Podcast In Our Time

MB and guests discuss the intense political activity at the turn of the 18th Century, when many politicians in London went to great lengths to find a Protestant successor to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland and others went to equal lengths to oppose them. Queen Anne had no surviving children and, following the old rules, there were at least 50 Catholic candidates ahead of any Protestant ones and among those by far the most obvious candidate was James, the only son of James II. Yet with the passing of the Act of Settlement in 1701 ahead of Anne's own succession, focus turned to Europe and to Princess Sophia, an Electress of the Holy Roman Empire in Hanover who, as a granddaughter of James I, thus became next in line to be crowned at Westminster Abbey. It was not clear that Hanover would want this role, given its own ambitions and the risks, in Europe, of siding with Protestants, and soon George I was minded to break the rules of succession so that he would be the last Hanoverian monarch as well as the first.WithAndreas Gestrich Professor Emeritus at Trier University and Former Director of the German Historical Institute in LondonElaine Chalus Professor of British History at the University of LiverpoolAnd Mark Knights Professor of History at the University of WarwickProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:J.M. Beattie, The English Court in the Reign of George I (Cambridge University Press, 1967)Jeremy Black, The Hanoverians: The History of a Dynasty (Hambledon Continuum, 2006)Justin Champion, Republican Learning: John Toland and the Crisis of Christian Culture 1696-1722 (Manchester University Press, 2003), especially his chapter ‘Anglia libera: Protestant liberties and the Hanoverian succession, 1700–14’Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707 – 1837 (Yale University Press, 2009)Andreas Gestrich and Michael Schaich (eds), The Hanoverian Succession: Dynastic Politics and Monarchical Culture (‎Ashgate, 2015)Ragnhild Hatton, George I: Elector and King (Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1979)Mark Knights, Representation and Misrepresentation in Later Stuart Britain: Partisanship and Political Culture (Oxford University Press, 2005) Mark Knights, Faction Displayed: Reconsidering the Impeachment of Dr Henry Sacheverell (Blackwell, 2012)Joanna Marschner, Queen Caroline: Cultural Politics at the Early Eighteenth-Century Court (Yale University Press, 2014)Ashley Marshall, ‘Radical Steele: Popular Politics and the Limits of Authority’ (Journal of British Studies 58, 2019)Paul Monod, Jacobitism and the English People, 1688-1788 (Cambridge University Press, 1989)Hannah Smith, Georgian Monarchy: Politics and Culture 1714-1760 (Cambridge University Press, 2006)Daniel Szechi, 1715: The Great Jacobite Rebellion (Yale University Press, 2006)A.C. Thompson, George II : King and Elector (Yale University Press, 2011)is a BBC Studios Audio Production

MB and guests discuss the Italian author of Invisible Cities, If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, Cosmicomics and other celebrated novels, fables and short stories of the 20th Century. Calvino (1923 -1985) had a passionate belief that writing and art could make life better for everyone. Despite his parents being scientists, who dearly wanted him to be a scientist too, and his time fighting with the Partisans in Liguria in WWII during which his parents were held hostage by the Nazis, Calvino turned away from realism in his writing. Ideally, he said, he would have liked to be alive in the Enlightenment. He moved towards the fantastical, drawing on his childhood reading while collecting a huge number of the fables of Italy and translating them from dialect into Italian to enrich the shared culture of his fellow citizens. His fresh perspective on the novel continues to inspire writers and delight readers in Italian and in translations around the world.With Guido Bonsaver Professor of Italian Cultural History at the University of OxfordJennifer Burns Professor of Italian Studies at the University of WarwickAndBeatrice Sica Associate Professor in Italian Studies at UCLProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list: Elio Baldi, The Author in Criticism: Italo Calvino’s Authorial Image in Italy, the United States, and the United Kingdom (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2020)Elio Baldi and Cecilia Schwartz, Circulation, Translation and Reception Across Borders: Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities Around the World (Routledge, 2024)Peter Bondanella and Andrea Ciccarelli (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Novel (Cambridge University Press, 2003), especially the chapter ‘Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco: Postmodern Masters’James Butler, ‘Infinite Artichoke’ (London Review of Books, vol. 45, no. 12, 15 June 2023)Italo Calvino (trans. Martin McLaughlin), The Path to the Spiders’ Nests (first published 1947; Penguin Classics, 2009)Italo Calvino (trans. Mikki Taylor), The Baron in the Trees (first published 1957; Vintage Classics, 2021)Italo Calvino, Marcovaldo (first published 1963; Vintage Classics, 2023) Italo Calvino (trans. William Weaver and Ann Goldstein), Difficult Loves and Other Stories (first published 1970; Vintage Classics, 2018)Italo Calvino (trans. William Weaver), Invisible Cities (first published 1972; Vintage Classics, 1997)Italo Calvino (trans. Patrick Creagh), The Uses of Literature (first published 1980; Houghton Mifflin, 1987)Italo Calvino (trans. Geoffrey Brock), Six Memos for the Next Millennium (first published 1988; Penguin Classics, 2016) Italo Calvino (trans. Tim Parks), The Road to San Giovanni (first published 1990; HMH Books, 2014) Italo Calvino (trans. Ann Goldstein), The Written World and the Unwritten World: Essays (Mariner Books Classics, 2023)Kathryn Hume, Calvino's Fictions: Cogito and Cosmos (Clarendon Press, 1992)Martin McLaughlin, Italo Calvino (Edinburgh University Press, 1998)is a BBC Studios Audio Production

MB and guests discuss the 2000-year-old device which transformed our understanding of astronomy in ancient Greece. In 1900 a group of sponge divers found the wreck of a ship off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. Among the items salvaged was a corroded bronze object, the purpose of which was not at first clear. It turned out to be one of the most important discoveries in marine archaeology. Over time, researchers worked out that it was some kind of astronomical analogue computer, the only one to survive from this period as bronze objects were so often melted down for other uses. In recent decades, detailed examination of the Antikythera Mechanism using the latest scientific techniques indicates that it is a particularly intricate tool for showing the positions of planets, the sun and moon, with a complexity and precision not surpassed for over a thousand years.With Mike Edmunds Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics at Cardiff UniversityJo Marchant Science journalist and author of 'Decoding the Heavens' on the Antikythera MechanismAnd Liba Taub Professor Emerita in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and Visiting Scholar at the Deutsches Museum, MunichProducer: Simon Tillotson is a BBC Studios Audio ProductionReading list:Derek de Solla Price, Gears from the Greeks: The Antikythera Mechanism (American Philosophical Society Press, 1974)M. G. Edmunds, ‘The Antikythera mechanism and the mechanical universe’ (Contemp. Phys. 55, 2014) M.G. Edmunds, ’The Mechanical Universe’ (Astronomy & Geophysics, 64, 2023)James Evans and J. Lennart Berggren, Geminos's Introduction to the Phenomena: A Translation and Study of a Hellenistic Survey of Astronomy (Princeton University Press, 2006)T. Freeth et al., ‘Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera mechanism’ (Nature 454, 2008)Alexander Jones, A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World (Oxford University Press, 2017)Jo Marchant, Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World’s First Computer (Windmill Books, 2009)J.H. Seiradakis and M.G. Edmunds, ‘Our current knowledge of the Antikythera Mechanism’ (Nature Astronomy 2, 2018)Liba Taub, Ancient Greek and Roman Science: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2022)

MB and guests discuss the poet George Herbert (1593-1633) who, according to the French philosopher Simone Weil, wrote ‘the most beautiful poem in the world’. Herbert gave his poems on his relationship with God to a friend, to be published after his death if they offered comfort to any 'dejected pour soul' but otherwise be burned. They became so popular across the range of Christians in the 17th Century that they were printed several times, somehow uniting those who disliked each other but found a common admiration for Herbert; Charles I read them before his execution, as did his enemies. Herbert also wrote poems prolifically and brilliantly in Latin and these he shared during his lifetime both when he worked as orator at Cambridge University and as a parish priest in Bemerton near Salisbury. He went on to influence poets from Coleridge to Heaney and, in parish churches today, congregations regularly sing his poems set to music as hymns. WithHelen Wilcox Professor Emerita of English Literature at Bangor UniversityVictoria Moul Formerly Professor of Early Modern Latin and English at UCLAndSimon Jackson Director of Music and Director of Studies in English at Peterhouse, University of CambridgeProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list: Amy Charles, A Life of George Herbert (Cornell University Press, 1977)Thomas M. Corns, The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry: Donne to Marvell (Cambridge University Press, 1993) John Drury, Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert (Penguin, 2014)George Herbert (eds. John Drury and Victoria Moul), The Complete Poetry (Penguin, 2015)George Herbert (ed. Helen Wilcox), The English Poems of George Herbert (Cambridge University Press, 2007)Simon Jackson, George Herbert and Early Modern Musical Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2022)Gary Kuchar, George Herbert and the Mystery of the Word (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)Cristina Malcolmson, George Herbert: A Literary Life (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)Victoria Moul, A Literary History of Latin and English Poetry: Bilingual Literary Culture in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2022)Joseph H. Summers, George Herbert: His Religion and Art (first published by Chatto and Windus, 1954; Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, New York, 1981)Helen Vendler, The Poetry of George Herbert (Harvard University Press, 1975)James Boyd White, This Book of Starres: Learning to Read George Herbert (University of Michigan Press, 1995)Helen Wilcox (ed.), George Herbert. 100 Poems (Cambridge University Press, 2021) is a BBC Studios Audio production

MB and guests discuss the remarkable rise of Venice in the eastern Mediterranean. Unlike other Italian cities of the early medieval period, Venice had not been settled during the Roman Empire. Rather, it was a refuge for those fleeing unrest after the fall of Rome who settled on these boggy islands on a lagoon and developed into a power that ran an empire from mainland Italy, down the Adriatic coast, across the Peloponnese to Crete and Cyprus, past Constantinople and into the Black Sea. This was a city without walls, just one of the surprises for visitors who marvelled at the stability and influence of Venice right up to the 17th Century when the Ottomans, Spain, France and the Hapsburgs were to prove too much especially with trade shifting to the Atlantic.With Maartje van Gelder Professor in Early Modern History at the University of AmsterdamStephen Bowd Professor of Early Modern History at the University of EdinburghAndGeorg Christ Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of ManchesterProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Michel Balard and Christian Buchet (eds.), The Sea in History: The Medieval World (Boydell & Brewer, 2017), especially ‘The Naval Power of Venice in the Eastern Mediterranean’ by Ruthy GertwagenStephen D. Bowd, Venice's Most Loyal City: Civic Identity in Renaissance Brescia (Harward University Press, 2010)Frederic Chapin Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973)Georg Christ and Franz-Julius Morche (eds.), Cultures of Empire: Rethinking Venetian rule 1400–1700: Essays in Honour of Benjamin Arbel (Brill, 2020), especially ‘Orating Venice's Empire: Politics and Persuasion in Fifteenth Century Funeral Orations’ by Monique O'ConnellEric R. Dursteler, A Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797 (Brill, 2013), especially ‘Venice's Maritime Empire in the Early Modern Period’ by Benjamin ArbelIain Fenlon, The Ceremonial City: History, Memory and Myth in Renaissance Venice (Yale University Press, 2007)Joanne M. Ferraro, Venice: History of the Floating City (Cambridge University Press, 2012)Maria Fusaro, Political Economies of Empire: The Decline of Venice and the Rise of England 1450-1700 (Cambridge University Press, 2015)Maartje van Gelder, Trading Places: The Netherlandish Merchant Community in Early Modern Venice, 1590-1650 (Brill, 2009)Deborah Howard, The Architectural History of Venice (Yale University Press, 2004)Kristin L. Huffman (ed.), A View of Venice: Portrait of a Renaissance City (Duke University Press, 2024) Peter Humfrey, Venice and the Veneto: Artistic Centers of the Italian Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 2008)John Jeffries Martin and Dennis Romano (eds.), Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297-1797 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000)Erin Maglaque, Venice’s Intimate Empire: Family Life and Scholarship in the Renaissance Mediterranean (Cornell University Press, 2018)Michael E Mallett and John Rigby Hale, The Military Organization of a Renaissance State Venice, c.1400 to 1617 (Cambridge University Press, 1984)William Hardy McNeill, Venice: The Hinge of Europe (The University of Chicago Press, 1974)Jan Morris, The Venetian Empire: A Sea Voyage (Faber & Faber, 1980)Monique O'Connell, Men of Empire: Power and Negotiation in Venice’s Maritime State (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009)Dennis Romano, Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City (Oxford University Press, 2023)David Rosand, Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State (University of North Carolina Press, 2001)David Sanderson Chambers, The Imperial Age of Venice, 1380-1580 (Thames and Hudson, 1970) Sandra Toffolo, Describing the City, Describing the State: Representations of Venice and the Venetian Terraferma in the Renaissance (Brill, 2020)is a BBC Studios Audio Production .

MB and guests discuss Louisa May Alcott's 1868 novel, credited with starting the new genre of young adult fiction. When Alcott (1832-88) wrote Little Women, she only did so as her publisher refused to publish her father's book otherwise and as she hoped it would make money. It made Alcott's fortune. This coming of age story of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March, each overcoming their own moral flaws, has delighted generations of readers and was so popular from the start that Alcott wrote the second part in 1869 and further sequels and spin-offs in the coming years. Her work has inspired countless directors, composers and authors to make many reimagined versions ever since, with the sisters played by film actors such as Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, Kirsten Dunst, Saoirse Ronan and Emma Watson. With Bridget Bennett Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of LeedsErin Forbes Senior Lecturer in African American and U.S. Literature at the University of BristolAndTom Wright Reader in Rhetoric and Head of the Department of English Literature at the University of SussexProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Louisa May Alcott (ed. Madeline B Stern), Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott (William Morrow & Co, 1997)Kate Block, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado and Jane Smiley, March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women (Library of America, 2019)Anne Boyd Rioux, Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters (W. W. Norton & Company, 2018)Azelina Flint, The Matrilineal Heritage of Louisa May Alcott and Christina Rossetti (Routledge, 2021)Robert Gross, The Transcendentalists and Their World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022)John Matteson, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father (W. W. Norton & Company, 2007)Bethany C. Morrow, So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix (St Martin’s Press, 2021)Anne K. Phillips and Gregory Eiselein (eds.), Critical Insights: Louisa May Alcott (Grey House Publishing Inc, 2016)Harriet Reisen, Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women (Picador, 2010)Daniel Shealy (ed.), Little Women at 150 (University of Mississippi Press, 2022)Elaine Showalter, A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx (Virago, 2009)Simon Sleight and Shirleene Robinson (eds.), Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World (Palgrave, 2016), especially “The ‘Willful’ Girl in the Anglo-World: Sentimental Heroines and Wild Colonial Girls” by Hilary EmmettMadeleine B. Stern, Louisa May Alcott: A Biography (first published 1950; Northeastern University Press, 1999) is a BBC Studios Audio Production

MB and guests discuss the Austrian-British economist Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1944) in which Hayek (1899-1992) warned that the way Britain was running its wartime economy would not work in peacetime and could lead to tyranny. His target was centralised planning, arguing this disempowered individuals and wasted their knowledge, while empowering those ill-suited to run an economy. He was concerned about the support for the perceived success of Soviet centralisation, when he saw this and Fascist systems as two sides of the same coin. When Reader's Digest selectively condensed Hayek’s book in 1945, and presented it not so much as a warning against tyranny as a proof against socialism, it became phenomenally influential around the world. With Bruce Caldwell Research Professor of Economics at Duke University and Director of the Center for the History of Political EconomyMelissa Lane The Class of 1943 Professor of Politics at Princeton University and the 50th Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College in LondonAndBen Jackson Professor of Modern History and fellow of University College at the University of OxfordProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets Since the Depression (Harvard University Press, 2012)Bruce Caldwell, Hayek’s Challenge: An Intellectual Biography of F.A. Hayek (University of Chicago Press, 2004)Bruce Caldwell, ‘The Road to Serfdom After 75 Years’ (Journal of Economic Literature 58, 2020)Bruce Caldwell and Hansjoerg Klausinger, Hayek: A Life 1899-1950 (University of Chicago Press, 2022)M. Desai, Marx’s Revenge: The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism (Verso, 2002)Edward Feser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hayek (Cambridge University Press, 2006)Andrew Gamble, Hayek: The Iron Cage of Liberty (Polity, 1996)Friedrich Hayek, Collectivist Economic Planning (first published 1935; Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2015), especially ‘The Nature and History of the Problem’ and ‘The Present State of the Debate’ by Friedrich HayekFriedrich Hayek (ed. Bruce Caldwell), The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents: The Definitive Edition (first published 1944; Routledge, 2008. Also vol. 2 of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, University of Chicago Press, 2007)Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom: Condensed Version (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2005; The Reader’s Digest condensation of the book)Friedrich Hayek, ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’ (American Economic Review, vol. 35, 1945; vol. 15 of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, University of Chicago Press) Friedrich Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order (first published 1948; University of Chicago Press, 1996), especially the essays ‘Economics and Knowledge’ (1937), ‘Individualism: True and False’ (1945), and ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’ (1945)Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (first published 1960; Routledge, 2006) Friedrich Hayek, Law. Legislation and Liberty: A new statement of the liberal principles of justice and political economy (first published 1973 in 3 volumes; single vol. edn, Routledge, 2012)Ben Jackson, ‘Freedom, the Common Good and the Rule of Law: Hayek and Lippmann on Economic Planning’ (Journal of the History of Ideas 73, 2012)Robert Leeson (ed.), Hayek: A Collaborative Biography Part I (Palgrave, 2013), especially ‘The Genesis and Reception of The Road to Serfdom’ by Melissa Laneis a BBC Studios Audio Production

MB and guests discuss the author of 'I, Claudius' who was also one of the finest poets of the twentieth century. Robert Graves (1895 -1985) placed his poetry far above his prose. He once declared that from the age of 15 poetry had been his ruling passion and that he lived his life according to poetic principles, writing in prose only to pay the bills and that he bred the pedigree dogs of his prose to feed the cats of his poetry. Yet it’s for his prose that he’s most famous today, including 'I Claudius', his brilliant account of the debauchery of Imperial Rome, and 'Goodbye to All That', the unforgettable memoir of his early life including the time during the First World War when he was so badly wounded at the Somme that The Times listed him as dead. WithPaul O’Prey Emeritus Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Roehampton, LondonFran Brearton Professor of Modern Poetry at Queen’s University, BelfastAndBob Davis Professor of Religious and Cultural Education at the University of GlasgowProducer: Simon TillotsonRobert Graves (ed. Paul O'Prey), In Broken Images: Selected Letters of Robert Graves 1914-1946 (Hutchinson, 1982)Robert Graves (ed. Paul O'Prey), Between Moon and Moon: Selected letters of Robert Graves 1946-1972 (Hutchinson, 1984)Robert Graves (ed. Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward), The Complete Poems (Penguin Modern Classics, 2003)Robert Graves, I, Claudius (republished by Penguin, 2006)Robert Graves, King Jesus (republished by Penguin, 2011)Robert Graves, The White Goddess (republished by Faber, 1999)Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (republished by Penguin, 2017)Robert Graves (ed. Michael Longley), Selected Poems (Faber, 2013)Robert Graves (ed. Fran Brearton, intro. Andrew Motion), Goodbye to All That: An Autobiography: The Original Edition (first published 1929; Penguin Classics, 2014)William Graves, Wild Olives: Life in Majorca with Robert Graves (Pimlico, 2001)Richard Perceval Graves, Robert Graves: The Assault Heroic, 1895-1926 (Macmillan, 1986, vol. 1 of the biography)Richard Perceval Graves, Robert Graves: The Years with Laura, 1926-1940 (Viking, 1990, vol. 2 of the biography)Richard Perceval Graves, Robert Graves and the White Goddess, 1940-1985 (Orion, 1995, vol. 3 of the biography)Miranda Seymour: Robert Graves: Life on the Edge (Henry Holt & Co, 1995)is a BBC Studios Audio Production

MB and guests discuss the notorious attack of 4th of May 1886 at a workers rally in Chicago when somebody threw a bomb that killed a policeman, Mathias J. Degan. The chaotic shooting that followed left more people dead and sent shockwaves across America and Europe. This was in Haymarket Square at a protest for an eight hour working day following a call for a general strike and the police killing of striking workers the day before, at a time when labour relations in America were marked by violent conflict. The bomber was never identified but two of the speakers at the rally, both of then anarchists and six of their supporters were accused of inciting murder. Four of them, George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Albert Parsons, and August Spies were hanged on 11th November 1887 only to be pardoned in the following years while a fifth, Louis Ling, had killed himself after he was convicted. The May International Workers Day was created in their memory.With Ruth Kinna Professor of Political Theory at Loughborough UniversityChristopher Phelps Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of NottinghamAnd Gary Gerstle Paul Mellon Professor of American History Emeritus at the University of CambridgeProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton University Press, 1984)Henry David, The History of the Haymarket Affair (Collier Books, 1963)James Green, Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America (Pantheon, 2006)Carl Levy and Matthew S. Adams (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), especially 'Haymarket and the Rise of Syndicalism' by Kenyon Zimmer Franklin Rosemont and David Roediger, Haymarket Scrapbook: 125th Anniversary Edition (AK Press, 2012)is a BBC Studios Audio Production

MB and guests discuss the tantalising idea that there are shortcuts between distant galaxies, somewhere out there in the universe. The idea emerged in the context of Einstein's theories and the challenge has been not so much to prove their unlikely existence as to show why they ought to be impossible. The universe would have to folded back on itself in places, and there would have to be something to make the wormholes and then to keep them open. But is there anywhere in the vast universe like that? Could there be holes that we or more advanced civilisations might travel through, from one galaxy to another and, if not, why not? With Toby Wiseman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College LondonKaty Clough Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at Queen Mary, University of LondonAnd Andrew Pontzen Professor of Cosmology at Durham UniversityProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Jim Al-Khalili, Black Holes, Wormholes and Time Machines (Taylor & Francis, 1999)Andrew Pontzen, The Universe in a Box: Simulations and the Quest to Code the Cosmos (Riverhead Books, 2023)Claudia de Rham, The Beauty of Falling: A Life in Pursuit of Gravity (Princeton University Press, 2024)Carl Sagan, Contact (Simon and Schuster, 1985)Kip Thorne, Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy (W. W. Norton & Company, 1994)Kip Thorne, Science of Interstellar (W. W. Norton & Company, 2014)Matt Visser, Lorentzian Wormholes: From Einstein to Hawking (American Institute of Physics Melville, NY, 1996) is a BBC Studios Audio Production

MB and guests discuss one of the major figures in Victorian British politics. Disraeli (1804 -1881) served both as Prime Minister twice and, for long periods, as leader of the opposition. Born a Jew, he was only permitted to enter Parliament as his father had him baptised into the Church of England when he was twelve. Disraeli was a gifted orator and, outside Parliament, he shared his views widely through several popular novels including Sybil or The Two Nations, which was to inspire the idea of One Nation Conservatism. He became close to Queen Victoria and she mourned his death with a primrose wreath, an event marked for years after by annual processions celebrating his life in politics.WithLawrence Goldman Emeritus Fellow in History at St Peter's College, University of OxfordEmily Jones Lecturer in Modern British History at the University of ManchesterAnd Daisy Hay Professor of English Literature and Life Writing at the University of ExeterProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Robert Blake, Disraeli (first published 1966; Faber & Faber, 2010)M. Dent, ‘Disraeli and the Bible’ (Journal of Victorian Culture 29, 2024)Benjamin Disraeli (ed. N. Shrimpton), Sybil; or, The Two Nations (Oxford University Press, 2017)Daisy Hay, Mr and Mrs Disraeli: A Strange Romance (Chatto & Windus, 2015)Douglas Hurd and Edward Young, Disraeli: or, The Two Lives (W&N, 2014)Emily Jones, ‘Impressions of Disraeli: Mythmaking and the History of One Nation Conservatism, 1881-1940’ (French Journal of British Studies 28, 2023)William Kuhn, The Politics of Pleasure: A Portrait of Benjamin Disraeli (Simon & Schuster, 2007)Robert O'Kell, Disraeli: The Romance of Politics (University of Toronto Press, 2013)J.P. Parry, ‘Disraeli and England’ (Historical Journal 43, 2000)J.P. Parry, ‘Disraeli, the East and Religion: Tancred in Context’ (English Historical Review 132, 2017)Cecil Roth, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (New York Philosophical library, 1952)Paul Smith, Disraelian Conservatism and Social Reform (Routledge & Kegan Paul PLC, 1967)John Vincent, Disraeli (Oxford University Press, 1990)P.J. Waller (ed.), Politics and Social Change in Modern Britain (Prentice Hall / Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1987), especially the chapter ‘Style and Substance in Disraelian Social Reform’ by P. Ghoshis a BBC Studios Audio Production

MB and guests discuss the most abundant lifeform on Earth: the viruses that 'eat' bacteria. Early in the 20th century, scientists noticed that something in their Petri dishes was making bacteria disappear and they called these bacteriophages, things that eat bacteria. From studying these phages, it soon became clear that they offered countless real or potential benefits for understanding our world, from the tracking of diseases to helping unlock the secrets of DNA to treatments for long term bacterial infections. With further research, they could be an answer to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.With Martha Clokie Director for the Centre for Phage Research and Professor of Microbiology at the University of LeicesterJames Ebdon Professor of Environmental Microbiology at the University of BrightonAnd Claas Kirchhelle Historian and Chargé de Recherche at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research’s CERMES3 Unit in Paris.Producer: Simon Tillotsonis a BBC Studios Audio ProductionReading list: James Ebdon, ‘Tackling sources of contamination in water: The age of phage’ (Microbiologist, Society for Applied Microbiology, Vol 20.1, 2022) Thomas Häusler, Viruses vs. Superbugs: A Solution to the Antibiotics Crisis? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)Tom Ireland, The Good Virus: The Untold Story of Phages: The Mysterious Microbes that Rule Our World, Shape Our Health and Can Save Our Future (Hodder Press, 2024)Claas Kirchhelle and Charlotte Kirchhelle, ‘Northern Normal–Laboratory Networks, Microbial Culture Collections, and Taxonomies of Power (1939-2000)’ (SocArXiv Papers, 2024) Dmitriy Myelnikov, ‘An alternative cure: the adoption and survival of bacteriophage therapy in the USSR, 1922–1955’ (Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 73, no. 4, 2018)Forest Rohwer, Merry Youle, Heather Maughan and Nao Hisakawa, Life in our Phage World: A Centennial Field Guide to Earth’s most Diverse Inhabitants (Wholon, 2014)Steffanie Strathdee and Thomas Patterson (2019) The Perfect Predator: A Scientist’s Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug: A Memoir (Hachette Books, 2020)William C. Summers, Félix d`Herelle and the Origins of Molecular Biology (Yale University Press, 1999)William C. Summers, The American Phage Group: Founders of Molecular Biology (University Press, 2023)