Historical themes, events and key individuals from Akhenaten to Xenophon.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mandeville's work on the public benefit of private vices.
Melvyn Bragg discusses the impact of Shakespeare's approach to history (programme 2 of 2).
Melvyn Bragg discusses the impact of Shakespeare's approach to history (programme 1 of 2)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1846-48 war that cost Mexico half its territory.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss republicanism, despotism and the separation of powers.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Achaemenid Empire's great ceremonial capital.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Queen of England at the start of the Wars of the Roses
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the freeing of a third of Russians from serfdom in 1861.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the relationship between slavery and the power of Rome.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great empires of the Islamic west.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexis de Tocqueville's analysis of American democracy.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss evictions and migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential ancient Chinese work on military strategy.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of Frederick Douglass, born to slavery.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Ottoman attack on the Knights Hospitaller in Malta.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life, murder and impact of Thomas Becket (c 1118-1170)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek city of Thebes in myth, drama and history.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss history and culture of the Picts.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the events behind and impact of Picasso's iconic work.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Congress of Vienna, 1814-15.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman emperor Constantine the Great.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rural protest movement in America's Gilded Age.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the fight for the English crown at the Battle of Lincoln.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ancient Egyptian funerary text, The Book of the Dead.
