In Our Time

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poet George Herbert (1593-1633) who, according to the French philosopher Simone Weil, wrote ‘the most beautiful poem in the world’. Herbert gave his poems on his relationship with God to a friend, to be published after his death if they offered comfort to any 'dejected pour soul' but otherwise be burned. They became so popular across the range of Christians in the 17th Century that they were printed several times, somehow uniting those who disliked each other but found a common admiration for Herbert; Charles I read them before his execution, as did his enemies. Herbert also wrote poems prolifically and brilliantly in Latin and these he shared during his lifetime both when he worked as orator at Cambridge University and as a parish priest in Bemerton near Salisbury. He went on to influence poets from Coleridge to Heaney and, in parish churches today, congregations regularly sing his poems set to music as hymns. WithHelen Wilcox Professor Emerita of English Literature at Bangor UniversityVictoria Moul Formerly Professor of Early Modern Latin and English at UCLAndSimon Jackson Director of Music and Director of Studies in English at Peterhouse, University of CambridgeProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list: Amy Charles, A Life of George Herbert (Cornell University Press, 1977)Thomas M. Corns, The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry: Donne to Marvell (Cambridge University Press, 1993) John Drury, Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert (Penguin, 2014)George Herbert (eds. John Drury and Victoria Moul), The Complete Poetry (Penguin, 2015)George Herbert (ed. Helen Wilcox), The English Poems of George Herbert (Cambridge University Press, 2007)Simon Jackson, George Herbert and Early Modern Musical Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2022)Gary Kuchar, George Herbert and the Mystery of the Word (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)Cristina Malcolmson, George Herbert: A Literary Life (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)Victoria Moul, A Literary History of Latin and English Poetry: Bilingual Literary Culture in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2022)Joseph H. Summers, George Herbert: His Religion and Art (first published by Chatto and Windus, 1954; Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, New York, 1981)Helen Vendler, The Poetry of George Herbert (Harvard University Press, 1975)James Boyd White, This Book of Starres: Learning to Read George Herbert (University of Michigan Press, 1995)Helen Wilcox (ed.), George Herbert. 100 Poems (Cambridge University Press, 2021) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable rise of Venice in the eastern Mediterranean. Unlike other Italian cities of the early medieval period, Venice had not been settled during the Roman Empire. Rather, it was a refuge for those fleeing unrest after the fall of Rome who settled on these boggy islands on a lagoon and developed into a power that ran an empire from mainland Italy, down the Adriatic coast, across the Peloponnese to Crete and Cyprus, past Constantinople and into the Black Sea. This was a city without walls, just one of the surprises for visitors who marvelled at the stability and influence of Venice right up to the 17th Century when the Ottomans, Spain, France and the Hapsburgs were to prove too much especially with trade shifting to the Atlantic.With Maartje van Gelder Professor in Early Modern History at the University of AmsterdamStephen Bowd Professor of Early Modern History at the University of EdinburghAndGeorg Christ Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of ManchesterProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Michel Balard and Christian Buchet (eds.), The Sea in History: The Medieval World (Boydell & Brewer, 2017), especially ‘The Naval Power of Venice in the Eastern Mediterranean’ by Ruthy GertwagenStephen D. Bowd, Venice's Most Loyal City: Civic Identity in Renaissance Brescia (Harward University Press, 2010)Frederic Chapin Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973)Georg Christ and Franz-Julius Morche (eds.), Cultures of Empire: Rethinking Venetian rule 1400–1700: Essays in Honour of Benjamin Arbel (Brill, 2020), especially ‘Orating Venice's Empire: Politics and Persuasion in Fifteenth Century Funeral Orations’ by Monique O'ConnellEric R. Dursteler, A Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797 (Brill, 2013), especially ‘Venice's Maritime Empire in the Early Modern Period’ by Benjamin ArbelIain Fenlon, The Ceremonial City: History, Memory and Myth in Renaissance Venice (Yale University Press, 2007)Joanne M. Ferraro, Venice: History of the Floating City (Cambridge University Press, 2012)Maria Fusaro, Political Economies of Empire: The Decline of Venice and the Rise of England 1450-1700 (Cambridge University Press, 2015)Maartje van Gelder, Trading Places: The Netherlandish Merchant Community in Early Modern Venice, 1590-1650 (Brill, 2009)Deborah Howard, The Architectural History of Venice (Yale University Press, 2004)Kristin L. Huffman (ed.), A View of Venice: Portrait of a Renaissance City (Duke University Press, 2024) Peter Humfrey, Venice and the Veneto: Artistic Centers of the Italian Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 2008)John Jeffries Martin and Dennis Romano (eds.), Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297-1797 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000)Erin Maglaque, Venice’s Intimate Empire: Family Life and Scholarship in the Renaissance Mediterranean (Cornell University Press, 2018)Michael E Mallett and John Rigby Hale, The Military Organization of a Renaissance State Venice, c.1400 to 1617 (Cambridge University Press, 1984)William Hardy McNeill, Venice: The Hinge of Europe (The University of Chicago Press, 1974)Jan Morris, The Venetian Empire: A Sea Voyage (Faber & Faber, 1980)Monique O'Connell, Men of Empire: Power and Negotiation in Venice’s Maritime State (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009)Dennis Romano, Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City (Oxford University Press, 2023)David Rosand, Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State (University of North Carolina Press, 2001)David Sanderson Chambers, The Imperial Age of Venice, 1380-1580 (Thames and Hudson, 1970) Sandra Toffolo, Describing the City, Describing the State: Representations of Venice and the Venetian Terraferma in the Renaissance (Brill, 2020)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production .

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Louisa May Alcott's 1868 novel, credited with starting the new genre of young adult fiction. When Alcott (1832-88) wrote Little Women, she only did so as her publisher refused to publish her father's book otherwise and as she hoped it would make money. It made Alcott's fortune. This coming of age story of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March, each overcoming their own moral flaws, has delighted generations of readers and was so popular from the start that Alcott wrote the second part in 1869 and further sequels and spin-offs in the coming years. Her work has inspired countless directors, composers and authors to make many reimagined versions ever since, with the sisters played by film actors such as Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, Kirsten Dunst, Saoirse Ronan and Emma Watson. With Bridget Bennett Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of LeedsErin Forbes Senior Lecturer in African American and U.S. Literature at the University of BristolAndTom Wright Reader in Rhetoric and Head of the Department of English Literature at the University of SussexProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Louisa May Alcott (ed. Madeline B Stern), Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott (William Morrow & Co, 1997)Kate Block, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado and Jane Smiley, March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women (Library of America, 2019)Anne Boyd Rioux, Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters (W. W. Norton & Company, 2018)Azelina Flint, The Matrilineal Heritage of Louisa May Alcott and Christina Rossetti (Routledge, 2021)Robert Gross, The Transcendentalists and Their World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022)John Matteson, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father (W. W. Norton & Company, 2007)Bethany C. Morrow, So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix (St Martin’s Press, 2021)Anne K. Phillips and Gregory Eiselein (eds.), Critical Insights: Louisa May Alcott (Grey House Publishing Inc, 2016)Harriet Reisen, Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women (Picador, 2010)Daniel Shealy (ed.), Little Women at 150 (University of Mississippi Press, 2022)Elaine Showalter, A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx (Virago, 2009)Simon Sleight and Shirleene Robinson (eds.), Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World (Palgrave, 2016), especially “The ‘Willful’ Girl in the Anglo-World: Sentimental Heroines and Wild Colonial Girls” by Hilary EmmettMadeleine B. Stern, Louisa May Alcott: A Biography (first published 1950; Northeastern University Press, 1999) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Austrian-British economist Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1944) in which Hayek (1899-1992) warned that the way Britain was running its wartime economy would not work in peacetime and could lead to tyranny. His target was centralised planning, arguing this disempowered individuals and wasted their knowledge, while empowering those ill-suited to run an economy. He was concerned about the support for the perceived success of Soviet centralisation, when he saw this and Fascist systems as two sides of the same coin. When Reader's Digest selectively condensed Hayek’s book in 1945, and presented it not so much as a warning against tyranny as a proof against socialism, it became phenomenally influential around the world. With Bruce Caldwell Research Professor of Economics at Duke University and Director of the Center for the History of Political EconomyMelissa Lane The Class of 1943 Professor of Politics at Princeton University and the 50th Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College in LondonAndBen Jackson Professor of Modern History and fellow of University College at the University of OxfordProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets Since the Depression (Harvard University Press, 2012)Bruce Caldwell, Hayek’s Challenge: An Intellectual Biography of F.A. Hayek (University of Chicago Press, 2004)Bruce Caldwell, ‘The Road to Serfdom After 75 Years’ (Journal of Economic Literature 58, 2020)Bruce Caldwell and Hansjoerg Klausinger, Hayek: A Life 1899-1950 (University of Chicago Press, 2022)M. Desai, Marx’s Revenge: The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism (Verso, 2002)Edward Feser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hayek (Cambridge University Press, 2006)Andrew Gamble, Hayek: The Iron Cage of Liberty (Polity, 1996)Friedrich Hayek, Collectivist Economic Planning (first published 1935; Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2015), especially ‘The Nature and History of the Problem’ and ‘The Present State of the Debate’ by Friedrich HayekFriedrich Hayek (ed. Bruce Caldwell), The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents: The Definitive Edition (first published 1944; Routledge, 2008. Also vol. 2 of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, University of Chicago Press, 2007)Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom: Condensed Version (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2005; The Reader’s Digest condensation of the book)Friedrich Hayek, ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’ (American Economic Review, vol. 35, 1945; vol. 15 of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, University of Chicago Press) Friedrich Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order (first published 1948; University of Chicago Press, 1996), especially the essays ‘Economics and Knowledge’ (1937), ‘Individualism: True and False’ (1945), and ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’ (1945)Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (first published 1960; Routledge, 2006) Friedrich Hayek, Law. Legislation and Liberty: A new statement of the liberal principles of justice and political economy (first published 1973 in 3 volumes; single vol. edn, Routledge, 2012)Ben Jackson, ‘Freedom, the Common Good and the Rule of Law: Hayek and Lippmann on Economic Planning’ (Journal of the History of Ideas 73, 2012)Robert Leeson (ed.), Hayek: A Collaborative Biography Part I (Palgrave, 2013), especially ‘The Genesis and Reception of The Road to Serfdom’ by Melissa LaneIn Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production