In Our Time

In Our Time

Author: BBC Radio 4 Language: English Episodes: 100
For anyone with a restless mind, the weekly In Our Time podcast from BBC Radio 4 offers a deep and engaging conversation across the vast terrain of human thought and experience. Host Misha Glenny guides a panel of distinguished academics, not in lecture format, but through a lively, accessible discussion where ideas genuinely collide and unfold. You might find yourself immersed in the complex legacy of a figure like Napoleon one week, and the next be untangling the scientific principles of photosynthesis or the philosophical arguments of the Enlightenment. The scope is deliberately broad, covering history, religion, culture, science, and philosophy, because understanding one often requires context from another. What you hear is the genuine process of exploration-the questions, the debates, and the connections made in real time by leading experts. It’s the kind of podcast that doesn’t just recount the Sack of Rome or the intricacies of Russian court politics, but examines why these moments mattered and how their echoes are still felt. The result is a consistently stimulating hour that treats listeners as curious equals, offering the intellectual satisfaction of following a great conversation to its illuminating conclusion.
Episodes
The Columbian Exchange [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:40
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the exchange of cultures and biology across the Atlantic and Pacific after 1492. That was when Columbus reached the Bahamas, a time when Europe had no potatoes, tomatoes, sunflowers or, ar…
John Keats [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:07
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the short life and lasting works of Keats (1795-1821), who in one year wrote some of the most loved poems in English. Among these are Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode on…
The Code of Hammurabi [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:49
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the laws that Hammurabi (c1810 - c1750 BC), King of Babylon, had carved into a black basalt pillar in present day Iraq and which, since its rediscovery in 1901 in present day Iran, has aff…
Henry IV Part 1 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:05
Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the most successful of Shakespeare's plays in his own time. Written with no Part 2 in mind as 'Henry the Fourth', the play explores ideas about who can be a legitimate ruler and why…
The Roman Arena [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:03
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the countless venues across the Roman Empire which for over five hundred years drew the biggest crowds both in the Republic and under the Emperors. The shows there delighted the masses who…
The Mariana Trench [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:04
Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the wonders of the natural world. In 1875 in the western Pacific, the crew of HMS Challenger discovered the Mariana Trench which turned out to be deeper than Everest is high, by two…
On Liberty [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:24
Journalist, author and historian Misha Glenny presents his first edition of In Our Time, succeeding Melvyn Bragg who retired from this role last summer. Misha and his guests discuss the landmark work On Liberty by John S…
Welcoming Misha Glenny [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 6:05
Misha Glenny introduces himself to you ahead of his first episode on 15th January, answering some questions from producer Simon Tillotson and sharing what's coming up in the first few weeks.In Our Time is a BBC Studios p…
Melvyn Bragg meets Misha Glenny [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 16:09
Before Misha Glenny's first edition on 15th January, BBC Radio 4's flagship news programme Today has brought Melvyn Bragg and Misha Glenny together so they can share their ideas about In Our Time's success and discuss wh…
Civility [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:23
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…