In Our Time is a discussion programme hosted by Melvyn Bragg on BBC Radio 4 in the United Kingdom. It is currently broadcast on Thursday mornings at 9am; a shortened repeat is aired at 9.30pm on Thursday evenings.
About the series
In Our Time is described as a series investigating the "history of ideas". The series covers many different subjects from history, philosophy, the arts or science, one of which is explored in each programme by the presenter Melvyn Bragg with the help of three experts on the subject. The series runs throughout the year except for a summer break of approximately six weeks between July and September.
The BBC website for the programme includes an archive of previous programmes, each available as streaming audio. The archive
is divided into sections for the categories of science, religion, philosophy, history and culture, with another section for the
programmes of the current series. Since 2005 the programme had been made available for
In 2005 listeners were invited to vote in a poll for the greatest philosopher in history. The winner was the subject of the final programme before the summer break. The vote was won by Karl Marx with 27.9% of the votes. Other shortlisted figures were David Hume (12.7%), Ludwig Wittgenstein (6.8%), Friedrich Nietzsche (6.5%), Plato (5.6%), Immanuel Kant (5.6%), Thomas Aquinas (4.8%), Socrates (4.8%), Aristotle (4.5%) and Karl Popper (4.2%).
The Format of the Programme
The essential part of the programme lasts 42 minutes. Melvyn Bragg starts with a summary, in about 200 words, of the week's topic. He then names the three experts, very often two men and a woman, who are with him in the studio. Melvyn appears familiar with their work. He may have read their books. Some seem to have submitted papers in advance.
Melvyn chooses one to give a starting point to the discussion. Melvyn, then advances the discussion by inviting another of the guests to answer a question. This continues along a preplanned route until the 42 minute mark is in sight. Melvyn either winds the programme up himself or allows a remark from one of the experts to be the concluding statement.
Sometimes, in concluding, he mentions regretfully that there was no time for a particular aspect of the subject. Clearly there had been a plan to include it, but dwelling for too long on an earlier aspect had led to its omission. The programme appears to be totally unedited. To the listener at least, it is Melvyn Bragg, as knowledgeable amateur, introducing and chairing a planned discussion about the topic. He usually succeeds in guiding it to a satifactory conclusion. This simple structure and lack of editing makes every programme to develop in a unique way while the format is always the same.
List of programmes
2008-2007
Taste - (next programme)
| Broadcast date | Title | Contributors |
|---|---|---|
| October 18, 2007 | The Arabian Nights - The art of story-telling | Robert Irwin, Marina Warner, Gerard van Gelder, Laudian |
| October 11, 2007 | Divine Right of Kings - "there's such divinity doth hedge a king" | Justin Champion, Tom Healy, Clare Jackson |
| October 4, 2007 | Val Gibson, Frank Close, Ruth Gregory | |
| September 27, 2007 | Socrates - the man and the myth | Angie Hobbs, David Sedley, Paul Millett |
2007-2006
| Broadcast date | Title | Contributors |
|---|---|---|
| July 12, 2007 | The Trial of Madame Bovary - "Madame Bovary, c'est moi!" | Andy Martin[1] Mary Orr[2] Robert Gildea |
| July 05, 2007 | The Pilgrim Fathers - the original American dream | Kathleen Burk,[3] Harry Bennett,[4] Tim Lockley[5] |
| June 28, 2007 | Permian-Triassic Boundary - when 95% of life was killed off | Richard Corfield,[6] Mike Benton,[7] Jane Francis |
| June 21, 2007 | Common Sense Philosophy - "there is no statement so absurd that no philosopher will make it" | A. C. Grayling, Melissa Lane,[8] Alexander Broadie[9] |
| June 14, 2007 | Renaissance Astrology - "we are merely the stars' tennis balls, struck and bandied which way please them" | Peter Forshaw,[10] Lauren Kassell,[11] Jonathan Sawday[12] |
| June 7, 2007 | Siegfried Sassoon - the poet who survived | Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Fran Brearton,[13] Max Egremont |
| May 31, 2007 | Ockham's Razor - cutting medieval philosophy down to size | Sir Anthony Kenny, Marilyn McCord Adams, Richard Alan Cross |
| May 24, 2007 | The Siege of Orleans - did Joan of Arc really rescue France? | Anne Curry,[14] Malcolm Vale,[15] Matthew Bennett[16] |
| May 17, 2007 | Jim Al-Khalili, Carolin Crawford,[17] Sheila Rowan[18] | |
| May 10, 2007 | Victorian Pessimism - fear and loathing in the late 19th century | Dinah Birch,[19] Rosemary Ashton,[20] Peter Mandler |
| May 3, 2007 | Spinoza - believed that God and Nature were the same thing | Jonathan Rée, Sarah Hutton,[21] John Cottingham[22] |
| April 26, 2007 | Greek and Roman Love Poetry - the pursuit of the Beloved from Sappho to Catullus | Nick Lowe[23], Edith Hall, Maria Wyke[24] |
| April 19, 2007 | Symmetry - the pattern at the heart of our physical world | Fay Dowker, Marcus du Sautoy, Ian Stewart |
| April 12, 2007 | The Opium Wars - a conflict that was to affect British-Chinese relations for generations | Yangwen Zheng[25], Lars Laamann[26], Xun Zhou[27] |
| April 5, 2007 | St Hilda - the life and times of the Abbess of Whitby | John Blair[28], Rosemary Cramp[29], Sarah Foot |
| March 29, 2007 | Anaesthetics - from ether frolics to pain free surgery | David Wilkinson[30], Stephanie Snow[31], Dr Anne Hardy[32] |
| March 22, 2007 | Bismarck - The Iron Chancellor | Richard J. Evans, Christopher Clark, Katharine Lerman[33] |
| March 15, 2007 | Epistolary Literature - great novels of fictional letters | John Mullan, Karen O'Brien,[34] Brean Hammond[35] |
| March 8, 2007 | Microbiology - the story of the invisible masters of the universe | John Dupré,[36] Anne Glover,[37] Andrew Mendelsohn[38] |
| March 1, 2007 | The History of Optics - from telescopes to
|
Simon Schaffer, Jim Bennett, Emily Winterburn[39] |
| February 22, 2007 | William Wilberforce - the man and his legacy | This broadcast was a documentary rather than a discussion |
| February 15, 2007 | Heart of Darkness - one of the most influential novels of the 20th century | Susan Jones,[40] Robert Hampson,[41] Laurence Davies[42] |
| February 8, 2007 | Karl Popper - his ideas challenged our approach to the philosophy of science | John Worrall, Anthony O'Hear, Nancy Cartwright |
| February 1, 2007 | Genghis Khan - founder of one of the world's largest ever land-based empires | Peter Jackson, Naomi Standen,[43] George Lane[44] |
| January 25, 2007 | Archimedes - the Greek mathematician and his Eureka moments | Jackie Stedall,[45] Serafina Cuomo,[46] George Phillips[47] |
| January 18, 2007 | The Jesuits - the school masters of Europe | Nigel Aston,[48] Simon Ditchfield,[49] Dame Olwen Hufton |
| January 11, 2007 | Mars - the search for life on the Red Planet | John Zarnecki, Colin Pillinger, Monica Grady |
| January 4, 2007 | Borges - the life and work of Argentina's best loved short story writer | Edwin Williamson,[50] Efraín Kristal,[51] Evelyn Fishburn[52] |
| December 28, 2006 | The Siege of Constantinople - the end of a thousand years of the Byzantine Empire | Roger Crowley,[53] Judith Herrin, Colin Imber[54] |
| December 21, 2006 | Hell - its representation through the ages | Martin Palmer, Margaret Kean,[55] Neil MacGregor |
| December 14, 2006 | Indian Maths - laying the foundations for modern numerals and zero as a number | George Gheverghese Joseph,[56] Colva Roney-Dougal,[57] Dennis Almeida[58] |
| December 7, 2006 | John Keane, Ruth Kinna, Peter Marshall | |
| November 30, 2006 | The Speed of Light - a cosmic speed limit? | John D. Barrow, Iwan Morus,[59] Jocelyn Bell Burnell |
| November 23, 2006 | Altruism - how can evolutionary biology explain it? | Miranda Fricker,[60] Richard Dawkins, John Dupré[36] |
| November 16, 2006 | The Peasants' Revolt - a lasting legacy for popular uprising? | Miri Rubin, Caroline Barron,[61] Alastair Dunn[62] |
| November 9, 2006 | Alexander Pope - "short is my date, but deathless my renown" | John Mullan, Jim McLaverty,[63] Valerie Rumbold[64] |
| November 2, 2006 | The Poincaré conjecture - how a 19th century mathematician changed how we think about the shape of the universe | June Barrow-Green,[65] Ian Stewart, Marcus du Sautoy |
| October 26, 2006 | The Encyclopédie - the great project of the Enlightenment | Judith Hawley,[66] Caroline Warman,[67] David Wootton[68] |
| October 19, 2006 | The Needham Question - did China lay the foundations of modern science? | Dr Chris Cullen,[69] Tim Barrett,[70] Frances Wood[71] |
| October 12, 2006 | The Diet of Worms - Luther's stand against the Church | Diarmaid MacCulloch, David Bagchi,[72] Reverend Dr Charlotte Methuen[73] |
| October 5, 2006 | Averroes - the battle between faith and reason | Amira Bennison,[74] Peter Adamson,[75] Sir Anthony Kenny |
| September 28, 2006 | Alexander von Humboldt - the remarkable career of the Prussian naturalist | Jason Wilson,[76] Patricia Fara,[77] Jim Secord[78] |
2006-2005
| Broadcast date | Title | Contributors |
|---|---|---|
| July 13, 2006 | Greek Comedy - sing as you revel and rout | Paul Cartledge, Edith Hall, Nick Lowe[23] |
| July 6, 2006 | Pastoral Literature - the romantic idealisation of the countryside | Helen Cooper, Laurence Lerner, Julie Sanders[79] |
| June 29, 2006 | Galaxies - extra-galactic nebulae, black holes, stars and dark matter | John Gribbin, Carolin Crawford,[17] Robert Kennicutt |
| June 22, 2006 | The Spanish Inquisition - one of the most barbaric episodes in European history | John Edwards,[80] Alexander Murray,[81] Michael Alpert[82] |
| June 15, 2006 | Carbon - the basis of life | Harry Kroto, Monica Grady, Ken Teo[83] |
| June 8, 2006 | Uncle Tom's Cabin - the novel that started the American Civil War | Dr Celeste-Marie Bernier,[84] Dr Sarah Meer,[85] Dr Clive Webb[86] |
| June 1, 2006 | The Heart - its anatomical and cultural history | David Wootton,[68] Fay Bound Alberti,[87] Jonathan Sawday[12] |
| May 25, 2006 | Mathematics and Music - the science behind sound and composition | Marcus du Sautoy, Robin Wilson, Ruth Tatlow[88] |
| May 18, 2006 | John Stuart Mill - one of the most influential philosophers of the 19th Century | A. C. Grayling, Janet Radcliffe Richards, Alan Ryan |
| May 11, 2006 | Faeries - supernatural creatures that are neither gods nor humans | Dr Juliette Wood,[89] Diane Purkiss, Nicola Bown[90] |
| May 4, 2006 | Astronomy and Empire - the link between colonial expansion and scientific discovery | Simon Schaffer, Kristen Lippincott,[91] Allan Chapman |
| April 27, 2006 | The Great Exhibition - a wonder of the Victorian world | Jeremy Black, Hermione Hobhouse,[92] Clive Emsley |
| April 20, 2006 | The Search for Immunisation - and the battle against smallpox | Nadja Durbach,[93] Dr Chris Dye,[94] Sanjoy Bhattacharya[95] |
| April 13, 2006 | The Oxford Movement - Anglicans and Catholics in the 19th century | Sheridan Gilley,[96] Frances Knight,[97] Simon Skinner[98] |
| April 6, 2006 | Goethe - formation of a German cultural icon | T. C. W. Blanning, Sarah Colvin,[99] W. Daniel Wilson[100] |
| March 30, 2006 | The Carolingian Renaissance - the revival of early medieval Western Europe | Matthew Innes,[101] Julia Smith,[102] Mary Garrison[103] |
| March 23, 2006 | The Royal Society - the first club for experimental science | Stephen Pumfrey,[104] Lisa Jardine, Michael Hunter |
| March 16, 2006 | Don Quixote - Spanish romance and the first novel | Barry Ife,[105] Edwin Williamson,[50] Jane Whetnall[106] |
| March 9, 2006 | Negative numbers - how they spread across civilizations | Ian Stewart, Colva Roney-Dougal,[57] Raymond Flood[107] |
| March 2, 2006 | Friendship - thinking philosophically about our close companions | Angie Hobbs, Mark Vernon,[108] John Mullan |
| February 23, 2006 | Catherine the Great - the Enlightened Despot of Eighteenth Century Russia | Janet Hartley,[109] Simon Dixon,[110] Tony Lentin[111] |
| February 16, 2006 | Human Evolution - from early hominids to Homo sapiens | Steve Jones, Fred Spoor,[112] Margaret Clegg[113] |
| February 9, 2006 | Geoffrey Chaucer - the first Great English Poet | Dr Carolyne Larrington,[114] Helen Cooper, Ardis Butterfield[115] |
| February 2, 2006 | The Abbasid Caliphs - when Baghdad ruled the Muslim world. | Hugh N. Kennedy, Robert Graham Irwin, Amira Bennison[74] |
| January 26, 2006 | Seventeenth Century Print Culture - piety, populism and political protest | Kevin Sharpe,[116] Ann Hughes,[117] Joad Raymond[118] |
| January 19, 2006 | Relativism - the battle against transcendent knowledge | Barry Smith,[119] Jonathan Rée, Kathleen Lennon[120] |
| January 12, 2006 | Prime Numbers - the building blocks of mathematics | Marcus du Sautoy, Robin Wilson, Jackie Stedall[45] |
| January 5, 2006 | The Oath - guaranteeing law, government and the army in the Classical world | Alan Sommerstein,[121] Paul Cartledge, Mary Beard |
| December 29, 2005 | Aeschylus' Oresteia - the birth of tragedy | Edith Hall, Simon Goldhill, Thomas Healy[122] |
| December 22, 2005 | Heaven - a journey through the afterlife | Valery Rees,[123] Martin Palmer, John Carey |
| December 15, 2005 | The Peterloo Massacre - democratic protest and brutal repression | Jeremy Black, Sarah Richardson,[124] Clive Emsley |
| December 8, 2005 | Artificial Intelligence - the quest for a machine that can think | Jon Agar,[125] Alison Adam,[126] Igor Aleksander |
| December 1, 2005 | Thomas Hobbes and the political philosophy of Leviathan | Quentin Skinner, David Wootton,[68] Annabel Brett[127] |
| November 24, 2005 | The Graviton - the quest for the theoretical gravity particle | Roger Cashmore, Jim Al-Khalili, Sheila Rowan[18] |
| November 17, 2005 | Pragmatism - a practical philosophy fit for 20th century America | A. C. Grayling, Julian Baggini, Miranda Fricker[60] |
| November 10, 2005 | Greyfriars and Blackfriars - philosophy, evangelism and fund-raising in the 13th century Church | Henrietta Leyser,[128] Alexander Murray,[81] Sir Anthony Kenny |
| November 3, 2005 | Asteroids - celestial bodies from the beginning of time | Monica Grady, Carolin Crawford,[17] John Zarnecki |
| October 27, 2005 | Samuel Johnson and His Circle - life with the professional man of letters | John Mullan, Jim McLaverty,[63] Judith Hawley[66] |
| October 20, 2005 | Cynicism - bold and populist, the history of a shocking philosophy | Angie Hobbs, Miriam Griffin,[129] John Moles[130] |
| October 13, 2005 | The Rise of the Mammals - life in a cold climate | Richard Corfield,[6] Steve Jones, Jane Francis |
| October 6, 2005 | Field of the Cloth of Gold - a Renaissance entente cordiale | Steven Gunn,[131] John Guy, Penny Roberts[132] |
| September 29, 2005 | Magnetism - an attractive history | Stephen Pumfrey,[104] John Heilbron, Lisa Jardine |
2005-2004
| Broadcast date | Title | Contributors |
|---|---|---|
| July 14, 2005 | Karl Marx - In Our Time's Greatest Philosopher | A. C. Grayling, Francis Wheen, Gareth Stedman Jones |
| July 7, 2005 | Christopher Marlowe - poet, spy, atheist, murder victim? | Katherine Duncan-Jones,[133] Jonathan Bate, Emma Smith[134] |
| June 30, 2005 | Merlin - the original Welsh wizard | Dr Juliette Wood,[89] Stephen Knight, Peter Forshaw[10] |
| June 23, 2005 | The KT Boundary - did the dinosaurs burn out or fade away? | Simon Kelley,[135] Jane Francis, Mike Benton[7] |
| June 16, 2005 | Paganism in the Renaissance - how the classical gods returned to the Christian cities | Thomas Healy,[122] Charles Hope,[136] Evelyn Welch[137] |
| June 9, 2005 | The Scriblerus Club - the satirists-in-chief of the 18th century | John Mullan, Judith Hawley,[66] Marcus Walsh[138] |
| June 2, 2005 | Renaissance Maths - the birth of modern mathematics? | Robert Kaplan,[139] Jim Bennett, Jackie Stedall[45] |
| May 26, 2005 | The Terror - when Madame Guillotine ruled France | Mike Broers,[140] Rebecca Spang,[141] T. C. W. Blanning |
| May 19, 2005 | Beauty - the philosophy of beauty | Angie Hobbs, Susan James,[142] Julian Baggini |
| May 5, 2005 | Abelard and Heloise - love, sex and theology in 12th century Paris | A. C. Grayling, Henrietta Leyser,[128] Michael Clanchy[143] |
| April 28, 2005 | Perception and the Senses - how do we see what we see? | Richard Gregory, David Moore,[144] Gemma Calvert[145] |
| April 21, 2005 | The Aeneid - the Roman history of the world | Edith Hall, Philip Hardie,[146] Catharine Edwards[147] |
| April 14, 2005 | Archaeology and Imperialism - conquest of the past | Tim Champion,[148] Richard Parkinson[149], Eleanor Robson |
| April 7, 2005 | Alfred and the Battle of Edington - without Alfred, no England? | Dr Richard Gameson,[150] Sarah Foot, John Hines[151] |
| March 31, 2005 | John Ruskin - a different kind of Victorian | Dinah Birch,[19] Keith Hanley,[152] Stefan Collini[153] |
| March 24, 2005 | Angels - how they got their wings | Martin Palmer, Valery Rees,[123] John Haldane[154] |
| March 17, 2005 | Dark Energy - the unknown force breaking the universe apart | Sir Martin Rees, Carolin Crawford,[17] Sir Roger Penrose |
| March 10, 2005 | Modernist Utopias - the original 21st century | John Carey, Steve Connor,[155] Laura Marcus[156] |
| March 3, 2005 | Stoicism - the search for inner calm | Angie Hobbs, Jonathan Rée, David Sedley[157] |
| February 24, 2005 | Alchemy - seeking the perfection of all things | Peter Forshaw,[10] Lauren Kassell,[11] Stephen Pumfrey[104] |
| February 17, 2005 | The Cambrian Explosion - the big bang of evolutionary history | Simon Conway Morris, Richard Corfield,[6] Jane Francis[158] |
| January 13, 2005 | The Mind/Body Problem - does the mind rule the body or the body rule the mind? | A. C. Grayling, Julian Baggini, Sue James[159] |
| January 6, 2005 | The Assassination of Tsar Alexander II - did his killing cause the Russian Revolution? | Orlando Figes, Dominic Lieven,[160] Catriona Kelly[161] |
| December 30, 2004 | The Roman Republic - what were Rome's republican ideals? | Greg Woolf,[162] Catherine Steel,[163] Tom Holland |
| December 23, 2004 | Faust - the original pact with the Devil | Dr Juliette Wood,[89] Osman Durrani,[164] Rosemary Ashton[20] |
| December 16, 2004 | The Second Law of Thermodynamics - the most important thing you will ever know | John Gribbin, Peter Atkins, Monica Grady |
| December 9, 2004 | Machiavelli and the Italian City States - high politics and low cunning in the Italian Renaissance | Quentin Skinner, Evelyn Welch,[137] Lisa Jardine |
| December 2, 2004 | Carl Gustav Jung - Discovering the Self | Brett Kahr,[165] Ronald Hayman, Andrew Samuels |
| November 25, 2004 | The Venerable Bede - the father of English history | Dr Richard Gameson,[150] Sarah Foot, Dr Michelle Brown[166] |
| November 18, 2004 | Higgs Boson - the search for the God particle | Jim Al-Khalili, David Wark[167], Roger Cashmore |
| November 11, 2004 | Zoroastrianism - was the religion of the Persian Empire the first monotheism? | Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis,[168] Farrokh Vajifdar,[169] Alan Williams[170] |
| November 4, 2004 | Electrickery - the origins of electricity | Simon Schaffer, Patricia Fara,[77] Iwan Morus[59] |
| October 28, 2004 | Rhetoric - from the original sophists to latter-day demagogues | Angie Hobbs, Thomas Healy,[122] Ceri Sullivan[171] |
| October 21, 2004 | Witchcraft - Reformation Europe turned upon itself | Alison Rowlands,[172] Lyndal Roper, Malcolm Gaskill[173] |
| October 14, 2004 | The Han Synthesis - creating the Chinese cosmos | Dr Chris Cullen,[69] Carol Michaelson,[174] Roel Sterckx[175] |
| October 7, 2004 | Jean-Paul Sartre - a man condemned to be free | Jonathan Rée, Benedict O'Donohoe,[176] Christina Howells[177] |
| September 30, 2004 | Politeness - the great 18th century craze | Amanda Vickery,[178] David Wootton,[68] John Mullan |
| September 23, 2004 | The Origins of Life - how it all began | Richard Dawkins, Richard Corfield,[6] Linda Partridge[179] |
| September 16, 2004 | Agincourt - the real facts behind the battle. | Anne Curry,[14] Michael Jones, John Watts[180] |
| September 9, 2004 | The Odyssey - Homer's epic tale of Odysseus' return home | Simon Goldhill, Edith Hall, Oliver Taplin |
| September 2, 2004 | Pi - the number that doesn't add up | Robert Kaplan[139], Eleanor Robson, Ian Stewart |
2004-2003
| Broadcast date | Title | Contributors |
|---|---|---|
| June 24, 2004 | George Washington and the American Revolution - the most significant event in history | Carol Berkin,[181] Simon Middleton,[182] Colin Bonwick[183] |
| June 17, 2004 | Renaissance Magic - the great passion of the age | Peter Forshaw,[10] Valery Rees,[123] Jonathan Sawday[12] |
| June 10, 2004 | Empiricism - the English philosophy? | Judith Hawley,[66] Murray Pittock,[184] Jonathan Rée |
| June 3, 2004 | Babylon - the great forgotten civilisation | Eleanor Robson, Irving Finkel[185], Andrew R. George |
| May 27, 2004 | Planets - the astronomy of the 21st century | Paul Murdin,[186] Hugh R. A. Jones,[187] Carolin Crawford[17] |
| May 20, 2004 | Toleration - from medieval intolerance to religious freedom | Justin Champion, David Wootton,[68] Sarah Barber[188] |
| May 13, 2004 | Zero - everything about nothing | Robert Kaplan,[139] Ian Stewart, Lisa Jardine |
| May 6, 2004 | Heroism - do we live in an heroic age? | Angie Hobbs, A. C. Grayling, Paul Cartledge |
| April 29, 2004 | Tea - an empire in a teacup | Huw Bowen,[189] James Walvin,[190] Amanda Vickery[178] |
| April 22, 2004 | Hysteria - the normal state of human beings? | Juliet Mitchell, Rachel Bowlby,[191] Brett Kahr[165] |
| April 15, 2004 | The Later |
Jonathan Bate, Robert Woof, Jennifer Wallace[192] |
| April 8, 2004 | The Fall - how Adam and Eve affect us all | Martin Palmer, Griselda Pollock,[193] John Carey |
| April 1, 2004 | China: The Warring States Period - the fiery beginnings of Chinese civilisation | Dr Chris Cullen,[69] Dr Vivienne Lo,[194] Carol Michaelson[174] |
| March 25, 2004 | Theories of Everything - still the holy grail of physics? | Brian Greene, John D. Barrow, Dr Val Gibson[195] |
| March 18, 2004 | The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire | Charlotte Roueché,[196] David Womersley,[197] Richard Alston[198] |
| March 11, 2004 | The Norse Gods - the great myths of pagan Europe | Dr Carolyne Larrington,[114] Heather O'Donoghue,[199] John Hines[151] |
| March 4, 2004 | Dreams - is there a science of dreams? | Professor V S Ramachandran,[200] Mark Solms,[201] Martin Conway[202] |
| February 26, 2004 | The Mughal Empire - the glory of India | Sanjay Subrahmanyam,[203] Susan Stronge,[204] Chandrika Kaul[205] |
| February 19, 2004 | Rutherford - the father of nuclear physics | Simon Schaffer, Jim Al-Khalili, Patricia Fara[77] |
| February 12, 2004 | The Sublime - defining the state of awe | Janet Todd, Annie Janowitz,[206] Peter de Bolla[207] |
| February 5, 2004 | The Battle of Thermopylae - battle that defined East and West | Tom Holland, Simon Goldhill, Edith Hall |
| January 29, 2004 | Cryptography - secret history of ciphers and codes | Simon Singh, Professor Fred Piper,[208] Lisa Jardine |
| December 26, 2003 | Lamarck and Natural Selection - the Lamarckian Heresy | Sandy Knapp,[209] Steve Jones, Simon Conway Morris |
| December 18, 2003 | The Alphabet - its creation and development | Eleanor Robson, Alan Millard, Rosalind Thomas[210] |
| December 11, 2003 | The Devil - a brief biography | Martin Palmer, Alison Rowlands,[172] David Wootton[68] |
| December 4, 2003 | Ray Monk, Barry Smith,[119] Marie McGinn[211] | |
| November 27, 2003 | St Bartholomew's Day Massacre - slaughter in Paris. | Diarmaid MacCulloch, Mark Greengrass,[212] Penny Roberts[132] |
| November 20, 2003 | Ageing the Earth - a journey in geological time. | Richard Corfield,[6] Hazel Rymer,[213] Henry Gee |
| November 13, 2003 | Duty - concepts of obligation. | Angie Hobbs, Annabel Brett,[127] A. C. Grayling |
| November 6, 2003 | Sensation - the best sellers of the 19th century. | John Mullan, Lyn Pykett,[214] Dinah Birch[19] |
| October 30, 2003 | Robin Hood - the greatest of English myths. | Stephen Knight, Thomas Hahn,[215] Dr Juliette Wood[ |