In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg

In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg

Author: BBC Language: English Episodes: 57
For decades, Melvyn Bragg has convened some of the world's sharpest minds around a single, unassuming table, and the resulting conversations form the heart of In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg. This BBC podcast is less a formal lecture and more an eavesdropped dialogue, where complex ideas from religion, philosophy, science, and history are unpacked with genuine curiosity and clarity. Each episode focuses on a single concept, event, or figure-from the intricacies of Islamic philosophy to the paradoxes of quantum mechanics, from the rise of the novel to the fall of ancient empires. Listeners are brought directly into a thoughtful, often lively discussion where experts debate, clarify, and connect the dots, guided by Bragg's probing yet generous questioning. You'll hear the context and contradictions behind the ideas that have shaped our spiritual and intellectual landscape, presented not as dry facts but as living, debated history. The enduring appeal of this podcast lies in its depth and accessibility, transforming daunting subjects into compelling narratives. It’s a weekly invitation to step back from the noise and spend forty-five minutes engaged in the kind of substantive, ad-free conversation that reminds us of the profound connections between all fields of human thought.
Episodes
The Waltz (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:55
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the dance which, from when it reached Britain in the early nineteenth century, revolutionised the relationship between music, literature and people here for the next hundred years. While i…
Hannah Arendt (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:04
In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt. She developed many of her ideas in response to the rise of totalitarianism in the C20th, partly informed…
The Time Machine (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:45
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas explored in HG Wells' novella, published in 1895, in which the Time Traveller moves forward to 802,701 AD. There he finds humanity has evolved into the Eloi and Morlocks, where t…
The Waltz (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:50
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the dance which, from when it reached Britain in the early nineteenth century, revolutionised the relationship between music, literature and people here for the next hundred years. While i…
Sir Thomas Wyatt (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:36
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 'the greatest poet of his age', Thomas Wyatt (1503 -1542), who brought the poetry of the Italian Renaissance into the English Tudor world, especially the sonnet, so preparing the way for S…
Julian of Norwich (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:48
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the anchoress and mystic who, in the late fourteenth century, wrote about her visions of Christ suffering, in a work since known as Revelations of Divine Love. She is probably the first na…
Pheromones (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:13
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how members of the same species send each other invisible chemical signals to influence the way they behave. Pheromones are used by species across the animal kingdom in a variety of ways,…
Tutankhamun (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:59
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the discovery in 1922 of Tutankhamun's 3000 year old tomb and its impact on the understanding of ancient Egypt, both academic and popular. The riches, such as the death mask above, were sp…
The Economic Consequences of the Peace (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:17
In an extended version of the programme that was broadcast, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential book John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1919 after he resigned in protest from his role at the Paris Peace Conference.…
Vincent Van Gogh (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:40
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Dutch artist famous for starry nights and sunflowers, self portraits and simple chairs. These are images known the world over, and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) painted them and around…