Sunday, May 3, 2009

BBC's In Our Time - always recommended

Here is a quick update about BBC's In Our Time, which I must deliver in order to get a clean slate. Since my latest review we have had three very good programs which I hope you all downloaded and if you haven't listened to it, go ahead and do.

The issue about Suffragism gives insight to the political activism that preceded women getting the vote in Great Britain. About radicals, moderates and those women who opposed. This is not only a fascinating history of recent political developments, also of gender, treatment of women and political prisoners and controversy. Controversial, for example, is the question whether the Great War expedited or delayed the eligibility of women for the vote.

The building of St. Petersburg is more than just a history of Peter the Great's feat to build a whole new city for himself in the Baltic. It is also a story of Russia's struggle for modernity and of autocratic ruler's capacity to shape their empire.

The vacuum of space is one of those scientific In Our Time programs. Every season there are a handful of those and they invariably are the toughest for me to follow. I dare to predict they are the toughest to follow for the whole regular audience of In Our Time. Yet, to the credit of this particular instance it needs to be said it had me glued to the iPod until the end.

More In Our Time:
Brave New World,
Rafael's School of Athens and the depiction of Plato and Aristotle,
The Boxer Rebellion,
The library of Alexandria,
The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot.

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2 comments:

Jon and Diana said...

I don't know if you have mentioned it before Anne but Melvyn Bragge has a lovely quirky email update on the programmes every week.

Jon

Anne the Man said...

You haven't mentioned it before. I knew about the mailer and have been subscribed for a long time. Occasionally I use it for the reviews. It is quirky indeed

Anne