Joseph Roth

Joseph Roth

Author: BBC June 4, 2026 Duration: 59:40
Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the great writers on Central Europe after the first world war and on the dying of the old orders with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire. As a German speaking Jew from Brody in the north-eastern edge of that Empire, which was then in Galicia, next in Poland and is now in Ukraine, Roth (1894 - 1939) was to spend his short life moving first to Lviv then to Vienna and finally to Paris via Berlin without ever finding a settled home. Roth explored the loss of homeland and anticipated the dangers of the new nationalism through his journalism and in his novels including Radetzky March, Job, Rebellion and Flight Without End, and his books were among the first the Nazis burned. With Helen Chambers Emeritus Professor of German at the University of St Andrews Deborah Holmes Associate Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Salzburg And Jon Hughes Reader in German and Cultural Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Jon Hughes, Facing Modernity: Fragmentation, Culture and Identity in Joseph Roth's Writing in the 1920s (MHRA, 2006) Heinz Lunzer and Victoria Lunzer-Talos, Joseph Roth: Leben und Werk in Bildern (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1994) Keiron Pim, Endless Flight: The Life of Joseph Roth (Granta, 2022) Joseph Roth (trans. Deborah Holmes, ed. Helen Constantine), Vienna Tales (Oxford University Press, 2014) Joseph Roth (trans. and ed. Michael Hofmann), A Life in Letters (Granta, 2012) Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), Collected Shorter Fiction (Granta, 2001) Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), Rebellion (Granta, 2000) Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Radetzky March (Granta, 2022) Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Legend of the Holy Drinker (Granta, 2022) Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Wandering Jews (Granta, 2001) Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920-1933 (Granta, 2022) Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Hotel Years: Wanderings in Europe Between the Wars (Granta, 2015) Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), Reports from a Parisian Paradise: Essays from France 1925-1939 (Granta, 2004) Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Emperor’s Tomb (Granta, 2013) Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The String of Pearls (Granta, 1999) Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The White Cities: Reports From France 1925-1939 (Granta, 2013) Joseph Roth (trans. David Le Vay), Weights and Measures (Pushkin Press, 2024) Joseph Roth (trans. Daved Le Vay and Beatrice Musgrave), Flight Without End (Pushkin Press, 2024) Joseph Roth (trans. Ruth Martin), The Coral Merchant: Essential Stories (Pushkin Press, 2020) Joseph Roth (trans Will Stone), On the End of the World (Pushkin Press, 2019) Joseph Roth (trans. Dorothy Thompson), Job: The Story of a Simple Man (Granta, 2022) Wilhelm Von Sternburg, Joseph Roth: Eine Biographie (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2009) In Our Time is a BBC Studios 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 Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

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.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 57

In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg
Podcast Episodes
Demosthenes' Philippics (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:37
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the speeches that became a byword for fierce attacks on political opponents. It was in the 4th century BC, in Athens, that Demosthenes delivered these speeches against the tyrant Philip II…
Germinal (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:42
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emile Zola's greatest literary success, his thirteenth novel in a series exploring the extended Rougon-Macquart family. The relative here is Etienne Lantier, already known to Zola’s reader…
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:54
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the German physicist who, at the age of 23 and while still a student, effectively created quantum mechanics for which he later won the Nobel Prize. Werner Heisenberg made this breakthrough…
Napoleon's Hundred Days (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:35
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Napoleon Bonaparte's temporary return to power in France in 1815, following his escape from exile on Elba . He arrived with fewer than a thousand men, yet three weeks later he had displace…
Vincent van Gogh (Archive Episode) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:43
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…
Civility: talking with those who disagree with you [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:08
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that Civility, in one of its meanings, is among the most valuable social virtues: the skill to discuss topics that really matter to you, with someone who disagrees and yet somehow…
Dragons [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:52
Melvyn Bragg and guests explore dragons, literally and symbolically potent creatures that have appeared in many different guises in countries and cultures around the world. Sometimes compared to snakes, alligators, lions…
Barbour's 'Brus' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:54
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss John Barbour's epic poem The Brus, or Bruce, which he wrote c1375. The Brus is the earliest surviving poem in Older Scots and the only source of many of the stories of King Robert I of Sco…
The Evolution of Lungs [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:45
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 evolution…
The Vienna Secession [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:56
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, Fre…