2017

January

• Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality 12 Jan
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Nietzsche’s On The Genealogy of Morality - A Polemic, which he published in 1887 towards the end of his working life and in which he considered the price humans have paid, and were still paying, to become civilised.
  100 Philosophy
• Mary, Queen of Scots 19 Jan
  In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had potential to be one of the most powerful rulers in Europe, yet she was also one of the most vulnerable.
  940 History of Europe
• Parasitism 26 Jan
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the relationship between parasites and hosts, where one species lives on or in another to the benefit of the parasite but at a cost to the host, potentially leading to disease or death of the host.
  590 Animals (Zoology)

February

• Hannah Arendt 2 Feb
  In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt.
  320 Political science
• John Clare 9 Feb
  In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Northamptonshire poet John Clare who, according to one of Melvyn’s guests Jonathan Bate, was ‘the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced’.
  820 English and Old English literatures
• Maths in the Early Islamic World 16 Feb
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the flourishing of maths in the early Islamic world, as thinkers from across the region developed ideas in places such as Baghdad’s House of Wisdom.
  510 Mathematics
• Seneca the Younger 23 Feb
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Seneca the Younger, who was one of the first great writers to live his entire life in the world of the new Roman empire, after the fall of the Republic.
  800 Literature, rhetoric and criticism

March

• The Kuiper Belt 2 Mar
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Kuiper Belt, a vast region of icy objects at the fringes of our Solar System, beyond Neptune, in which we find the dwarf planet Pluto and countless objects left over from the origins of the solar system, some of which we observe as comets.
  520 Astronomy
• North and South 9 Mar
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel North and South, published in 1855 after serialisation in Dickens’ Household Words magazine.
  820 English and Old English literatures
• The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum 16 Mar
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the high temperatures that marked the end of the Paleocene and start of the Eocene periods, about 50m years ago.
  550 Earth sciences and geology
• The Battle of Salamis 23 Mar
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what is often called one of the most significant battles in history.
  930 History of the Ancient World
• Hokusai 30 Mar
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), the Japanese artist whose views of Mt Fuji such as The Great Wave off Kanagawa (pictured) are some of the most iconic in world art.
  750 Painting

April

• Pauli’s Exclusion Principle 6 Apr
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), whose Exclusion Principle is one of the key ideas in quantum mechanics.
  530 Physics
• Rosa Luxemburg 13 Apr
  Melvyn Bragg discusses the life and times of Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), ‘Red Rosa’, who was born in Poland under the Russian Empire and became one of the leading revolutionaries in an age of revolution.
  320 Political science
• Roger Bacon 20 Apr
  The 13th-century English philosopher Roger Bacon is perhaps best known for his major work the Opus Maius.
  500 Science
• The Egyptian Book of the Dead 27 Apr
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the text and context of The Book of the Dead, also known as the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the ancient Egyptian collections of spells which were intended to help the recently deceased navigate the underworld.
  930 History of the Ancient World

May

• The Battle of Lincoln 1217 4 May
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Battle of Lincoln on 20th May 1217, when two armies fought to keep, or to win, the English crown.
  940 History of Europe
• Emily Dickinson 11 May
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and works of Emily Dickinson, arguably the most startling and original poet in America in the C19th.
  810 American literature in English
• Louis Pasteur 18 May
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) and his extraordinary contribution to medicine and science.
  610 Medicine and health
• Purgatory 25 May
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the flourishing of the idea of Purgatory from C12th, when it was imagined as a place alongside Hell and Heaven in which the souls of sinners would be purged of those sins by fire.
  230 Christianity

June

• Enzymes 1 Jun
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss enzymes, the proteins that control the speed of chemical reactions in living organisms.
  570 Biology
• Christine de Pizan 8 Jun
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and works of Christine de Pizan, who wrote at the French Court in the late Middle Ages and was celebrated by Simone de Beauvoir as the first woman to ‘take up her pen in defence of her sex.
  300 Social sciences, sociology and anthropology
• The American Populists 15 Jun
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what, in C19th America’s Gilded Age, was one of the most significant protest movements since the Civil War with repercussions well into C20th.
  320 Political science
• Eugene Onegin 22 Jun
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexander Pushkin’s verse novel, the story of Eugene Onegin, widely regarded as his masterpiece.
  890 Other literatures
• Plato’s Republic 29 Jun
  Is it always better to be just than unjust? That is the central question of Plato’s Republic, discussed here by Melvyn Bragg and guests.
  100 Philosophy

July

• Bird Migration 6 Jul
  In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why some birds migrate and others do not, how they select their destinations and how they navigate the great distances, often over oceans.
  590 Animals (Zoology)

September

• Kant’s Categorical Imperative 21 Sep
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how, in the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) sought to define the difference between right and wrong by applying reason, looking at the intention behind actions rather than at consequences.
  170 Ethics
• Wuthering Heights 28 Sep
  In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emily Bronte (1818-1848) and her only novel, published in 1847 under the name ‘Ellis Bell’ just a year before her death.
  820 English and Old English literatures

October

• Constantine the Great 5 Oct
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life, reputation and impact of Constantine I, known as Constantine the Great (c280s -337AD).
  930 History of the Ancient World
• Aphra Behn 12 Oct
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aphra Behn (1640-1689), who made her name and her living as a playwright, poet and writer of fiction under the Restoration.
  820 English and Old English literatures
• The Congress of Vienna 19 Oct
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the conference convened by the victorious powers of the Napoleonic Wars and the earlier French Revolutionary Wars, which had devastated so much of Europe over the last 25 years.
  940 History of Europe
• Feathered Dinosaurs 26 Oct
  In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the development of theories about dinosaur feathers, following discoveries of fossils which show evidence of feathers.
  560 Fossils and prehistoric life

November

• Picasso’s Guernica 2 Nov
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the context and impact of Pablo Picasso’s iconic work, created soon after the bombing on 26th April 1937 that obliterated much of the Basque town of Guernica, and its people.
  700 Arts
• The Picts 9 Nov
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Picts and, to mark our twentieth season, that discussion takes place in front of a student audience at the University of Glasgow, many of them studying this topic.
  930 History of the Ancient World
• Germaine de Stael 16 Nov
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and impact of Germaine de Stael (1766-1817) who Byron praised as Europe’s greatest living writer, and was at the heart of intellectual and literary life in the France of revolution and of Napoleon.
  840 French and related literatures
• Thebes 23 Nov
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the myths and history of the ancient Greek city of Thebes and its depiction in Athenian drama.
  930 History of the Ancient World
• Carl Friedrich Gauss 30 Nov
  In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Gauss (1777-1855), widely viewed as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.
  510 Mathematics

December

• Moby Dick 7 Dec
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Herman Melville’s (1819-1891) epic novel, published in London in 1851, the story of Captain Ahab’s pursuit of a great white sperm whale that had bitten off his leg.
  810 American literature in English
• Thomas Becket 14 Dec
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the man who was Henry II’s Chancellor and then Archbishop of Canterbury and who was murdered by knights in Canterbury Cathedral (depicted by Matthew Paris, above).
  270 History of Christianity
• Beethoven 21 Dec
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great composers, who was born into a family of musicians in Bonn.
  780 Music
• Hamlet 28 Dec
  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare’s best known, most quoted and longest play, written c1599 - 1602 and rewritten throughout his lifetime.
  820 English and Old English literatures