution's Reign of Terror
    2 June 2005Renaissance Maths
    9 June 2005The Scriblerus Club
    16 June 2005Paganism in the Renaissance
    23 June 2005The KT Boundary
    30 June 2005Merlin
    7 July 2005Marlowe
    14 July 2005Marx

    2005–2006

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    29 September 2005Magnetism
    6 October 2005The Field of the Cloth of Gold
    13 October 2005Mammals
    20 October 2005Cynicism
    27 October 2005Johnson
    3 November 2005Asteroids
    10 November 2005Greyfriars and Blackfriars
    17 November 2005Pragmatism
    24 November 2005The Graviton
    1 December 2005Hobbes
    8 December 2005Artificial Intelligence
    15 December 2005The Peterloo Massacre
    22 December 2005Heaven
    29 December 2005The Oresteia
    5 January 2006The Oath
    12 January 2006Prime Numbers
    19 January 2006Relativism
    26 January 2006Seventeenth Century Print Culture
    2 February 2006The Abbasid Caliphs
    9 February 2006Chaucer
    16 February 2006Human Evolution
    23 February 2006Catherine the Great
    2 March 2006Friendship
    9 March 2006Negative numbers
    16 March 2006Don Quixote
    23 March 2006The Royal Society
    30 March 2006The Carolingian Renaissance
    6 April 2006Goethe
    13 April 2006The Oxford Movement
    20 April 2006Immunisation
    27 April 2006The Great Exhibition of 1851
    4 May 2006Astronomy and Empire
    11 May 2006Fairies
    18 May 2006Mill
    25 May 2006Mathematics and Music
    1 June 2006The Heart
    8 June 2006Uncle Tom's Cabin
    15 June 2006Carbon
    22 June 2006The Spanish Inquisition
    29 June 2006Galaxies
    6 July 2006Pastoral Literature
    13 July 2006Comedy in Ancient Greek Theatre

    2006–2007

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    28 September 2006Humboldt
    5 October 2006Averroes
    12 October 2006The Diet of Worms
    19 October 2006The Needham Question
    26 October 2006The Encyclopédie
    2 November 2006The Poincaré conjecture
    9 November 2006Pope
    16 November 2006The Peasants' Revolt
    23 November 2006Altruism
    30 November 2006The Speed of Light
    7 December 2006Anarchism
    14 December 2006Indian Mathematics
    21 December 2006Hell
    28 December 2006Constantinople Siege and Fall
    4 January 2007Jorge Luis Borges
    11 January 2007Mars
    18 January 2007The Jesuits
    25 January 2007Archimedes
    1 February 2007Genghis Khan
    8 February 2007Popper
    15 February 2007Heart of Darkness
    22 February 2007WilberforceThis programme was a documentary rather than a discussion. The programme can be streamed rather than downloaded.
    1 March 2007Optics
    8 March 2007Microbiology
    15 March 2007Epistolary Literature
    22 March 2007Bismarck
    29 March 2007Anaesthetics
    5 April 2007St Hilda
    12 April 2007The Opium Wars
    19 April 2007Symmetry
    26 April 2007Greek and Roman Love Poetry
    3 May 2007Spinoza
    10 May 2007Victorian Pessimism
    17 May 2007Gravitational Waves
    24 May 2007The Siege of Orléans
    31 May 2007Ockham's Razor
    7 June 2007Siegfried Sassoon
    14 June 2007Renaissance Astrology
    21 June 2007Common Sense Philosophy
    28 June 2007The Permian-Triassic Boundary
    5 July 2007The Pilgrim Fathers
    12 July 2007Madame Bovary

    2007–2008

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    27 September 2007Socrates
    4 October 2007Antimatter
    11 October 2007The Divine Right of Kings
    18 October 2007The Arabian Nights
    25 October 2007Taste
    1 November 2007Guilt
    8 November 2007Avicenna
    15 November 2007Oxygen
    22 November 2007The Prelude
    29 November 2007The Fibonacci Sequence
    6 December 2007Genetic Mutation
    13 December 2007The Sassanid Empire
    20 December 2007The Four Humours
    27 December 2007The Nicene Creed
    3 January 2008Camus
    10 January 2008The Charge of the Light Brigade
    17 January 2008The Fisher King
    24 January 2008Plate Tectonics
    31 January 2008Rudolph II
    7 February 2008The Social Contract
    14 February 2008The Statue of Liberty
    21 February 2008The Multiverse
    28 February 2008Lear
    6 March 2008Ada Lovelace
    13 March 2008The Greek Myths
    20 March 2008Kierkegaard
    27 March 2008The Dissolution of the Monasteries
    3 April 2008The Laws of Motion
    10 April 2008The Norman Yoke
    17 April 2008Yeats and Irish Politics
    24 April 2008Materialism
    1 May 2008The Enclosures of the 18th Century
    8 May 2008The Brain
    15 May 2008The Library at Nineveh
    22 May 2008The Black Death
    29 May 2008Probability
    5 June 2008Lysenkoism
    12 June 2008The Riddle of the Sands
    19 June 2008The Music of the Spheres
    26 June 2008The Arab Conquests
    3 July 2008The Metaphysical Poets
    10 July 2008Tacitus and the Decadence of Rome

    2008–2009

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    25 September 2008Miracles
    2 October 2008The Translation Movement
    9 October 2008Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems
    16 October 2008Vitalism
    23 October 2008Dante's Inferno
    30 October 2008Bolivar
    6 November 2008Aristotle's Politics
    13 November 2008Neuroscience
    20 November 2008The Baroque Movement
    27 November 2008The Great Reform Act
    4 December 2008Heat
    11 December 2008The Fire of London
    18 December 2008The Physics of Time
    1 January 2009The Consolations of Philosophy
    5 January 2009Darwin: On the Origins of Charles Darwin
    6 January 2009Darwin: The Voyage of the Beagle
    7 January 2009Darwin: On the Origin of Species
    8 January 2009Darwin: Life After Origins
    15 January 2009Thoreau and the American Idyll
    22 January 2009History of History
    29 January 2009Swift's A Modest Proposal
    5 February 2009The Brothers Grimm
    12 February 2009Carthage's Destruction
    19 February 2009The Observatory at Jaipur
    26 February 2009The Waste Land and Modernity
    5 March 2009The Measurement problem in Physics
    12 March 2009The Library of Alexandria
    19 March 2009The Boxer Rebellion
    26 March 2009The School of Athens
    2 April 2009Baconian Science
    9 April 2009Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
    16 April 2009Suffragism
    23 April 2009The Building of St Petersburg
    30 April 2009The Vacuum of Space
    7 May 2009The Magna Carta
    14 May 2009The Siege of Vienna
    21 May 2009The Whale - A History
    28 May 2009St Paul
    4 June 2009The Trial of Charles I
    11 June 2009The Augustan Age
    18 June 2009Elizabethan Revenge
    25 June 2009Sunni and Shia Islam
    2 July 2009Logical Positivism
    9 July 2009Ediacara Biota

    2009–2010

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    17 September 2009St Thomas Aquinas
    24 September 2009Calculus
    1 October 2009Akhenaten
    8 October 2009The Dreyfus Affair
    15 October 2009The Death of Elizabeth I
    22 October 2009The Geological Formation of Britain
    29 October 2009Schopenhauer
    5 November 2009The Siege of Munster
    12 November 2009Radiation
    19 November 2009Sparta
    26 November 2009Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    3 December 2009The Silk Road
    10 December 2009Pythagoras
    24 December 2009The Samurai
    31 December 2009Mary Wollstonecraft
    4 January 2010The Royal Society and British Science: Episode 1Documentary format
    5 January 2010The Royal Society and British Science: Episode 2Documentary format
    6 January 2010The Royal Society and British Science: Episode 3Documentary format
    7 January 2010The Royal Society and British Science: Episode 4Documentary format
    14 January 2010The Frankfurt School
    21 January 2010The Glencoe Massacre
    28 January 2010Silas Marner
    4 February 2010Ibn Khaldun
    11 February 2010The Unintended Consequences of Mathematics
    18 February 2010The Indian Mutiny
    25 February 2010Calvinism
    4 March 2010The Infant Brain
    11 March 2010Boudica
    18 March 2010Munch and The Scream
    25 March 2010The City - a history, part 1
    1 April 2010The City - a history, part 2
    8 April 2010William Hazlitt
    15 April 2010The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation
    22 April 2010Roman Satire
    29 April 2010The Great Wall of China
    6 May 2010The Cool Universe
    13 May 2010William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience
    20 May 2010The Cavendish Family in Science
    27 May 2010Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists
    3 June 2010Edmund Burke
    10 June 2010Al-Biruni
    17 June 2010The Neanderthals
    24 June 2010Antarctica
    1 July 2010Athelstan
    8 July 2010Pliny's Natural History

    2010–2011

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    23 September 2010Imaginary numbers
    30 September 2010The Delphic Oracle
    7 October 2010The Spanish Armada
    14 October 2010Sturm und Drang
    21 October 2010Logic
    28 October 2010The Unicorn
    4 November 2010Women and Enlightenment Science
    11 November 2010The Volga Vikings
    18 November 2010Foxe's Book of Martyrs
    25 November 2010History of Metaphor
    2 December 2010Cleopatra
    9 December 2010Thomas Edison
    16 December 2010Daoism
    23 December 2010The Industrial Revolution
    30 December 2010Consequences of the Industrial Revolution
    6 January 2011Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
    13 January 2011Random and Pseudorandom
    20 January 2011The Mexican Revolution
    27 January 2011Aristotle's Poetics
    3 February 2011The Battle of Bannockburn
    10 February 2011The Nervous System
    17 February 2011Maimonides
    24 February 2011The Taiping Rebellion
    3 March 2011The Age of the Universe
    10 March 2011Free Will
    (500th programme)
    17 March 2011The Medieval University
    24 March 2011The Iron Age
    31 March 2011The Bhagavad Gita
    7 April 2011Octavia Hill
    14 April 2011The Neutrino
    21 April 2011The Pelagian Controversy
    28 April 2011Cogito Ergo Sum
    5 May 2011Islamic Law and its Origins
    12 May 2011The Anatomy of Melancholy
    19 May 2011Custer's Last Stand
    26 May 2011Xenophon
    2 June 2011The Battle of Stamford Bridge
    9 June 2011The Origins of Infectious Disease
    16 June 2011Wyclif and the Lollards
    • Anthony Kenny, Philosopher and former Master of Balliol College, Oxford
    • Anne Hudson, Emeritus Professor of Medieval English at the University of Oxford
    • Rob Lutton, Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Nottingham
    23 June 2011Malthusianism
    30 June 2011Tennyson's In Memoriam
    7 July 2011The Minoan Civilisation

    2011–2012

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    15 September 2011The Hippocratic Oath
    22 September 2011Shinto
    29 September 2011The Etruscan Civilisation
    6 October 2011David Hume
    13 October 2011The Ming Voyages
    20 October 2011Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People
    27 October 2011The Siege of Tenochtitlan
    3 November 2011The Moon
    10 November 2011The Continental-Analytic Split
    17 November 2011Ptolemy and Ancient Astronomy
    24 November 2011Judas Maccabeus
    1 December 2011Christina Rossetti
    8 December 2011Heraclitus
    15 December 2011The Concordat of Worms
    22 December 2011Robinson Crusoe
    29 December 2011Macromolecules
    2 January 2012The Written World: Episode 1Documentary format
    3 January 2012The Written World: Episode 2Documentary format
    4 January 2012The Written World: Episode 3Documentary format
    5 January 2012The Written World: Episode 4Documentary format
    6 January 2012The Written World: Episode 5Documentary format
    12 January 2012The Safavid dynasty
    19 January 20121848: Year of Revolution
    26 January 2012The Scientific method
    2 February 2012The Kama Sutra
    9 February 2012Erasmus
    16 February 2012The An Lushan Rebellion
    23 February 2012Conductors and Semiconductors
    1 March 2012Benjamin Franklin
    8 March 2012Lyrical Ballads
    15 March 2012Vitruvius and De Architectura
    22 March 2012Moses Mendelssohn
    29 March 2012The Measurement of Time
    5 April 2012George Fox and the Quakers
    12 April 2012Early Geology
    19 April 2012Neoplatonism
    26 April 2012The Battle of Bosworth Field
    3 May 2012Voltaire's Candide
    10 May 2012Game theory
    17 May 2012Clausewitz and On War
    24 May 2012Marco Polo
    31 May 2012The Trojan War
    7 June 2012King Solomon
    14 June 2012James Joyce's Ulysses
    21 June 2012Annie Besant
    28 June 2012Al-Kindi
    5 July 2012Scepticism
    12 July 2012Hadrian's Wall

    2012–2013

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    13 September 2012The Cell
    20 September 2012The Druids
    27 September 2012The Ontological Argument
    4 October 2012Gerald of Wales
    11 October 2012Hannibal
    18 October 2012Caxton and the Printing Press
    25 October 2012Fermat's Last Theorem
    1 November 2012The Anarchy
    8 November 2012The Upanishads
    15 November 2012Simone Weil
    22 November 2012The Borgias
    29 November 2012Crystallography
    6 December 2012Bertrand Russell
    13 December 2012Shahnameh of Ferdowsi
    20 December 2012The South Sea Bubble
    27 December 2012The Cult of Mithras
    10 January 2013Le Morte d'Arthur
    17 January 2013Comets
    24 January 2013Romulus and Remus
    31 January 2013The War of 1812
    7 February 2013Epicureanism
    14 February 2013Ice ages
    21 February 2013Decline and Fall
    28 February 2013Pitt Rivers
    7 March 2013Absolute Zero
    14 March 2013Chekhov
    21 March 2013Alfred Russel Wallace
    28 March 2013Water
    4 April 2013Japan's Sakoku Period
    11 April 2013The Amazons
    18 April 2013The Putney Debates
    25 April 2013Montaigne
    2 May 2013Gnosticism
    9 May 2013Icelandic Sagas
    16 May 2013Cosmic rays
    23 May 2013Lévi-Strauss
    30 May 2013Queen Zenobia
    6 June 2013Relativity
    13 June 2013Prophecy
    20 June 2013The Physiocrats
    27 June 2013Romance of the Three Kingdoms
    4 July 2013The Invention of Radio

    2013–2014

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    19 September 2013Pascal
    26 September 2013The Mamluks
    3 October 2013Exoplanets
    10 October 2013Galen
    17 October 2013The Book of Common Prayer
    24 October 2013The Corn Laws
    31 October 2013The Berlin Conference
    7 November 2013Ordinary language philosophy
    14 November 2013The Tempest
    21 November 2013Pocahontas
    28 November 2013The Microscope
    5 December 2013Hindu Ideas of Creation
    12 December 2013Pliny the Younger
    19 December 2013Complexity
    26 December 2013The Medici
    3 January 2014Plato's Symposium
    16 January 2014The Battle of Tours
    23 January 2014Sources of Early Chinese History
    30 January 2014Catastrophism
    6 February 2014The Phoenicians
    13 February 2014Chivalry
    20 February 2014Social Darwinism
    • Adam Kuper, Centennial Professor of Anthropology at the LSE, University of London
    • Gregory Radick, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds
    • Charlotte Sleigh, Reader in the History of Science at the University of Kent
    27 February 2014The Eye
    6 March 2014Spartacus
    13 March 2014The Trinity
    20 March 2014Bishop Berkeley
    27 March 2014Weber's The Protestant Ethic
    3 April 2014States of Matter
    10 April 2014Strabo's Geographica
    17 April 2014The Domesday Book
    24 April 2014Tristram Shandy
    1 May 2014The Tale of Sinuhe
    8 May 2014The Sino-Japanese War
    15 May 2014Photosynthesis
    22 May 2014The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
    29 May 2014The Talmud
    5 June 2014The Bluestockings
    12 June 2014Robert Boyle
    19 June 2014The Philosophy of Solitude
    26 June 2014Hildegard of Bingen
    3 July 2014Mrs Dalloway
    10 July 2014The Sun

    2014–2015

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    25 September 2014e
    2 October 2014Julius Caesar
    9 October 2014The Battle of Talas
    16 October 2014Rudyard Kipling
    23 October 2014The Haitian Revolution
    30 October 2014Nuclear Fusion
    6 November 2014Hatshepsut
    13 November 2014Brunel
    20 November 2014Aesop
    27 November 2014Kafka's The Trial
    4 December 2014Zen
    11 December 2014Behavioural ecology
    18 December 2014Truth
    15 January 2015Bruegel's The Fight Between Carnival and Lent
    22 January 2015Phenomenology
    29 January 2015Thucydides
    5 February 2015Ashoka the Great
    12 February 2015The Photon
    19 February 2015The Wealth of Nations
    26 February 2015The Eunuch
    5 March 2015Beowulf
    12 March 2015Dark matter
    19 March 2015Al-Ghazali
    26 March 2015The Curies
    2 April 2015The California Gold Rush
    9 April 2015Sappho
    16 April 2015Matteo Ricci and the Ming dynasty
    23 April 2015Fanny Burney
    30 April 2015The Earth's core
    7 May 2015Tagore
    14 May 2015The Lancashire Cotton Famine
    21 May 2015Josephus
    28 May 2015The Science of Glass
    4 June 2015Prester John
    11 June 2015Utilitarianism
    18 June 2015Jane Eyre
    25 June 2015Extremophiles
    2 July 2015Frederick the Great
    9 July 2015Frida Kahlo

    2015–2016

    From the start of 2016 (Saturn) the podcast version of the programme started to include a few minutes of unbroadcast extra material, which would generally be prompted by the question So, what did we miss?

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    24 September 2015Perpetual motion
    1 October 2015Alexander the Great
    15 October 2015Holbein at the Tudor Court
    22 October 2015Simone de Beauvoir
    29 October 2015The Empire of Mali
    5 November 2015P v NP
    12 November 2015The Battle of Lepanto
    19 November 2015Emma
    29 November 2015The Salem Witch Trials
    3 December 2015Voyages of James Cook
    10 December 2015Chinese Legalism
    17 December 2015Circadian rhythms
    25 December 2015Michael Faraday
    31 December 2015Tristan and Iseult
    14 January 2016Saturn
    21 January 2016Thomas Paine's Common Sense
    28 January 2016Eleanor of Aquitaine
    4 February 2016Chromatography
    11 February 2016Rumi's Poetry
    18 February 2016Robert Hooke
    25 February 2016Mary Magdalene
    3 March 2016The Dutch East India Company
    10 March 2016The Maya Civilization
    17 March 2016Bedlam
    24 March 2016Aurora Leigh
    31 March 2016Agrippina the Younger
    7 April 2016The Sikh Empire
    14 April 2016The Neutron
    21 April 20161816, the Year Without a Summer
    28 April 2016Euclid's Elements
    5 May 2016Tess of the d'Urbervilles
    12 May 2016Titus Oates and his 'Popish Plot'
    19 May 2016The Muses
    26 May 2016The Gettysburg Address
    2 June 2016Margery Kempe and English Mysticism
    9 June 2016Penicillin
    16 June 2016The Bronze Age Collapse
    John Bennet, Director of the British School at Athens and Professor of Aegean Archaeology at the University of Sheffield
    23 June 2016Songs of Innocence and of Experience
    30 June 2016Sovereignty
    7 July 2016The Invention of Photography

    2016–2017

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    22 September 2016Zeno's paradoxes
    29 September 2016Animal Farm
    6 October 2016Lakshmi
    13 October 2016Plasma
    20 October 2016The 12th Century Renaissance
    27 October 2016John Dalton
    3 November 2016Epic of Gilgamesh
    10 November 2016The Fighting Temeraire
    17 November 2016Justinian's Legal Code
    24 November 2016Baltic Crusades
    1 December 2016Garibaldi and the Risorgimento
    8 December 2016Harriet Martineau
    15 December 2016The Gin Craze
    21 December 2016Four Quartets
    29 December 2016Johannes Kepler
    12 January 2017Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality
    19 January 2017Mary, Queen of Scots
    26 January 2017Parasitism
    2 February 2017Hannah Arendt
    9 February 2017John Clare
    16 February 2017Maths in the Early Islamic World
    23 February 2017Seneca the Younger
    2 March 2017The Kuiper belt
    9 March 2017North and South
    16 March 2017The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
    23 March 2017The Battle of Salamis
    30 March 2017Hokusai
    6 April 2017Pauli's exclusion principle
    13 April 2017Rosa Luxemburg
    20 April 2017Roger Bacon
    27 April 2017The Egyptian Book of the Dead
    4 May 2017The Battle of Lincoln 1217
    11 May 2017Emily Dickinson
    18 May 2017Louis Pasteur
    25 May 2017Purgatory
    1 June 2017Enzymes
    8 June 2017Christine de Pizan
    15 June 2017The American Populists
    22 June 2017Eugene Onegin
    29 June 2017Plato's Republic
    6 July 2017Bird migration

    2017–2018

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    21 September 2017Kant's Categorical Imperative
    28 September 2017Wuthering Heights
    5 October 2017Constantine the Great
    12 October 2017Aphra Behn
    19 October 2017The Congress of Vienna
    26 October 2017Feathered dinosaurs
    2 November 2017Picasso's Guernica
    • Mary Vincent, Professor of Modern European History at the University of Sheffield
    • Gijs van Hensbergen, Historian of Spanish Art and Fellow of the LSE Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies
    • Dacia Viejo Rose, Lecturer in Heritage in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, Fellow of Selwyn College
    9 November 2017The Picts
    16 November 2017Germaine de Staël
    23 November 2017Thebes
    30 November 2017Carl Friedrich Gauss
    7 December 2017Moby Dick
    14 December 2017Thomas Becket
    21 December 2017Beethoven
    28 December 2017Hamlet
    11 January 2018The Siege of Malta, 1565
    18 January 2018Anna Akhmatova
    25 January 2018Cicero
    1 February 2018Cephalopods
    9 February 2018Frederick Douglass
    15 February 2018Fungi
    22 February 2018Rosalind Franklin
    1 March 2018Sun Tzu and The Art of War
    8 March 2018The Highland Clearances
    15 March 2018Augustine's Confessions
    22 March 2018Tocqueville: Democracy in America
    5 April 2018Roman Slavery
    11 April 2018George and Robert Stephenson
    • Michael Bailey, Railway historian and editor of the most recent biography of Robert Stephenson
    • Julia Elton, Past President of the Newcomen Society for the History of Engineering and Technology
    • Colin Divall, Professor Emeritus of Railway Studies at the University of York
    18 April 2018Middlemarch
    26 April 2018The Proton
    3 May 2018The Almoravid Empire
    10 May 2018The Mabinogion
    17 May 2018The Emancipation of the Serfs
    25 May 2018Margaret of Anjou
    31 May 2018Henrik Ibsen
    7 June 2018Persepolis
    14 June 2018Montesquieu
    21 June 2018Echolocation
    28 June 2018The Mexican-American War
    5 July 2018William Morris

    2018–2019

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    13 September 2018The Iliad
    20 September 2018Automata
    27 September 2018Dietrich Bonhoeffer
    4 October 2018Edith Wharton
    11 October 2018Is Shakespeare History? The Plantagenets
    18 October 2018Is Shakespeare History? The Romans
    25 October 2018The Fable of the Bees
    1 November 2018Free Radicals
    8 November 2018Marie Antoinette
    15 November 2018Horace
    22 November 2018Hope
    29 November 2018The Long March
    6 December 2018The Thirty Years War
    13 December 2018Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
    20 December 2018The Poor Laws
    27 December 2018Venus
    10 January 2019Papal Infallibility
    17 January 2019Samuel Beckett
    24 January 2019Emmy Noether
    31 January 2019Owain Glyndŵr
    7 February 2019Aristotle's biology
    14 February 2019Judith beheading Holofernes
    21 February 2019Pheromones
    28 February 2019Antarah ibn Shaddad
    7 March 2019William Cecil
    14 March 2019Authenticity
    21 March 2019Gerard Manley Hopkins
    28 March 2019The Danelaw
    4 April 2019The Great Irish Famine
    11 April 2019The Evolution of Teeth
    18 April 2019A Midsummer Night's Dream
    25 April 2019Nero
    2 May 2019 The Gordon Riots
    9 May 2019Bergson and Time
    16 May 2019Frankenstein
    23 May 2019Kinetic Theory
    30 May 2019President Ulysses S Grant
    6 June 2019 Sir Thomas Browne
    13 June 2019 The Inca
    20 June 2019 The Mytilenaean Debate
    27 June 2019 Doggerland
    4 July 2019 Lorca

    2019–2020

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    19 September 2019Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow
    26 September 2019The Rapture
    3 October 2019Dorothy Hodgkin
    10 October 2019Rousseau on Education
    17 October 2019The Time Machine
    24 October 2019Robert Burns
    31 October 2019Hybrids
    7 November 2019The Treaty of Limerick
    14 November 2019Crime and Punishment
    21 November 2019Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem
    28 November 2019Li Shizhen
    5 December 2019Lawrence of Arabia
    12 December 2019Coffee
    19 December 2019Auden
    26 December 2019Tutankhamun
    11 January 2020Catullus
    16 January 2020The Siege of Paris (1870-71)
    23 January 2020Solar Wind
    30 January 2020Alcuin
    6 February 2020George Sand
    13 February 2020Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
    20 February 2020The Valladolid Debate
    27 February 2020The Evolution of Horses
    5 March 2020Paul Dirac
    12 March 2020The Covenanters

    The 2019–2020 series was truncated because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    2020–2021

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    17 September 2020Pericles
    24 September 2020Cave Art
    1 October 2020Macbeth
    8 October 2020Deism
    15 October 2020Alan Turing
    22 October 2020Maria Theresa
    29 October 2020Piers Plowman
    5 November 2020Mary Astell
    12 November 2020Albrecht Dürer
    26 November 2020The Zong Massacre
    3 December 2020Fernando Pessoa
    10 December 2020John Wesley and Methodism
    17 December 2020The Cultural Revolution
    31 December 2020Eclipses
    14 January 2021The Great Gatsby
    21 January 2021The Plague of Justinian
    28 January 2021Saint Cuthbert
    4 February 2021Emilie du Châtelet
    11 February 2021The Rosetta Stone
    18 February 2021Medieval Pilgrimage
    25 February 2021Marcus Aurelius
    4 March 2021The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
    11 March 2021The Late Devonian Extinction
    18 March 2021The Bacchae
    25 March 2021David Ricardo
    1 April 2021The Russo-Japanese War
    8 April 2021Pierre-Simon Laplace
    15 April 2021Arianism
    22 April 2021The Franco-American Alliance 1778
    29 April 2021Ovid
    6 May 2021The Second Barons' War
    13 May 2021Longitude
    20 May 2021Journey to the West
    27 May 2021The Interregnum
    3 June 2021Kant's Copernican Revolution
    10 June 2021Booth's Life and Labour Survey
    17 June 2021Edward Gibbon
    24 June 2021Shakespeare's Sonnets

    2021–2022

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    16 September 2021The Evolution of Crocodiles
    23 September 2021Herodotus
    30 September 2021The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
    7 October 2021The Manhattan Project
    14 October 2021The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
    21 October 2021Iris Murdoch
    28 October 2021Corals
    4 November 2021The Song of Roland
    11 November 2021William and Caroline Herschel
    18 November 2021The Decadent Movement
    25 November 2021Plato's Gorgias
    2 December 2021The Battle of Trafalgar
    • James Davey, Lecturer in Naval and Maritime History at the University of Exeter
    • Marianne Czisnik, Independent researcher on Nelson and editor of his letters to Lady Hamilton
    • Kenneth Johnson, Research Professor of National Security at Air University, Alabama
    9 December 2021The May Fourth Movement
    16 December 2021A Christmas Carol
    23 December 2021The Hittites
    30 December 2021Fritz Lang
    13 January 2022Thomas Hardy's Poetry
    20 January 2022The Gold Standard
    27 January 2022Colette
    3 February 2022The Temperance Movement
    10 February 2022Walter Benjamin
    17 February 2022Romeo and Juliet
    24 February 2022Peter Kropotkin
    3 March 2022The Arthashastra
    10 March 2022Seismology
    17 March 2022Charisma
    24 March 2022Antigone
    31 March 2022The Sistine Chapel
    07 April 2022Polidori's The Vampyre
    14 April 2022Homo erectus
    21 April 2022Olympe de Gouges
    28 April 2022Early Christian Martyrdom
    5 May 2022The Davidian Revolution
    12 May 2022Tang Era Poetry
    19 May 2022Comenius
    26 May 2022Hegel's Philosophy of History
    9 June 2022The Death of Stars
    16 June 2022Dylan Thomas
    23 June 2022Angkor Wat
    • Piphal Heng, postdoctoral scholar at the Cotsen Institute and the Programme for Early Modern Southeast Asia at University of California, Los Angeles
    • Ashley Thompson, Hiram W Woodward Chair of Southeast Asian Art at SOAS University of London
    • Simon Warrack, stone conservator who has worked extensively at Angkor Wat
    30 June 2022John Bull

    2022–2023

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors
    and positions held at time of broadcast
    15 September 2022Nineteen Eighty-Four
    22 September 2022Plato's Atlantis
    29 September 2022The Electron
    6 October 2022The Knights Templar
    13 October 2022Berthe Morisot
    20 October 2022The Fish-Tetrapod Transition
    27 October 2022Wilfred Owen
    3 November 2022The Morant Bay Rebellion
    10 November 2022Bauhaus
    17 November 2022Demosthenes' Philippics
    24 November 2022The Challenger Expedition 1872-1876
    1 December 2022The Nibelungenlied
    8 December 2022The Irish Rebellion of 1798
    15 December 2022Citizen Kane
    22 December 2022Persuasion
    29 December 2022The Great Stink
    12 January 2023John Donne
    19 January 2023Rawls' Theory of Justice
    26 January 2023Superconductivity
    2 February 2023Tycho Brahe
    9 Feb 2023Chartism
    16 Feb 2023Stevie Smith
    23 Feb 2023Paul Erdős
    2 Mar 2023Megaliths
    9 March 2023The Ramayana
    16 March 2023Mercantilism
    23 March 2023Solon the Lawgiver
    30 March 2023A Room of One's Own
    6 April 2023Cnut
    13 April 2023The Battle of Crécy
    20 April 2023Linnaeus
    27 April 2023Walt Whitman
    4 May 2023The Dead Sea Scrolls
    11 May 2023The Shimabara Rebellion
    18 May 2023Virgil's Georgics
    25 May 2023Louis XIV: The Sun King
    01 June 2023Mitochondria
    08 June 2023Oedipus Rex
    15 June 2023Death in Venice
    22 June 2023Elizabeth Anscombe
    29 June 2023Jupiter

    2023–2024

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors and positions held at time of broadcast
    14 September 2023Albert Einstein
    21 September 2023The Seventh Seal

    (1000th program)

    • Jan Holmberg [sv], Director of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation [sv], Stockholm
    • Laura Hubner, Professor of Film at the University of Winchester
    • Claire Thomson, Professor of Cinema History and Director of the School of European Languages, Culture and Society at University College London
    21 September 2023Melvyn Bragg talks to Mishal Husain
    28 September 2023The Economic Consequences of the Peace
    05 October 2023Plankton
    12 October 2023The Federalist Papers
    19 October 2023Julian of Norwich
    26 October 2023Germinal
    02 November 2023Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
    09 November 2023The Barbary Corsairs
    16 November 2023The Theory of the Leisure Class
    23 November 2023Marguerite de Navarre
    30 November 2023Edgar Allan Poe
    07 December 2023Karl Barth
    14 December 2023Tiberius
    21 December 2023Vincent van Gogh
    28 December 2023Twelfth Night, or What You Will
    11 January 2024Condorcet
    18 January 2024Nefertiti
    25 January 2024Panpsychism
    1 February 2024The Hanseatic League
    8 February 2024Hormones
    15 February 2024Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
    22 February 2024The Sack of Rome 1527
    29 February 2024Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
    07 March 2024The Mokrani Revolt
    14 March 2024The Waltz
    21 March 2024Julian the Apostate
    28 March 2024The Kalevala
    04 April 2024Nikola Tesla
    11 April 2024Lysistrata
    18 April 2024Napoleon's Hundred Days
    25 April 2024Bertolt Brecht
    02 May 2024Mercury
    09 May 2024Sir Thomas Wyatt
    16 May 2024Philippa Foot
    23 May 2024Empress Dowager Cixi
    30 May 2024Marsilius of Padua
    06 June 2024The Orkneyinga Saga
    13 June 2024Fielding's Tom Jones
    20 June 2024Karma
    27 June 2024Monet in England
    04 July 2024Bacteriophages

    2024–2025

    Broadcast date
    Listen again
    TitleContributors and positions held at time of broadcast
    19 September 2024Benjamin Disraeli
    26 September 2024Wormholes
    3 October 2024The Haymarket Affair
    10 October 2024Robert Graves
    17 October 2024Hayek's The Road to Serfdom
    24 October 2024Little Women
    31 October 2024The Venetian Empire
    07 November 2024George Herbert
    14 November 2024The Antikythera Mechanism
    21 November 2024Italo Calvino
    28 November 2024The Hanoverian Succession
    05 December 2024Nizami Ganjavi
    12 December 2024The Habitability of Planets
    19 December 2024Plutarch's Parallel Lives
    26 December 2024Vase-mania
    02 January 2025Slime Moulds
    16 January 2025The Battle of Valmy
    23 January 2025Socrates in Prison
    30 January 2025Pope Joan
    06 February 2025Sir John Soane
    • Frances Sands, the Curator of Drawings and Books at Sir John Soane's Museum
    • Frank Salmon, Associate Professor of the History of Art at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Ax:son Johnson Centre for the Study of Classical Architecture
    • Gillian Darley, historian and author of Soane's biography.
    13 February 2025Catherine of Aragon
    20 February 2025Oliver Goldsmith
    27 February 2025Kali
    06 March 2025Pollination
    13 March 2025Cyrus the Great
    20 March 2025Thomas Middleton
    27 March 2025Maurice Merleau-Ponty
    03 April 2025The Gracchi
    10 April 2025The Battle of Clontarf
    17 April 2025Typology
    24 April 2025Molière
    01 May 2025The Korean Empire
    08 May 2025Lise Meitner
    15 May 2025Copyright
    22 May 2025Paul von Hindenburg
    29 May 2025Hypnosis
    05 June 2025The Vienna Secession
    12 June 2025The Evolution of Lungs
    19 June 2025Barbour's 'Brus'
    26 June 2025Dragons
    03 July 2025Civility: talking with those who disagree with you

    The 2024–2025 series was the last to be hosted by Melvyn Bragg.


    References

    1. ^ "Melvyn Bragg steps down from BBC Radio 4's In Our Time after 26 years". BBC News. 3 September 2025. Retrieved 3 September 2025.
    2. ^ https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2025/misha-glenny-in-our-time-bbc-radio-4
    3. ^ "The complete in Our Time now available as podcasts". Radio Times. 15 September 2011. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
    4. ^ "In Our Time's Greatest Philiosopher Vote". BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on 13 February 2021. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
    • Programme archive
    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_In_Our_Time_programmes&oldid=1326715314"