In Our Time

BBC
In Our Time

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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 characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world. History fans can learn about pivotal wars and societal upheavals, such as the rise and fall of Napoleon, the Sack of Rome in 1527, and the political intrigue of the Russian Revolution. Those fascinated by the lives of kings and queens can journey to Versailles to meet Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV the Sun King, or to Ancient Egypt to meet Cleopatra and Nerfertiti. Or perhaps you’re looking to explore the history of religion, from Buddhism’s early teachings to the Protestant Reformation. If you’re interested in the stories behind iconic works of art, music and literature, dive in to discussions on the artistic genius of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and Van Gogh’s famous Sunflowers. From Gothic architecture to the works of Shakespeare, each episode of In Our Time offers new insight into humanity’s cultural achievements. Those looking to enrich their scientific knowledge can hear episodes on black holes, the Periodic Table, and classical theories of gravity, motion, evolution and relativity. Learn how the discovery of penicillin revolutionised medicine, and how the death of stars can lead to the formation of new planets. Lovers of philosophy will find episodes on the big issues that define existence, from free will and ethics, to liberty and justice. In what ways did celebrated philosophers such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Karl Marx push forward radical new ideas? How has the concept of karma evolved from the ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism to today? What was Plato’s concept of an ideal republic, and how did he explore this through the legend of the lost city of Atlantis? In Our Time celebrates the pursuit of knowledge and the enduring power of ideas.

  1. 10 JUL • SUBSCRIBER EARLY ACCESS

    The Evolution of Lungs

    To access this episode early and ad-free, subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts. The episode will be available for free with adverts on 10th July. Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the evolution of lungs and of the first breaths, which can be traced back 400 million years to when animal life spread from rock pools and swamps onto land, as some fish found an evolutionary advantage in getting their oxygen from air rather than water. Breathing with lungs may have started with fish filling their mouths with air and forcing it down into sacs in their chests, like the buccal pumping that frogs do now, and slowly their swimming muscles adapted to work their lungs like bellows. While lungs developed in different ways, there are astonishing continuities: for example, the distinct breathing system that helps tiny birds fly thousands of miles now is also the one that once allowed some dinosaurs to become huge; our hiccups are vestiges of the flight reaction in fish needing more oxygen; and we still breathe through our skins, just not enough to meet our needs. With: Steve Brusatte Professor of Palaeontology and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh Emily Rayfield Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Bristol And Jonathan Codd Professor of Integrative Zoology at the University of Manchester Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Roger B. J. Benson, Richard J. Butler, Matthew T. Carrano and Patrick M. O'Connor, ‘Air-filled postcranial bones in theropod dinosaurs: physiological implications and the ‘reptile’–bird transition’ (Biological Reviews: Cambridge Philosophical Society, July 2011) Steve Brusatte, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World (Mariner Books, 2018) Jennifer A. Clack, Gaining Ground: The Origin and Evolution of Tetrapods (2nd edition, Indiana University Press, 2012) Camila Cupello et al, ‘Lung Evolution in vertebrates and the water-to-land transition’ (eLife, July 2022) Andrew Davies and Carl Moore, The Respiratory System (Elsevier, 2010) Kenneth Kardong, Vertebrates: Comparative Anatomy, Function, Evolution (8th edition, McGraw-Hill Education, 2018) Ye Li et al, ‘Origin and stepwise evolution of vertebrate lungs’ (Nature Ecology & Evolution, Feb 2025) P. Martin Sander and Marcus Clauss, ‘Sauropod Gigantism’ (Science, Oct 2008) Goran Nilsson, Respiratory Physiology of Vertebrates: Life With and Without Oxygen (Cambridge University Press, 2010) Steven F. Perry et al, ‘What came first, the lung or the breath?’ (Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part A: Molecular & Integrative Biology, May 2001) Michael J. Stephen, Breath Taking: The Power, Fragility, and Future of Our Extraordinary Lungs (Grove/Atlantic, 2022) Mathew J. Wedel, ‘The evolution of vertebral pneumaticity in sauropod dinosaurs’ (Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Aug 2010) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio 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 Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

    48 min

  2. 26 JUN • SUBSCRIBER EARLY ACCESS

    Hypnosis

    To access this episode early and ad-free, subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts. The episode will be available for free with adverts on 26th June. Ever since Franz Anton Mesmer induced trance-like states in his Parisian subjects in the late eighteenth century, dressed in long purple robes, hypnosis has been associated with performance, power and the occult.  It has exerted a powerful hold over the cultural imagination, featuring in novels and films including Bram Stoker’s Dracula and George du Maurier’s Trilby - and it was even practiced by Charles Dickens himself. But despite some debate within the medical establishment about the scientific validity of hypnosis, it continues to be used today as a successful treatment for physical and psychological conditions. Scientists are also using hypnosis to learn more about the power of suggestion and belief. With: Catherine Wynne, Reader in Victorian and Early Twentieth-Century Literature and Visual Cultures at the University of Hull Devin Terhune, Reader in Experimental Psychology at King’s College London And Quinton Deeley, Consultant Neuropsychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, and Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London, where he leads the Cultural and Social Neuroscience Research Group. Producer: Eliane Glaser Reading list: Henri F. Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry (Vol. 1, Basic Books, 1970) William Hughes, That Devil’s Trick: Hypnotism and the Victorian Popular Imagination (Manchester University Press, 2015) Asti Hustvedt, Medical Muses: Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century Paris (Bloomsbury, 2011) Fred Kaplan, Dickens and Mesmerism: The Hidden Springs of Fiction (first published 1975; Princeton University Press, 2017) Wendy Moore, The Mesmerist: The Society Doctor Who Held Victorian London Spellbound (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2017) Michael R. Nash and Amanda J. Barnier (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Hypnosis Theory, Research, and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2012) Judith Pintar and Steven Jay Lynn, Hypnosis: A Brief History (John Wiley & Sons, 2008) Amir Raz, The Suggestible Brain: The Science and Magic of How We Make Up Our Minds (Balance, 2024) Robin Waterfield, Hidden Depths: The Story of Hypnosis (Pan, 2004) Alison Winter, Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain (Chicago University Press, 1998) Fiction: Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician: & other stories (first published 1930; Vintage Classics, 1996) George du Maurier, Trilby (first published 1894; Penguin Classics, 1994) Bram Stoker, Dracula (first published 1897; Penguin Classics, 2003) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

    46 min

  3. 9 HR AGO • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Copyright

    To access this episode early and ad-free, subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts. The episode will be available for free with adverts on 12th June. In 1710, the British Parliament passed a piece of legislation entitled An Act for the Encouragement of Learning. It became known as the Statute of Anne, and it was the world’s first copyright law. Copyright protects and regulates a piece of work - whether that's a book, a painting, a piece of music or a software programme. It emerged as a way of balancing the interests of authors, artists, publishers, and the public in the context of evolving technologies and the rise of mechanical reproduction. Writers and artists such as Alexander Pope, William Hogarth and Charles Dickens became involved in heated debates about ownership and originality that continue to this day - especially with the emergence of artificial intelligence. With: Lionel Bently, Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the University of Cambridge Will Slauter, Professor of History at Sorbonne University, Paris Katie McGettigan, Senior Lecturer in American Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. Producer: Eliane Glaser Reading list: Isabella Alexander, Copyright Law and the Public Interest in the Nineteenth Century (Hart Publishing, 2010) Isabella Alexander and H. Tomás Gómez-Arostegui (eds), Research Handbook on the History of Copyright Law (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu, Who Owns this Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs (Mountain Leopard Press, 2024) Oren Bracha, Owning Ideas: The Intellectual Origins of American Intellectual Property, 1790-1909 (Cambridge University Press, 2016) Elena Cooper, Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image (Cambridge University Press, 2018) Ronan Deazley, On the Origin of the Right to Copy: Charting the Movement of Copyright Law in Eighteenth Century Britain, 1695–1775 (Hart Publishing, 2004) Ronan Deazley, Rethinking Copyright: History, Theory, Language (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006) Ronan Deazley, Martin Kretschmer and Lionel Bently (eds.), Privilege and Property: Essays on the History of Copyright (Open Book Publishers, 2010) Marie-Stéphanie Delamaire and Will Slauter (eds.), Circulation and Control: Artistic Culture and Intellectual Property in the Nineteenth Century (Open Book Publishers, 2021) Melissa Homestead, American Women Authors and Literary Property, 1822-1869 (Cambridge University Press, 2005) Adrian Johns, Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates (University of Chicago Press, 2009) Meredith L. McGill, American Literature and the Culture of Reprinting, 1834-1853 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002) Mark Rose, Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright (Harvard University Press, 1993) Mark Rose, Authors in Court: Scenes from the Theater of Copyright (Harvard University Press, 2018) Catherine Seville, Internationalisation of Copyright: Books, Buccaneers and the Black Flag in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2006) Brad Sherman and Lionel Bently, The Making of Modern Intellectual Property Law (Cambridge University Press, 1999) Will Slauter, Who Owns the News? A History of Copyright (Stanford University Press, 2019) Robert Spoo, Without Copyrights: Piracy, Publishing and the Public Domain (Oxford University Press, 2013) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

    59 min

  4. 5 JUN

    Lise Meitner

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the decisive role of one of the great 20th Century physicists in solving the question of nuclear fission. It is said that Meitner (1878-1968) made this breakthrough over Christmas 1938 while she was sitting on a log in Sweden during a snowy walk with her nephew Otto Frisch (1904-79). Both were Jewish-Austrian refugees who had only recently escaped from Nazi Germany. Others had already broken uranium into the smaller atom barium, but could not explain what they found; was the larger atom bursting, or the smaller atom being chipped off or was something else happening? They turned to Meitner. She, with Frisch, deduced the nucleus really was splitting like a drop of water into a dumbbell shape, with the electrical charges at each end forcing the divide, something previously thought impossible, and they named this ‘fission’. This was a crucial breakthrough for which Meitner was eventually widely recognised if not at first. With Jess Wade A Royal Society University Research Fellow and Lecturer in Functional Materials at Imperial College, London Frank Close Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics and Fellow Emeritus at Exeter College, University of Oxford And Steven Bramwell Director of the London Centre for Nanotechnology and Professor of Physics at University College London Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Frank Close, Destroyer of Worlds: The Deep History of the Nuclear Age, 1895-1965 (Allen Lane, 2025) Ruth Lewin Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (University of California Press, 1996) Marissa Moss, The Woman Who Split the Atom: The Life of Lise Meitner (Abrams Books, 2022) Patricia Rife, Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age (Birkhauser Verlag, 1999) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

    57 min

  5. 5 JUN • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    The Vienna Secession

    In 1897, Gustav Klimt led a group of radical artists to break free from the cultural establishment of Vienna and found a movement that became known as the Vienna Secession. In the vibrant atmosphere of coffee houses, Freudian psychoanalysis and the music of Wagner and Mahler, the Secession sought to bring together fine art and music with applied arts such as architecture and design. The movement was characterized by Klimt’s stylised paintings, richly decorated with gold leaf, and the art nouveau buildings that began to appear in the city, most notably the Secession Building, which housed influential exhibitions of avant-garde art and was a prototype of the modern art gallery. The Secessionists themselves were pioneers in their philosophy and way of life, aiming to immerse audiences in unified artistic experiences that brought together visual arts, design, and architecture.  With: Mark Berry, Professor of Music and Intellectual History at Royal Holloway, University of London Leslie Topp, Professor Emerita in History of Architecture at Birkbeck, University of London And Diane Silverthorne, art historian and 'Vienna 1900' scholar Producer: Eliane Glaser Reading list: Mark Berry, Arnold Schoenberg: Critical Lives (Reaktion Books, 2018) Gemma Blackshaw, Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900 (National Gallery Company, 2013) Elizabeth Clegg, Art, Design and Architecture in Central Europe, 1890-1920 (Yale University Press, 2006) Richard Cockett, Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World (Yale University Press, 2023) Stephen Downes, Gustav Mahler (Reaktion Books, 2025) Peter Gay, Freud, Jews, and Other Germans: Masters and Victims in Modernist Culture (Oxford University Press, 1979) Tag Gronberg, Vienna: City of Modernity, 1890-1914 (Peter Lang, 2007) Allan S. Janik and Hans Veigl, Wittgenstein in Vienna: A Biographical Excursion Through the City and its History (Springer/Wien, 1998) Jill Lloyd and Christian Witt-Dörring (eds.), Vienna 1900: Style and Identity (Hirmer Verlag, 2011) William J. McGrath, Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria (Yale University Press, 1974) Tobias Natter and Christoph Grunenberg (eds.), Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life (Tate, 2008) Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (Vintage, 1979) Elana Shapira, Style and Seduction: Jewish Patrons, Architecture and Design in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna (Brandeis University Press, 2016) Diane V Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds and Megan Brandow-Faller, Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902-1911 (Letterform Archive, 2023) Edward Timms, Karl Kraus: Apocalyptic Satirist: Culture & Catastrophe in Habsburg Vienna (Yale University Press, 1989) Leslie Topp, Architecture and Truth in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna (Cambridge University Press, 2004) Peter Vergo, Art in Vienna, 1898-1918: Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele and Their Contemporaries (4th ed., Phaidon, 2015) Hans-Peter Wipplinger (ed.), Vienna 1900: Birth of Modernism (Walther & Franz König, 2019) Hans-Peter Wipplinger (ed.), Masterpieces from the Leopold Museum (Walther & Franz König) Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday: An Autobiography (University of Nebraska Press, 1964) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio 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 Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

    54 min

  6. 29 MAY

    The Korean Empire

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Korea's brief but significant period as an empire as it moved from the 500-year-old dynastic Joseon monarchy towards modernity. It was in October 1897 that King Gojong declared himself Emperor, seizing his chance when the once-dominant China lost to Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War. The king wanted to have the same status as the neighbouring Russian, Chinese and Japanese Emperors, to shore up a bid for Korean independence and sovereignty when the world’s major powers either wanted to open Korea up to trade or to colonise it. The Korean Empire lasted only thirteen years, yet it was a time of great transformation for this state and the whole region with lasting consequences in the next century… With Nuri Kim Associate Professor in Korean Studies at the faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Wolfson College Holly Stephens Lecturer in Japanese and Korean Studies at the University of Edinburgh And Derek Kramer Lecturer in Korean Studies at the University of Sheffield Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Isabella Bird Bishop, Korea and her Neighbors: A Narrative of Travel, With an Account of the Recent Vicissitudes and Present Position of the Country (first published 1898; Forgotten Books, 2019) Vipan Chandra, Imperialism, Resistance and Reform in Late Nineteenth-Century Korea: Enlightenment and the Independence Club (University of California, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1988) Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1859-1910 (University of California Press, 1995) Carter J. Eckert, Offspring of Empire: The Koch'ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, 1876–1910 (University of Washington Press, 1991) George L. Kallander, Salvation through Dissent: Tonghak Heterodoxy and Early Modern Korea (University of Hawaii Press, 2013) Kim Dong-no, John B. Duncan and Kim Do-hyung (eds.), Reform and Modernity in the Taehan Empire (Jimoondang, 2006) Kirk W. Larsen, Tradition, Treaties, and Trade: Qing Imperialism and Chosŏn Korea, 1850-1910 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2008) Yumi Moon, Populist Collaborators: The Ilchinhoe and the Japanese Colonization of Korea, 1896-1910 (Cornell University Press, 2013) Sung-Deuk Oak, The Making of Korean Christianity: Protestant Encounters with Korean Religions, 1876-1915 (Baylor University Press, 2013) Eugene T. Park, A Family of No Prominence: The Descendants of Pak Tŏkhwa and the Birth of Modern Korea (Stanford University Press, 2020) Michael E. Robinson, Korea’s Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History (University of Hawaii Press, 2007) Andre Schmid, Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919 (Columbia University Press, 2002) Vladimir Tikhonov, Social Darwinism and Nationalism in Korea: The Beginnings, 1880s-1910s (Brill, 2010) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

    48 min

  7. 22 MAY

    Molière

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great figures in world literature. The French playwright Molière (1622-1673) began as an actor, aiming to be a tragedian, but he was stronger in comedy, touring with a troupe for 13 years until Louis XIV summoned him to audition at the Louvre and gave him his break. It was in Paris and at Versailles that Molière wrote and performed his best known plays, among them Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope and Le Malade Imaginaire, and in time he was so celebrated that French became known as The Language of Molière. With Noel Peacock Emeritus Marshall Professor in French Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow Jan Clarke Professor of French at Durham University And Joe Harris Professor of Early Modern French and Comparative Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: David Bradby and Andrew Calder (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Molière (Cambridge University Press, 2006) Jan Clarke (ed.), Molière in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2022) Georges Forestier, Molière (Gallimard, 2018) Michael Hawcroft, Molière: Reasoning with Fools (Oxford University Press, 2007) John D. Lyons, Women and Irony in Molière’s Comedies of Mariage (Oxford University Press, 2023) Robert McBride and Noel Peacock (eds.), Le Nouveau Moliériste (11 vols., University of Glasgow Presw, 1994- ) Larry F. Norman, The Public Mirror: Molière and the Social Commerce of Depiction (University of Chicago Press, 1999) Noel Peacock, Molière sous les feux de la rampe (Hermann, 2012) Julia Prest, Controversy in French Drama: Molière’s Tartuffe and the Struggle for Influence (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) Virginia Scott, Molière: A Theatrical Life (Cambridge University Press, 2020) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

    51 min

  8. 22 MAY • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Paul von Hindenburg

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and role of one of the most significant figures in early 20th Century German history. Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934) had been famous since 1914 as the victorious commander at the Battle of Tannenberg against Russian invaders, soon burnishing this fame on the Western Front and Hindenburg was to claim he would have won there too, if enemies at home had not 'stabbed Germany in the back'. He won Germany’s Presidential election twice during the Weimar Republic, as a candidate of national unity and, while he gained his second term as a ‘stop Hitler’ candidate, President Hindenburg was to appoint Hitler as Chancellor and transfer some of his charisma onto him – a move so disastrous that Germans were later to ask if the myth of Hindenburg had always been an illusion. With Anna von der Goltz Professor of History at Georgetown University, Washington DC Chris Clark Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge And Colin Storer Associate Professor in Modern European History at the University of Warwick Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: William J. Astore and Dennis E. Showalter, Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism (Potomac Books, 2005) Benjamin Carter Hett, The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power (William Heinemann, 2018) Andreas Dorpalen, Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic (first published 1964; Princeton University Press, 2016) Jürgen W. Falter, 'The Two Hindenburg Elections of 1925 and 1932: A Total Reversal of Voter Coalitions' (Central European History, 32/2, 1990) Peter Fritzsche, 'Presidential Victory and Popular Festivity in Weimar Germany: Hindenburg's 1925 Election' (Central European History, 32/2, 1990) Larry Eugene Jones, Hitler Versus Hindenburg: The 1932 Presidential Elections and the End of the Weimar Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2016) Martin Kitchen, The Silent Dictatorship: The Politics of the German High Command under Hindenburg and Ludendorff, 1916-1918 (first published 1976; Routledge, 2021) John Lee, The Warlords: Hindenburg and Ludendorff (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005) Frank McDonough, The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall, 1918-1933 (Apollo, 2023) Nadine Rossol and Benjamin Ziemann (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Weimar Republic (Oxford University Press, 2022) Richard Scully, 'Hindenburg: The Cartoon Titan of the Weimar Republic, 1918-1934' (German Studies Review, 35/3, 2012) Colin Storer, A Short History of the Weimar Republic (Revised Edition, Bloomsbury, 2024) Anna von der Goltz, Hindenburg: Power, Myth and the Rise of the Nazis (Oxford University Press, 2009) Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918 (Penguin, 2015) J. W. Wheeler-Bennett, Hindenburg: The Wooden Titan (first published 1936; Macmillan, 1967) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

    51 min
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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 characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world. History fans can learn about pivotal wars and societal upheavals, such as the rise and fall of Napoleon, the Sack of Rome in 1527, and the political intrigue of the Russian Revolution. Those fascinated by the lives of kings and queens can journey to Versailles to meet Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV the Sun King, or to Ancient Egypt to meet Cleopatra and Nerfertiti. Or perhaps you’re looking to explore the history of religion, from Buddhism’s early teachings to the Protestant Reformation. If you’re interested in the stories behind iconic works of art, music and literature, dive in to discussions on the artistic genius of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and Van Gogh’s famous Sunflowers. From Gothic architecture to the works of Shakespeare, each episode of In Our Time offers new insight into humanity’s cultural achievements. Those looking to enrich their scientific knowledge can hear episodes on black holes, the Periodic Table, and classical theories of gravity, motion, evolution and relativity. Learn how the discovery of penicillin revolutionised medicine, and how the death of stars can lead to the formation of new planets. Lovers of philosophy will find episodes on the big issues that define existence, from free will and ethics, to liberty and justice. In what ways did celebrated philosophers such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Karl Marx push forward radical new ideas? How has the concept of karma evolved from the ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism to today? What was Plato’s concept of an ideal republic, and how did he explore this through the legend of the lost city of Atlantis? In Our Time celebrates the pursuit of knowledge and the enduring power of ideas.

Information

  • Channel
    BBC
  • Creator
    BBC Radio 4
  • Years Active
    2005 - 2025
  • Episodes
    1.1K
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © (C) BBC 2025
  • Show Website
    In Our Time
  • Provider
    BBC Studios Distribution Limited

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