Main content

Liberty

Bettany Hughes examines changing ideas of liberty by allowing a neuroscientist to take control of her brain and by perusing the pornography of the French Revolution. From Jan 2014.

Bettany Hughes examines changing ideas of liberty by allowing a neuroscientist to take control of her brain and by perusing the pornography of the French Revolution.

The Ideas That Make Us is a Radio 4 series which reveals the history of the most influential ideas in the story of civilisation, ideas which continue to affect us all today.

In this 'archaeology of philosophy', the award-winning historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes begins each programme with the first, extant evidence of a single word-idea in Ancient Greek culture and travels both forwards and backwards in time, investigating how these ideas have been moulded by history and have shaped the human experience. In the first programme of this series, Bettany examines changing ideas of liberty with neuroscientist Professor Patrick Haggard, classicist Professor Paul Cartledge, historian Dr. Stephen Pigney and Ruth Porter from the Institute of Economic Affairs.

Other ideas examined in this series are comedy, hospitality, wisdom and peace.

Producer: Dixi Stewart.

Available now

15 minutes

Last on

Tue 2 May 2017 02:15

More episodes

Previous

You are at the first episode

See all episodes from The Ideas That Make Us

Broadcasts

  • Mon 27 Jan 2014 13:45
  • Mon 1 May 2017 14:15
  • Tue 2 May 2017 02:15

Watch animations from A History of Ideas

Explore some big questions about how we live today.