World War One

Latest Episodes:

Minds at War - Paths of Glory Jul 06, 2014

Show notes

CRW Nevinson's painting Paths of Glory is a distant cry from the rallying recruitment posters that appeared at the start of the war. It depicts the bloated corpses of two dead soldiers, stretched out in the mud, against a backdrop of tangled barbed wire somewhere on the Western Front. Unsurprisingly, it was censored at the time. Allan Little considers the continuing power of Nevinson's painting and the role of art both in recruiting soldiers and in denouncing war.

Free Thinking - Oh What A Lovely Savas Jul 05, 2014

Show notes

'Oh what a lovely Savas' begins Rana Mitter in this edition of Free Thinking, using the Turkish word for War. Rana and guests discuss the roles of Turkey, India, China and Japan in World War I, and how the very legitimacy of the idea of Empire was possibly the biggest ideological casualty of WW1.

Free Thinking - Wood and Trees: War and Remembrance Jul 04, 2014

Show notes

From Paul Nash paintings of blasted tree stumps in the first world war to today's commemorative planting: Paul Gough, Gabriel Hemery and Gail Ritchie join Samira Ahmed to explore woods in war and peacetime.

Free Thinking - Balancing Power in WW1 and Now Jul 03, 2014

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The First World War shattered the power balance in Europe. As we confront an uncertain world order, who are the great powers today, how has their role changed and where do they now stand in determining geo-politics? Jonathan Powell and historians Margaret MacMillan, Orlando Figes and Adam Tooze explore the Great Powers with Anne McElvoy.

Free Thinking - The Thirty-Nine Steps Jul 02, 2014

Show notes

John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps first appeared in Blackwoods Magazine in August and September 1915 and depicts Europe on the edge of war in May and June 1914. It quickly became popular reading in the trenches and on the home front, and 100 years and three film adaptations later, its popularity is enduring. Matthew Sweet talks to biographer Andrew Lownie and scholars Dr Michael Redley and Dr Kate Macdonald about the connections between Buchan's own war experience and The 39 Steps, and to Professors Elleke Boehmer and Terence Ranger about how ideas about empire and adventure play out in the novel.

Gavrilo Princip's Footprint Jul 01, 2014

Show notes

On the sunny morning of June 28 1914, Gavrilo Princip shot dead the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo. Their assassination began a chain of events that would bring the world to war, destroy three empires and lead to the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Maria Margaronis travels to Belgrade and Sarajevo to unravel the many meanings of Princip then and now, discovering that Princip's past and present remain deeply contested, as current attempts to commemorate both his deeds and his memory book-end a century of conflict.

Sound of Cinema - The First World War Jun 30, 2014

Show notes

Matthew Sweet looks at music for films set against the background of WW1, including Joseph Kosma's music for Jean Renoir's masterpiece La Grande Illusion. The First World War prompted a cinematic response even before the War was over and has continued to exercise the film maker's imagination ever since. From Charles Chaplin's Shoulder Arms in 1918 to Steven Spielberg's recent War Horse, stories and commentaries are varied and include some of the great moments in film and film-music.

Nationalism The War That Changed the World Jun 30, 2014

Show notes

An epic exploration of the legacy of World War One begins with this panel and audience discussion from Sarajevo. It looks at the drive for nationhood during World War One and its impact on nationalism in Bosnia to this day.

Music Matters - The Legacy of WW1 in Music Jun 29, 2014

Show notes

How did composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Alban Berg and Maurice Ravel react to the horrific tragedy of the First World War? Tom Service discusses the effect of World War One on music written in the years following the conflict.

Month of Madness - London Jun 27, 2014

Show notes

Professor Christopher Clark unpicks the complex sequence of events that led to WW1. Today, how British decision-makers reacted in the 'July Crisis' of 1914.

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