In Our Time

Latest Episodes:

Seashells Jul 30, 2026

Show notes

Misha Glenny and guests discuss a familiar feature of our beaches: seashells, from their astonishing shapes and patterns that teach us about Earth’s oceans, to the ways that humans have treasured shells throughout history. Seashells appear in the mythologies of countless cultures across the world - think of Botticelli’s Venus emerging from a giant scallop shell, Vishnu's sacred horn panchajanya, or the Aztec god Quetzalcōātl’s talisman cut from a conch shell. The urge to collect shells seems to be as old as our species. We’ve used them as decoration, currency, and musical instruments. But shells aren’t just beautiful objects washed up on our beaches. Many belong to one of the most diverse groups of the animal kingdom, Mollusca, and the remarkable morphology of forms and structures they grow in offer insight into the past, present, and future of the marine world.

With

Suzanne Williams Merit Researcher at the Natural History Museum

Liz Harper Professor of Evolutionary Malacology in the Department of Earth Sciences and Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge

Helen Scales Marine biologist and Author.

Producer: Martha Owen

Reading list:

S. Peter Dance, Shells (DK, 2022)

A.R. Irwin, S.T. Williams, D.I. Speiser and N.W. Roberts, ‘The marine gastropod Conomurex luhuanus (Strombidae) has high-resolution spatial vision and eyes with complex retinas’ (Journal of Experimental Biology 225:16, 2022)

Michael F. Land and Dan-Eric Nilsson, Animal Eyes (Oxford University Press, 2012)

Andreia Salvador, Interesting Shells (The Natural History Museum, 2022)

Helen Scales, Shell Day: A Story of 24 Hours and 24 Molluscan Lives (University of Chicago Press, 2026)

Helen Scales, The Shell Spotter's Guide (National Trust Books, 2024)

Helen Scales, What a Shell Can Tell: Where They Live, What They Eat, How They Move, and More (Phaidon Press, 2022)

Helen Scales, Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells (Bloomsbury Sigma, 2015)

Paul D. Taylor, Fossils: The Essential Guide (University of Chicago Press, 2025)

Suzanne Williams, ‘Molluscan shell colour’ (Biological Reviews, 2017)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

Vigée Le Brun Jul 23, 2026

Show notes

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the French portrait painter Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755 - 1842). From her teens she delighted her high society subjects in and around Paris, notably Marie Antoinette who she painted around 30 times, and she invariably found ways to show her sitters at their best. Some critics were affronted that she, a young woman, dared paint at all and, when they saw how good her portraits were, some spread a rumour that surely this could not really be her work and she must have had a secret male lover finishing her portraits in a studio. The French Revolution forced Vigée Le Brun out of France and so she set off from one European court to another to find more success from Naples to Vienna to St Petersburg and to London, eventually settling back in France. Today her works are on show in major galleries around the world.

With

Rosalind Polly Blakesley Master of Pembroke College and Professor of Russian and European Art at the University of Cambridge

Robert Wenley Deputy Director of Collections and Research at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham

And

Francesca Whitlum-Cooper Curator of Later Italian, Spanish and French Paintings at The National Gallery, London.

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Joseph Baillio, Katharine Baetjer and Paul Lang (eds), Vigée Le Brun (exhibition catalogue in English, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016)

Joseph Baillio et al., Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun: 1755-1842 (exhibition catalogue in French, Grand Palais, Paris, 2015/16)

Rosalind P. Blakesley, Women Artists in the Reign of Catherine the Great (Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd, 2023), especially chapter 8 ‘The Triumphant Refugee’

Lucy Davies, Vigée Le Brun: Self Portrait in a Straw Hat (National Gallery Global, 2025)

Angelica Goodden, The Sweetness of Life: A Biography of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (Andre Deutsch Ltd, 1997)

Franny Moyle, Mrs Kauffman and Madame Le Brun: The Entwined Lives of Two Great Eighteenth-Century Women Artists (Apollo, 2025)

Jordana Pomeroy, Daring: The Life and Art of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun (Getty Publications, 2025)

Mary D. Sheriff, The Exceptional Woman: Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun and the Cultural Politics of Art (University of Chicago Press, 1997)

Paris Spies-Gans, A Revolution on Canvas: The Rise of Women Artists in Britain and France, 1760-1830 (Paul Mellon Centre, Yale University Press London, 2022)

Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun (trans. Sian Evans), The Memoirs of Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun (Camden Press, 1989)

Louise-Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Souvenirs de Madame Louise-Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (first published 1869; Tredition Classics, 2012)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

The Delian League Jul 16, 2026

Show notes

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the origins and evolution of an alliance which transformed the geopolitics of the classical world: the Delian League. Since the start of the 5th Century BCE, city states across Greece had been fighting a series of armed conflicts in the Greco-Persian Wars. After the defeat of a second Persian invasion in 478 BCE, a league of cities across Greece came together and formed a new alliance led by Athens. That alliance is now known as the Delian League, after the island of Delos where it was established. In the following decades, Athens used the Delian League to grow its own wealth and formidable naval power. Cities which tried to leave the alliance found themselves violently put down and their lands confiscated by the Athenians. What had begun as a cooperative alliance sworn to resist the Persian Empire gradually started to seem like it may have created another imperial power: the Athenian Empire.

With

Leah Lazar Lecturer in Hellenistic Culture at the University of Manchester

Polly Low Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Durham

And

Paul Cartledge AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge

Producer: Martha Owen

Aristophanes (trans. David Barrett and Alan H. Sommerstein), The Birds and Other Plays (Penguin Classics, 2003)

Mary Beard, The Parthenon (Profile Books, 2010)

M. Canevaro and D. M. Lewis, 'Between ‘The Character of the Athenian Empire’ and The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (and beyond): The Popularity of the Athenian Empire Revisited' (Polis 41:1, 2024)

Paul Cartledge, Ancient Greece: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011)

Lisa Kallet and John H. Kroll, The Athenian Empire: Using Coins as Sources (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Leah Lazar, Athenian Power in the Fifth Century BC (Oxford University Press, 2024)

Polly Low (ed.), The Athenian Empire (Edinburgh University Press, 2008)

Malcolm F. McGregor, The Athenians and their Empire (UBC Press, 1987)

Robin Osborne (ed. and trans.), The Athenian Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

P. J. Rhodes, The Athenian Empire (Clarendon Press, 1985)

Thucydides (trans. Robin Waterfield, introduced by Polly Low), The History of the Peloponnesian War (Basic Books, 2025)

Thucydides (ed. Robert B Strassler), The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War (Free Press, 1998)

Thucydides (trans. Rex Warner), History of the Peloponnesian War (Penguin Books, 2000)

Thucydides (trans. Martin Hammond), The Peloponnesian War (Oxford University Press, 2009)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

Machado de Assis Jul 09, 2026

Show notes

Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the towering figures of Brazilian and world literature, Machado de Assis (1839 - 1908). He was the descendant of slaves and built his career while slavery was still in place in Brazil (abolished 1888) and many of his characters were from the slave-owning class who were also the readers of his books. At the time, those readers were delighted to see themselves represented and it was only later in the 20th Century that critics realized just how much Machado was satirising them. While he brings 19th Century Brazil vividly to life, Machado's works transcend time and place and, according to Salman Rushdie, they seem to have been written yesterday not 100 years ago.

With

Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva Associate Professor in Brazilian Studies at University College London

Claire Williams Professor of Brazilian Literature and Culture at the Faculty of Modern Languages at the University of Oxford, fellow of St. Peter's College

And

Viviane Carvalho da Annunciação Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics at the University of Cambridge

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Lamonte Aidoo and Daniel F. Silva (eds.), Emerging Dialogues on Machado de Assis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)

Helen Caldwell, The Brazilian Othello of Machado de Assis: A Study of Dom Casmurro (University of California Press, 1960)

Viviane Carvalho da Annunciação, The Contradictions of Science in Machado de Assis (Liverpool University Press, 2025)

Machado de Assis (trans. Daniel Hahn), The Looking-Glass: Essential Stories (Pushkin Press, 2022)

Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), 26 Stories (Liveright, 2019)

Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), The Collected Stories of Machado de Assis (Liveright, 2018) Machado de Assis (trans. Flora Thomson-Deveaux), The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (Penguin, 2020)

Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (Liveright, 2020)

Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), Quincas Borba (WW Norton & Co, 2024)

Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), Dom Casmurro (WW Norton & Co, 2024)

Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), Memorial de Ayres (Liveright, August 2026)

John Gledson, Machado de Assis: Fiction and History (Francis Cairns, 1984)

Richard Graham (ed.), Machado de Assis: Reflections on a Brazilian Master Writer (University of Texas Press, 1999)

James N. Green, Victoria Langland and Lilia Moritz Schwarcz (eds.), The Brazil Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke University Press, 2019)

Daniel Hahn and Padma Viswanathan (eds.), The Penguin Book of Brazilian Short Stories (Penguin, January 2027)

Mario Higa (ed.), A History of the Brazilian Novel (Cambridge University Press, August 2026), especially the chapter on Machado de Assis

K. David Jackson, Machado de Assis: A Literary Life (Yale University Press, 2015)

Anthony W. Pereira, Modern Brazil: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2020)

Roberto Schwarz (trans. John Gledson), A Master on the Periphery of Capitalism: Machado de Assis (Duke University Press, 2001) Lilia M. Schwarcz and Heloisa M. Starling (eds.), Brazil: A Biography (Allen Lane, 2018)

Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva, Machado De Assis's Philosopher or Dog?: From Serial to Book Form (Routledge, 2010)

Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva and Sandra Guardini Vasconcelos (eds.), Comparative Perspectives on the Rise of the Brazilian Novel (UCL Press, 2020), especially the chapters “Capitu against the Elegiac Narrator” by Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva and “Machado de Assis and the Novel” by Sandra Guardini Vasconcelos

Marcus Wood, The Black Butterfly: Brazilian Slavery and the Literary Imagination (West Virginia University Press, 2019)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production

The Evolution of Trees Jul 02, 2026

Show notes

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the earliest evidence we have of the existence of trees and how even plants we might have on windowsills or as vegetables in gardens can and do, in the right conditions, evolve into trees. Since their emergence around 400 million years ago after low lying plants started to develop stronger stems and grow taller and more upright, trees have transformed our planet, so creating ecosystems, altering the atmosphere and setting the stage for the world as we know it today.

With

Jenny McElwain 1711 Chair of Botany at Trinity College Dublin and Director of Trinity Botanic Gardens

Christopher Berry Senior Lecturer in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Cardiff University

And

Bill Baker Senior Researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Produced by Conor Garrett

Reading list:

David Beerling: The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History (Oxford University Press, 2008)

C.M. Berry, ‘Palaeobotany: The Rise of the Earth’s Early Forests’ (Current Biology 29, 2019)

Christopher M. Berry and John E.A. Marshall, ‘Lycopsid forests in the early Late Devonian paleoequatorial zone of Svalbard’ (Geology 43:12, 2015)

N.S. Davies, W.J. McMahon and C.M. Berry, ‘Earth’s earliest forest: fossilized trees and vegetation-induced sedimentary structures from the Middle Devonian (Eifelian) Hangman Sandstone Formation, Somerset and Devon, SW England’ (J. Geol. Soc. 181, 2024)

P. Geisen and C.M. Berry, ‘Reconstruction and Growth of the Early Tree Calamophyton (Pseudosporochnales, Cladoxylopsida) Based on Exceptionally Complete Specimens from Lindlar, Germany (Mid-Devonian): Organic Connection of Calamophyton Branches and Duisbergia Trunks’ (International Journal of Plant Sciences 174 (4), 2013)

A. Groover and Q. Cronk (eds), Comparative and Evolutionary Genomics of Angiosperm Trees: Plant Genetics and Genomics (Crops and Models, vol 21. Springer, 2017), especially ‘The Evolution of Angiosperm Trees: From Palaeobotany to Genomics’ by Q.C.B. Cronk and F. Forest

Jennifer McElwain, Marlene Hill Donnelly, and Ian Glasspool, Tropical Arctic: Lost Plants, Future Climates, and the Discovery of Ancient Greenland (University of Chicago Press, 2021)

Harriet Rix, The Genius of Trees: How Trees Mastered the Elements and Shaped the World (Vintage, 2026)

W.E. Stein et al., ‘Mid-Devonian Archaeopteris roots signal revolutionary change in earliest fossil forests’ (Current biology, 30:3, 2020) pp.421-431

William E. Stein, Christopher Mark Berry, Linda VanAller Hernick and Frank Mannolini ‘Surprisingly complex community discovered in the mid-Devonian fossil forest at Gilboa’ (Nature 483, 7387, 2012)

Max Telford, The Tree of Life: Solving Science's Greatest Puzzle (John Murray, 2026)

K.J. Willis, J.C. McElwain, The Evolution of Plants (Oxford University Press, 2014)

James Woodford, The Wollemi Pine: The Incredible Discovery of a Living Fossil from the Age of the Dinosaurs (The Text Publishing Company, 2005)

Alexandre R. Zuntini et al, ‘Phylogenomics and the rise of the angiosperms’ (Nature vol. 629, April 2024)

The Welsh Marches Jun 25, 2026

Show notes

At the Hay Festival, Misha Glenny and guests discuss the impact of the Norman invasion on the people and land of Wales and across the modern border with England in what became known as The Welsh Marches, march being a term for a militarized borderland. Hay was one of the first Marcher lordships. Even before 1066, William the Conqueror knew that he would have to subdue the Welsh if he were to control the English and he allowed more and more Norman warlords to establish virtually their own private kingdoms in these Marches. Later some of the Lords were to use these bases to invade Ireland rather than conquer the rest of Wales. Marcher Lords built numerous castles such as the one at Hay and many new towns would then grow up alongside these where there was one law for the English and another for the Welsh and, though the Acts of Union under the Tudors brought an end to much of the Marcher Lords' powers, the distinct identity of these Welsh Marches continued.

With

Rhun Emlyn Lecturer in the Department of History and Welsh History at Aberystwyth University

Helen Fulton Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol

And

Huw Pryce Emeritus Professor of Welsh History at Bangor University

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

R. R. Davies, The Age of Conquest: Wales 1063-1415 (Oxford University Press, 2001)

R.R. Davies, Lordship and Society in the March of Wales 1282-1400 (Oxford University Press, 1978)

John Fleming, The Welsh Marcher Lordships II: South-West (Logaston Press, 2023)

Ben Giles, The Welsh Marches: 40 Town and Country Walks (Pocket Mountains, 2012)

Philip Hume, The Welsh Marcher Lordships I: Central & North (Logaston Press, 2021)

Max Lieberman, The March of Wales, 1067–1300: A Borderland of Medieval Britain (University of Wales Press, 2018)

Max Lieberman, The Medieval March of Wales: The Creation and Perception of a Frontier, 1066-1283 (Cambridge University Press, 2010)

D. Huw Owen, The Lordship of Denbigh 1282-1543 (University of Wales Press, 2024)

Mike Parker, All the Wide Border: Wales, England and the Places Between (HarperNorth, 2024)

Dewi Roberts, Both Sides of the Border: An Anthology of Writing on the Welsh Border Region (Gwasg Carreg Gwalch/Eagle Rock Press, 1998)

Christopher Somerville, The Welsh Borders (Philips, 1991)

David Stephenson, Patronage and Power in the Medieval Welsh March: One Family's Story (University of Wales Press, 2021)

David Walker, Medieval Wales (Cambridge University Press, 2008)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production

The Levellers Jun 18, 2026

Show notes

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the group which came to be known as the Levellers and emerged during what would become arguably one of the bloodiest and most turbulent periods of English history. After the First English Civil War, the Levellers started calling for reforms to achieve legal and social equality. They pushed for a new constitution, extended franchise, popular sovereignty, and religious toleration. To do this, the Levellers pioneered the use of pamphlets and petitions, as well as taking to the streets in their thousands to demonstrate wearing their signature sea-green ribbons and sprigs of rosemary. To some they were radical, and to others not radical enough. Though the Leveller movement itself may have been short-lived, the arguments that they made have both inspired and challenged generations since.

With

Teresa Bejan Professor of Political Theory and Fellow of Oriel College, University of Oxford

Ted Vallance Professor of History and Dean of Research and Doctoral Study at the University of Roehampton

And

Clare Jackson Honorary Professor of Early Modern History and Walter Grant Scott Fellow in History at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge

Producer: Martha Owen

Reading list:

Teresa M. Bejan, First Among Equals: Visions of Equality before Egalitarianism (Belknap Press, forthcoming in 2026)

Michael Braddick, The Common Freedom of the People: John Lilburne and the English Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2018)

Rachel Foxley, The Levellers; Radical Political Thought in the English Revolution (Manchester University Press, 2013)

Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (Penguin, 1972)

Ann Hughes, Gender and the English Revolution (Routledge, 2011)

John Rees, The Leveller Revolution: Radical Political Organisation in England, 1640-1650 (Verso Books, 2016)

John Rees (ed.), John Lilburne and the Levellers: Reappraising the Roots of English Radicalism 400 years on (Routledge, 2017), including 'Reborn John: The Eighteenth-Century Afterlife of John Lilburne' by Edward Vallance

Andrew Sharp (ed.), The English Levellers (Cambridge University Press, 1998)

Edward Vallance, A Radical History of Britain: Visionaries, Rebels and Revolutionaries - the men and women who fought for our freedoms (Abacus, 2010)

Blair Worden, Roundhead Reputations: The English Civil Wars and The Passions of Posterity (Penguin, 2002)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

The Garamantes Jun 11, 2026

Show notes

Misha Glenny and guests discuss an ancient civilisation who lived over 2000 years ago in the southwest of modern-day Libya. During prehistoric times, the Sahara Desert was greener and even had large lakes, but for the last 5000 years it has been a hyperarid environment. Extreme swings of temperature and limited surface water might make the Sahara seem like an inhospitable place to live, but an ancient people in North Africa known to us as the Garamantes thrived there. Following descriptions of the Garamantes in Roman and Greek texts, the Garamantes have often been seen as pastoral nomads, or as tribal barbarians on the periphery of the Mediterranean world. But the work of archaeologists in recent decades has revealed something different. Evidence suggests a society with flourishing towns and cities, complex underground irrigation systems, a key role in trade routes across the Sahara – and may give us a broader view of ancient history.

With

David Mattingly Emeritus Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of Leicester

Farès Moussa Visiting Fellow at the University of Southampton and Cultural Heritage Consultant

And

Josephine Quinn Professor of Ancient History and Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge

Producer: Martha Owen

Reading list:

C.M. Daniels, The Garamantes of Southern Libya (Oleander Press, 1970)

C. Duckworth, A. Cuénod and D.J. Mattingly (eds), Mobile Technologies in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond (Trans-Saharan Archaeology Volume 4, Cambridge University Press, 2020)

M.C. Gatto, D.J. Mattingly, N. Ray and M. Sterry (eds), Burials, Migration and Identity in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond (Trans-Saharan Archaeology Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, 2019)

R.B. Hitchner (ed.), A Companion to North Africa in Antiquity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2020), especially ‘Beyond barbarians: the Garamantes of the Libyan Sahara’ by D.J. Mattingly

D.J. Mattingly, Between Sahara and Sea: Africa in the Roman Empire (Michigan University Press, 2023)

D.J. Mattingly (ed.), The Archaeology of Fazzan, Volume 1, Synthesis (Society for Libyan Studies, 2003)

D.J. Mattingly (ed.), The Archaeology of Fazzan, Volume 2, Site Gazetteer, Pottery and other Survey Finds (Society for Libyan Studies, 2007)

D.J. Mattingly (ed.), The Archaeology of Fazzan, Volume 3, Excavations Carried out by C.M. Daniels (Society for Libyan Studies, 2010)

D.J. Mattingly (ed.), The Archaeology of Fazzan, Volume 4, Survey and Excavations at Old Jarma (Ancient Garama) Carried out by C. M. Daniels (1962–69) and the Fazzan Project (1997–2001) (Society for Libyan Studies, 2013)

D.J. Mattingly, V. Leitch, C.N. Duckworth, A. Cuénod, M. Sterry and F. Cole (eds), Trade in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond (Trans-Saharan Archaeology Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, 2017)

D. Mattingly, S. McLaren, E. Savage, Y. Fasatwi and K. Gadgood (eds), The Libyan Desert: Natural Resources and Cultural Heritage (Society for Libyan Studies, 2006), especially ‘The Garamantes: The First Libyan state’ by D. Mattingly

P. Mitchell and P. Lane (eds), The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology (Oxford University Press, 2013), especially ‘Roman Africa and the Sahara’ by A. Leone and F. Moussa

M. Sterry and D.J. Mattingly (eds), State Formation and Urbanisation in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Some of these books are available for free from Open Access Books: British Institute for Libyan & Northern African Studies

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

Joseph Roth Jun 04, 2026

Show notes

Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the great writers on Central Europe after the first world war and on the dying of the old orders with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire. As a German speaking Jew from Brody in the north-eastern edge of that Empire, which was then in Galicia, next in Poland and is now in Ukraine, Roth (1894 - 1939) was to spend his short life moving first to Lviv then to Vienna and finally to Paris via Berlin without ever finding a settled home. Roth explored the loss of homeland and anticipated the dangers of the new nationalism through his journalism and in his novels including Radetzky March, Job, Rebellion and Flight Without End, and his books were among the first the Nazis burned.

With

Helen Chambers Emeritus Professor of German at the University of St Andrews

Deborah Holmes Associate Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Salzburg

And

Jon Hughes Reader in German and Cultural Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Jon Hughes, Facing Modernity: Fragmentation, Culture and Identity in Joseph Roth's Writing in the 1920s (MHRA, 2006)

Heinz Lunzer and Victoria Lunzer-Talos, Joseph Roth: Leben und Werk in Bildern (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1994)

Keiron Pim, Endless Flight: The Life of Joseph Roth (Granta, 2022)

Joseph Roth (trans. Deborah Holmes, ed. Helen Constantine), Vienna Tales (Oxford University Press, 2014)

Joseph Roth (trans. and ed. Michael Hofmann), A Life in Letters (Granta, 2012)

Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), Collected Shorter Fiction (Granta, 2001)

Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), Rebellion (Granta, 2000)

Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Radetzky March (Granta, 2022)

Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Legend of the Holy Drinker (Granta, 2022)

Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Wandering Jews (Granta, 2001)

Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920-1933 (Granta, 2022)

Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Hotel Years: Wanderings in Europe Between the Wars (Granta, 2015)

Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), Reports from a Parisian Paradise: Essays from France 1925-1939 (Granta, 2004)

Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Emperor’s Tomb (Granta, 2013)

Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The String of Pearls (Granta, 1999)

Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The White Cities: Reports From France 1925-1939 (Granta, 2013)

Joseph Roth (trans. David Le Vay), Weights and Measures (Pushkin Press, 2024)

Joseph Roth (trans. Daved Le Vay and Beatrice Musgrave), Flight Without End (Pushkin Press, 2024)

Joseph Roth (trans. Ruth Martin), The Coral Merchant: Essential Stories (Pushkin Press, 2020)

Joseph Roth (trans Will Stone), On the End of the World (Pushkin Press, 2019)

Joseph Roth (trans. Dorothy Thompson), Job: The Story of a Simple Man (Granta, 2022)

Wilhelm Von Sternburg, Joseph Roth: Eine Biographie (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2009)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production

Cybernetics May 28, 2026

Show notes

Misha Glenny and guests discuss cybernetics – the field of study which gave us the prefix ‘cyber’ and helped lay the foundations for the information age. After the Second World War, cybernetics emerged as the study of communication, feedback, and control in both animals and machines. Cybernetics was first defined in 1948 by the American mathematician Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) and aimed to find a shared universal language which could be used across disciplines. The name drew on an Ancient Greek word for steersman, the person who stands at the helm of a ship to steer or govern its course. Cybernetics saw the world as systems which used loops of information and feedback to adjust their own course of action. Those ideas could be applied to anything from thermostats to the human brain, and arguably laid foundations for the information age.

With

Jacob Ward Historian of science and technology at Maastricht University

Jon Agar Professor of Science and Technology Studies at University College London

And

Orit Halpern Lighthouse Professor and Chair of Digital Cultures at Technische Universität Dresden

Producer: Martha Owen

Reading list:

Peter Galison, 'The ontology of the enemy: Norbert Wiener and the cybernetic vision' (Critical Inquiry 21, 1994)

Slava Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics (MIT Press, 2004)

Orit Halpern, Beautiful Data: A History of Vision and Reason (Duke University Press, 2015)

Orit Halpern, Robert Mitchell and Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, The Smartness Mandate: Notes toward a Critique (Grey Room 68, 2017)

Orit Halpern, Financializing Intelligence: On the Integration of Machines and Markets (e-flux, March 2023)

N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (University of Chicago Press, 1999)

Steve J. Heims, John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener, From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death (MIT Press, 1980)

Ronald R. Kline, The Cybernetics Moment: Or Why We Call Our Age The Information Age (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015)

Eden Medina, Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile (MIT Press, 2011)

David A. Mindell, Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004)

Andrew Pickering, The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future (University of Chicago Press, 2010)

Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (first published 1950; Da Capo Press, 1988)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

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