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Charisma

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Max Weber's idea of charismatic authority in leadership

• 52 mins

Antigone

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Sophocles' tragedy of an autocrat who defies family ties.

• 54 mins

The Sistine Chapel

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Michelangelo's iconic frescoes in Renaissance Rome.

• 55 mins

Polidori's The Vampyre

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1819 work that inspired two centuries of vampire tales

• 51 mins

Homo erectus

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the two-million-year span of our most adaptable ancestor.

• 51 mins

Olympe de Gouges

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of The Declaration of the Rights of Woman, 1791

• 49 mins

Early Christian Martyrdom

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Eusebius of Caesarea and his stories of Christian martyrs.

• 53 mins

The Davidian Revolution

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the lasting impact of David I, King of Scotland c1084-1153

• 50 mins

Tang Era Poetry

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Li Bai and Du Fu from the Golden Age of Chinese Poetry.

• 46 mins

Comenius

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 17th-century Czech educator committed to toleration.

• 56 mins

Hegel's Philosophy of History

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Hegel's ideas on the consciousness of freedom.

• 52 mins

The Death of Stars

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how the ends of stars can lead to new planets and new life

• 58 mins

Dylan Thomas

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poems, plays and persona of the prominent Welsh writer

• 50 mins

Angkor Wat

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Cambodian temple complex, begun 900 years ago.

• 49 mins

John Bull

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins and evolution of the satirical everyman figure

• 53 mins

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orwell's novel on totalitarianism, truth and surveillance.

• 42 mins

Plato's Atlantis

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Plato's story of the great, lost island of Atlantis.

• 54 mins

The Electron

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the atomic particle that's proved a gateway to modernity.

• 49 mins

The Knights Templar

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rise and abrupt fall of the famous military order.

• 49 mins

Berthe Morisot

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the innovative artist at the heart of French impressionism

• 60 mins

The Fish-Tetrapod Transition

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great stages in the evolution of life on Earth.

• 55 mins

Wilfred Owen

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the outstanding poets of the First World War.

• 56 mins

The Morant Bay Rebellion

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the events in Jamaica in 1865 and their consequences.

• 53 mins

Bauhaus

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential German school founded by Walter Gropius.

• 56 mins

Demosthenes' Philippics

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the speeches that set the standard for political attacks.

• 56 mins

The Challenger Expedition 1872-1876

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great global Victorian voyage of scientific discovery.

• 51 mins

The Nibelungenlied

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the medieval German epic The Song of the Nibelungs.

• 54 mins

The Irish Rebellion of 1798

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the causes and early consequences of the 1798 rebellion.

• 55 mins

Citizen Kane

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orson Welles' celebrated and influential film from 1941.

• 53 mins

Persuasion

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Austen's last complete novel, published after her death.

• 50 mins