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In Our Time — History
In Our Time

A world-class seminar, every week.

In Our Time explores the ideas, people and discoveries that have shaped our world, spanning history, philosophy, religion, science, literature, art and culture.

On Thursdays, hear brand-new episodes hosted by Misha Glenny and leading academics. On Mondays, discover Misha’s Archive Picks: classic conversations from the In Our Time archive, originally presented by Melvyn Bragg.

Recent episodes have featured topics as wide-ranging as the Roman Arena, Handel’s Messiah, John Keats, On Liberty and the Mariana Trench, bringing expert insight to pivotal events, influential thinkers and remarkable discoveries.

Throughout the archive, you can hear discussions on historical figures such as Marie Antoinette, Nefertiti, Mary Wollstonecraft, Karl Marx and Albert Einstein; explore great works of literature such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the poetry of John Donne; uncover the stories behind cultural masterpieces including Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel; or journey from Jupiter and the death of stars, to the theories of Plato and Aristotle.

In Our Time celebrates the pursuit of knowledge and the enduring power of ideas.

Copyright: © (C) BBC 2025

Latest Episodes:

Sovereignty Jun 30, 2016

Show notes

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of the idea of Sovereignty, the authority of a state to govern itself and the relationship between the sovereign and the people. These ideas of external and internal sovereignty were imagined in various ways in ancient Greece and Rome, and given a name in 16th Century France by the philosopher and jurist Jean Bodin in his Six Books of the Commonwealth, where he said (in an early English translation) 'Maiestie or Soveraigntie is the most high, absolute, and perpetuall power over the citisens and subiects in a Commonweale: which the Latins cal Maiestatem, the Greeks akra exousia, kurion arche, and kurion politeuma; the Italians Segnoria, and the Hebrewes tomech shévet, that is to say, The greatest power to command.' Shakespeare also explored the concept through Richard II and the king's two bodies, Hobbes developed it in the 17th Century, and the idea of popular sovereignty was tested in the Revolutionary era in America and France.

With

Melissa Lane Class of 1943 Professor of Politics at Princeton University

Richard Bourke Professor in the History of Political Thought at Queen Mary University of London

and

Tim Stanton Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of York

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience Jun 23, 2016

Show notes

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Blake's collection of illustrated poems "Songs of Innocence and of Experience." He published Songs of Innocence first in 1789 with five hand-coloured copies and, five years later, with additional Songs of Experience poems and the explanatory phrase "Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul." Blake drew on the street ballads and improving children's rhymes of the time, exploring the open and optimistic outlook of early childhood with the darker and more cynical outlook of adult life, in which symbols such as the Lamb belong to innocence and the Tyger to experience.

With

Sir Jonathan Bate Provost of Worcester College, University of Oxford

Sarah Haggarty Lecturer at the Faculty of English and Fellow of Queens' College, University of Cambridge

And

Jon Mee Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of York

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

The Bronze Age Collapse Jun 16, 2016

Show notes

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Bronze Age Collapse, the name given by many historians to what appears to have been a sudden, uncontrolled destruction of dominant civilizations around 1200 BC in the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia. Among other areas, there were great changes in Minoan Crete, Egypt, the Hittite Empire, Mycenaean Greece and Syria. The reasons for the changes, and the extent of those changes, are open to debate and include droughts, rebellions, the breakdown of trade as copper became less desirable, earthquakes, invasions, volcanoes and the mysterious Sea Peoples.

With

John Bennet Director of the British School at Athens and Professor of Aegean Archaeology at the University of Sheffield

Linda Hulin Fellow of Harris Manchester College and Research Officer at the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Oxford

And

Simon Stoddart Fellow of Magdalene College and Reader in Prehistory at the University of Cambridge

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Penicillin Jun 09, 2016

Show notes

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss penicillin, discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. It is said he noticed some blue-green penicillium mould on an uncovered petri dish at his hospital laboratory, and that this mould had inhibited bacterial growth around it. After further work, Fleming filtered a broth of the mould and called that penicillin, hoping it would be useful as a disinfectant. Howard Florey and Ernst Chain later shared a Nobel Prize in Medicine with Fleming, for their role in developing a way of mass-producing the life-saving drug. Evolutionary theory predicted the risk of resistance from the start and, almost from the beginning of this 'golden age' of antibacterials, scientists have been looking for ways to extend the lifespan of antibiotics.

With

Laura Piddock Professor of Microbiology at the University of Birmingham

Christoph Tang Professor of Cellular Pathology and Professorial Fellow at Exeter College at the University of Oxford

And

Steve Jones Emeritus Professor of Genetics at University College, London

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Margery Kempe and English Mysticism Jun 02, 2016

Show notes

To celebrate Melvyn Bragg’s 27 years presenting In Our Time, five well-known fans of the programme have chosen their favourite episodes. Author and columnist Caitlin Moran has picked the episode on the English medieval mystic Margery Kempe and recorded an introduction to it. Margery Kempe (1373-1438) produced an account of her extraordinary life in a book she dictated, "The Book of Margery Kempe." She went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to Rome and Santiago de Compostela, purchasing indulgences on her way, met with the anchoress Julian of Norwich and is honoured by the Church of England each 9th November. She sometimes doubted the authenticity of her mystical conversations with God, as did the authorities who saw her devotional sobbing, wailing and convulsions as a sign of insanity and dissoluteness. Her Book was lost for centuries, before emerging in a private library in 1934.

This In Our Time episode was first broadcast in June 2016. The image (above), of an unknown woman, comes from a pew at Margery Kempe's parish church, St Margaret’s, Kings Lynn and dates from c1375.

With

Miri Rubin Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London

Katherine Lewis Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Huddersfield

And

Anthony Bale Professor of Medieval Studies at Birkbeck University of London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

John H. Arnold and Katherine J. Lewis (eds.), A Companion to the Book of Margery Kempe, (D. S. Brewer, 2010)

Anthony Bale (trans.), The Book of Margery Kempe (Oxford University Press, 2015)

Santha Bhattacharji, God is an Earthquake: The Spirituality of Margery Kempe (Darton, Longman and Todd, 1997)

Anthony Goodman, Margery Kempe and her World (Longman, 2002)

Karma Lochrie, Margery Kempe and the Translations of the Flesh (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991)

Gail McMurray Gibson, The Theater of Devotion: East Anglian Drama and Society in the Late Middle Ages (University of Chicago Press, 1989)

Lynn Staley, Margery Kempe’s Dissenting Fictions (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994)

Jonathan Sumption, Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion (Faber & Faber, 2002)

Brett Whalen, Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages: A Reader (University of Toronto Press, 2011)

Barry Windeatt (ed.), The Book of Margery Kempe: Annotated Edition (D. S. Brewer, 2006)

Barry Windeatt (ed.), The Book of Margery Kempe (Penguin Classics, 2000)

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 Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the people, ideas, events and discoveries that have shaped our world

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

The Gettysburg Address May 26, 2016

Show notes

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, ten sentences long, delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg after the Union forces had won an important battle with the Confederates. Opening with " Four score and seven years ago," it became one of the most influential statements of national purpose, asserting that America was "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" and "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Among those inspired were Martin Luther King Jr whose "I have a dream" speech, delivered at the Lincoln Memorial 100 years later, echoed Lincoln's opening words.

With

Catherine Clinton Denman Chair of American History at the University of Texas and International Professor at Queen's University, Belfast

Susan-Mary Grant Professor of American History at Newcastle University

And

Tim Lockley Professor of American History at the University of Warwick

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

The Muses May 19, 2016

Show notes

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Muses and their role in Greek mythology, when they were goddesses of poetry, song, music and dance: what the Greeks called mousike, 'the art of the Muses' from which we derive our word 'music.' While the number of Muses, their origin and their roles varied in different accounts and at different times, they were consistently linked with the nature of artistic inspiration. This raised a question for philosophers then and since: was a creative person an empty vessel into which the Muses poured their gifts, at their will, or could that person do something to make inspiration flow?

With

Paul Cartledge Emeritus Professor of Greek Culture and AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge

Angie Hobbs Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy, University of Sheffield

And

Penelope Murray Founder member and retired Senior Lecturer, Department of Classics, University of Warwick

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Image: 'Apollo and the Muses (Parnassus)', 1631-1632. Oil on canvas. Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665).

Titus Oates and his 'Popish Plot' May 12, 2016

Show notes

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Titus Oates (1649-1705) who, with Israel Tonge, spread rumours of a Catholic plot to assassinate Charles II. From 1678, they went to great lengths to support their scheme, forging evidence and identifying the supposed conspirators. Fearing a second Gunpowder Plot, Oates' supposed revelations caused uproar in London and across the British Isles, with many Catholics, particularly Jesuit priests, wrongly implicated by Oates and then executed. Anyone who doubted him had to keep quiet, to avoid being suspected a sympathiser and thrown in prison. Oates was eventually exposed, put on trial under James II and sentenced by Judge Jeffreys to public whipping through the streets of London, but the question remained: why was this rogue, who had faced perjury charges before, ever believed?

With

Clare Jackson Senior Tutor and Director of Studies in History at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge

Mark Knights Professor of History at the University of Warwick

And

Peter Hinds Associate Professor of English at Plymouth University

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles May 05, 2016

Show notes

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, originally serialised in The Graphic in 1891 and, with some significant changes, published as a complete novel in 1892. The book was controversial even before serialisation, rejected by one publisher as too overtly sexual, to which a second added it did not publish 'stories where the plot involves frequent and detailed reference to immoral situations.' Hardy's description of Tess as 'A Pure Woman' in 1892 incensed some Victorian readers. He resented having to censor some of his scenes in the early versions, including references to Tess's baby following her rape by Alec d'Urberville, and even to a scene where Angel Clare lifted four milkmaids over a flooded lane (substituting transportation by wheelbarrow).

The image above, from the 1891 edition, is captioned 'It Was Not Till About Three O'clock That Tess Raised Her Eyes And Gave A Momentary Glance Round. She Felt But Little Surprise At Seeing That Alec D'urberville Had Come Back, And Was Standing Under The Hedge By The Gate'.

With

Dinah Birch Professor of English Literature and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Impact at the University of Liverpool

Francis O'Gorman Professor of Victorian Literature at the University of Leeds

And

Jane Thomas Reader in Victorian and early Twentieth Century literature at the University of Hull

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Euclid's Elements Apr 28, 2016

Show notes

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Euclid's Elements, a mathematical text book attributed to Euclid and in use from its appearance in Alexandria, Egypt around 300 BC until modern times, dealing with geometry and number theory. It has been described as the most influential text book ever written. Einstein had a copy as a child, which he treasured, later saying "If Euclid failed to kindle your youthful enthusiasm, then you were not born to be a scientific thinker."

With

Marcus du Sautoy Professor of Mathematics and Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford

Serafina Cuomo Reader in Roman History at Birkbeck University of London

And

June Barrow-Green Professor of the History of Mathematics at the Open University

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

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