The playlist these days

While I have virtually stopped blogging about podcasts, I am still listening. There are a couple of podcasts I keep following and here is a list.

The Early Middle Ages - Yale course. (iTunesU)
I have done this course before, but I was caught by it again. The reason I pick up certain history podcasts is because I want to wrap my mind around something. The point that was brought to my attention first by Europe from its origins is that the Roman Empire did not 'fall' in 476. Even if that was clear to anyone who was aware that it proceeded as the Byzantine Empire, which finally fell in 1453, an additional point is how Western Europe kept on developing at the hand of the Church, not being the Roman Empire, but also, in many ways as a continuation of it in its own way. The overall question being, how much western society can be coherently taken as one culture and as such be regarded as Roman.

A new podcast I have taken up is The History of World War II by Ray Harris. This is an amateur podcast which takes on the vast and unwieldy task of telling the entire history of WW2, which professionals do not begin to tackle. The result is very interesting shedding light on some less familiar parts such as Mussolini's rise in Italy. It pays ample attention to the nuts and bolts of the military campaigns in the war, which have to be to your liking of course. (feed)

Other podcasts I stick with are The China History podcast - which just finished a series about the history of Hong Kong (feed) - and David Crowther's History of England (feed). Needless to say, I also persist in listening to each week's issue of BBC's In Our Time (feed).

Apart from having a writer's block (I feel I am repeating myself on the blog and cannot bring myself to continue repeating), I also find that with the latest upgrade of iTunes, a crucial feature has been removed: the advanced subscribing to podcasts. That seems like a minor change, but I find it has great meaning and implication and first of all renders irrelevant almost all of the feed links I have been posting over the past years - 2000+ posts hurt, ouch!

I would like to revive this blog. I love to write about audio on the web, but I have to find a new way of doing it. Feel free to drop suggestions. In the mean time, I'll be silent, but there will be another guest post by Saeed coming up and maybe I'll give in to a rant about iTunes.

Summer time tip: In Our Time

During the summer in podcasting just as in other media, there is a slight dip in activity. Although there is still enough new audio coming out every day to keep you very busy, I can imagine that during the month of August you may be looking for something else. So, here is are a short series of posts where to look for old material that is worth listening to again.

My first recommendation is the famous BBC four programme and podcast In Our Time. As you probably already know, this podcast offers 40 minute episodes in which Melvyn Bragg discusses one subject from the history of ideas with a panel of three specialists.

In the past I could not have reasonably point you at this podcast over the summer, as the BBC always removed the podcast episode from the feed as soon as a new one was added. This however changed in the last season. The whole of 2010 / 2011 is still available and there is much to choose from.

An additional quality of In Our Time has become apparent to me: in the world of podcast it has authority. I have noticed over the years an increasing number of (history) podcasters that refer to In Our Time in their own audio. These references are more and more explicit, but I have also noticed implicit ones - where the content was obviously directly informed by an issue of In Our Time. For me this is very much as in books the way authors refer to standing works on the same subject within the text or within footnotes. While this kind of referencing is not yet common within podcast, where it happens, it has frequently involved reference to In Our Time.

More In Our Time:
A reminder of the great BBC podcasts,
Diarmaid MacCulloch in podcast,
The Indian Rebellion of 1857,
Frankfurt School,
The history of the Royal Society.

Diarmaid MacCulloch in podcast

As usual it was a great pleasure to listen to BBC's In Our Time. The latest issue contained a discussion of Foxe's Book of Martyrs which was published at the height of the stormy Reformation in England in 1563 and was frequently republished afterward. Foxe's historic work gave the new Protestant Churches a legitimacy by making a connection between Christian martyrs through the ages. (feed)

One of the guests at the BBC was historian Diarmaid MacCulloch whose voice I recognized from a lecture I fondly remember at the LSE about the pasts and futures of Christianity. Here he showed the enormous varieties of Christianity through the ages and in all corners of the world. It made me search for his name in iTunes.

My search brought me to the 24th episode of the podcast Some Books Considered (feed). Historian Diarmaid MacCulloch spoke with podcast host Dan Skinner about his book Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. MacCulloch chose the title to indicate that the history prior to Christianity is important to understand the context of the of religion’s birth and also to indicate that it still has a long history yet to unfold. The book has been described as the first truly global history that examines the great ideas and personalities of Christianity. MacCulloch also examined how Christianity is currently being expressed in different cultures around the world.

In Our Time is back again

In case you had not noticed yet, here is to let you know that BBC's In Our Time is back. This is a podcast that is universally regarded as one of the most interesting and worth to follow productions around. Melvyn Bragg speaks every week for 45 minutes with assorted specialists on a subject in the history of ideas. There is hardly a better way thinkable to get a handle on an important topic than getting it on a silver platter through In Our Time. (feed)

The listener needs to be warned though: issues of In Our Time are only available as a podcast in the week immediately after its publication. After that it will only be available on line as a stream. It is therefore my advice to take a subscription, download each issue as it comes out and keep it for listening.

In Our Time also gives fantastic complementary listening to academic or other podcasts that cover the same topic. For example, next week the subject will be the Spanish Armada and in case we may expect that the focus will be either on Spain or England, it will be nice to also listen to the Irish perspective as can be found in the podcast Hidden Heritage.

More In Our Time:
The Indian Rebellion of 1857,
Frankfurt School,
The history of the Royal Society,
The weekly treat,
New season of In Our Time.

The history of Anesthetics - Making History

My favorite Hebrew podcast is Making History with Ran Levi (עושים היסטוריה! עם רן לוי). I would like to draw your attention to one of the latest episodes. Here Ran Levi discusses the history of Anesthetics.

Three years ago BBC's In Our Time had a great program about Anesthetics as well and it is great to compare with Ran Levi's excellent work. Despite overlap, there are some good new insights to be had with him as well. In Our Time pays more attention to the assumed religious problem with anesthetics: pain was supposed to be a meaningful gift of god - how could we attempt to take it away?

This is pointed out by Levi as well, but with Levi we learn more about the finer techniques of the various narcotics that have been in use. And this gives great insight in the technical development. And as usual with histories of human discovery, frequently the wrong people are credited for the invention.

More Making History with Ran Levi:
Social Engineering for hackers,
Ran Levi, then, now and about the Long Now,
Of nightmares and sleepwalking,
Mass Extinctions,
Making History with Ran Levi - עושים היסטוריה! עם רן לוי.

The Riddle of the Sands - Forgotten Classics

For the British, one of the shocks of the Great War was that they suddenly were pitted against Germany. The Germans and before them the Prussians had always been seen in a rather friendly light. The French had always been the enemy. When in 1871, after the Franco-Prussian war, Germany came into existence and developed into a great power, some saw the coming confrontation, but largely it had to take until 1914, until the Germans could really be broadly perceived as the real enemies. A 1871 invasion novel - The Battle of Dorking - which envisioned a German invasion of Britain was quickly forgotten.

Yet, by the early twentieth century the tide began to turn and a 1903 novel which describes how two English sailing tourists stumble upon a German invasion fleet not only marked a changing attitude, it even is acclaimed to have alerted the English to what was threatening them. This book, The Riddle of the Sands, featured as the conversation subject in an old issue of BBC's In Our Time (In Our Time on The Riddle of the Sands. Only available in stream). Melvyn Bragg and his guests hardly touch upon the novel and mainly speak of British attitudes towards Germany and vice versa.

If you want to hear the novel being read and find out a bit more, listen to Forgotten Classics. Host Julie gives a magnificent reading of the book (chapters 1-2, 3-5 and the just released 6-7) in which she captures the two main characters Carruthers and Davies each with their peculiarities. I was particularly delighted by the story as I have sailed the Frisian Islands some twenty years ago, as Carruthers and Davies do. That and the thought of the book's historical significance makes it a true delight.

More Forgotten Classics:
The message of Uncle Tom's Cabin,
Cooking with Forgotten Classics,
Forgotten Classics - podcast review.

More In Our Time:
Frankfurt School,
The history of the Royal Society,
The weekly treat,
New season of In Our Time,
St. Thomas Aquinas.

Frankfurt School - IOT

Last week BBC's In Our Time delivered a four part series about the history of the Royal Society which, I have to admit, I abandoned in the middle. Somehow it didn't take me in as the single part, 40 minute, concise and too short, regular episodes do. And as did the latest show, which was a normal one again.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discussed the Frankfurt School and it was good to hear this history again. In addition to the history, it was a challenge to engage in the kind of critical thought the School propagated. I appreciated the idea of being critical of all systems, not only the leading system, but also the alleged alternatives. This was not cheap, cynical criticism but a thrust to think further and beyond, in eternal search for a better place. No wonder such School (of Sociology? Political Science? Philosophy? Art?) had to pass out of existence, but I was a little surprised by one suggestions the best had already been over when the School went into its American Exile.

I thought it had had its heyday in America and an additional heyday in its second period back in Germany. Surely there were several versions of the Frankfurt School. There are not many podcasts that pay attention to them. The only I know of was one issue of New Books In History about The Frankfurt School in Exile, that is, the American part of the story.

More In Our Time:
The history of the Royal Society,
The weekly treat,
New season of In Our Time,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
Logical Positivism.

The history of the Royal Society - In Our Time special

Fans of BBC's In Our Time are to be alerted and warned. Melvyn Bragg has just started a special series about the history of the Royal Society. Yesterday we got the first issue, today the second has already come around and at this rate one must make sure to trigger download every day in order to not miss out. As we know all too well, BBC podcasts do not last long in their feeds.

And while you are rushing ahead to lay your hands on this special edition of IOT, do not miss out on the latest episode in the regular series. Last Thursday we were treated with an excellent chapter about Mary Wollstonecraft. She was in many ways, of course, the first feminist. Consequently we learn much of her unraveling of women's issues in the eighteenth century.

As interesting as the history is, Wollstonecraft appears from the show as a fascinating multi-faceted figure, I was also struck by how relevant her story is still today. After about 26 minutes on the show, the speakers emphasize how in her time women were always stuck in an eroticized framework. Women were first and foremost about sexuality, anything about women was always also about sexuality. Wollstonecraft is portrayed as the first to demand women be treated as human beings, regardless of their gender, when the subject is not sex. The tone at which this is done is as if this is different today. But I feel we have hardly progressed at this point.

More In Our Time:
The weekly treat,
New season of In Our Time,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
Logical Positivism,
The Sunni - Shia split.

The weekly treat: In Our Time

I do not expect that readers of this blog really need a reminder of the excellent weekly podcast of the BBC In Our Time. Each week Melvyn Bragg is joined in the studio by three specialist to talk about various subjects in the history of ideas. Since my last review we have heard about the Dreyfus affair, the death of Elizabeth I and the geological formation of Britain. Tomorrow there will be a new podcast. This time about Schopenauer.

In Our Time has been bringing 45 minutes of sheer intellectual pleasure over the past years. And so, what more is to be said? The BBC and Melvyn Bragg understand the asset they have with IOT and have published the In Our Time book. Although the BBC website presents this as a guide to IOT, is merely a set of transcripts of selected chapters.

As is usual with books these day, teasers can be had over the web and so, you can read a transcript of the episode about calendars. Also in print IOT displays here the wonderful quality it offers in podcast.

More In Our Time:
New season of In Our Time,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
Logical Positivism,
The Sunni - Shia split,
Revenge Tragedy.

New season of In Our Time

BBC's In Our Time has made a flying start of the new season. Three issues have passed us already and the fourth is about to come on-line. As usual, once the new episode is available in the feed, the old one is removed. Make sure you get the chapters and keep them for later listening. There almost never an issue of IOT you will regret having spent your precious 45 minutes of listening time to.

I already gave a short review of the opening of the season, St. Thomas Aquinas, but in the mean time we have also had two other excellent discussions. One about the Newton vs Leibniz controversy and one about the fascinating and enigmatic black sheep of Egyptian Pharaohs: Akhenaten.

The Leibinz-Newton controversy hardly turns out to be a relevant controversy for mathematics. It seems more of a championship of prestige between England and Germany, between the Anglo-Saxon world and the European continent. And in the end, it is once again a mention of both the genius as well as the miserable character of Isaac Newton.

Akhenaten (Akhnaton) is the story of reconstruction of a history for which we have little facts to go on, yet that contains all the elements to trigger wild imagination. One of those issues is the seeming monotheism of Akhenaten. Was he the first monotheist in history? If he was a monotheist, but if you accept that, what would be the relation with Moses, taking the Hebrews out of Egypt and establishing that oldest monotheistic religion we still have today? At least they could have given the temporal distance between the two. But more time goes to discussing Akhenaten, his wife Nefertiti and the religious revolution he brought about.

More In Our Time
St. Thomas Aquinas,
Logical Positivism,
The Sunni - Shia split,
Revenge Tragedy,
The Augustan Age.

St. Thomas Aquinas - In Our Time

While preparing for Rosh Hashana, which will be a long weekend and will mostly keep me away from my blog, I want to quickly alert you to the fact that BBC's In Our Time is back and has delighted me in the first show with Thomas Aquinas.

The meaning of Thomas is that he took the theology of the Church further from St. Augustine (see previous review) and succeeded in incorporating Aristotelian philosophy and world view into the dogmas of Christianity.

More In Our Time
Logical Positivism,
The Sunni - Shia split,
Revenge Tragedy,
The Augustan Age,
The trial of king Charles I.

Logical Positivism - In Our Time

Before the episode is going to be taken off line tomorrow, here is a reminder to go ahead and download BBC In Our Time's latest issue Logical Positivism.

Somehow, it was especially fascinating to hear this episode so shortly after finishing the BBC Reith Lectures by Michael Sandel. Maybe it is my personal impression, but somehow, Sandel's plea to allow for morality to enter the public debate seems to fit not so well with logical positivism. Logical positivism was all about pushing away from science (and thus in many ways, away from the public debate) all issues that could not rationally be decided by data and systematic observation. By all means this seems to reflect our qualms to debate issues of morality, religion, spirituality and grand ideologies.

Certainly, logical positivism only addressed science, not the public or the political debate. But in a technocratic society, science seems to be the highest authority to turn to for ultimately deciding about false and true. Albeit, truth is a rather tricky fellow to capture and it is therefore surprising that the program about Logical Positivism hardly addressed Karl Popper's contribution through the approach of falsification. But surely this is because Popper had his own chapter of In Our Time.

More In Our Time:
The Sunni - Shia split,
Revenge Tragedy,
The Augustan Age,
The trial of king Charles I,
St. Paul.

More BBC Reith Lectures 2009:
A politics of the common good,
The bioethics concern,
Morality in Politics,
Morality and the Market.

The Sunni - Shia split on podcasts

The average listener to BBC radio 4's program In Our Time is not expected to know much about Islam and therefore may barely know about the Sunni Shia divide in that religion. In the latest episode the Sunni-Shia split was the subject and in 43 minutes the bare basics were told.

Much is still missing. Host Melvyn Bragg tried to get through to the eventual religious meaning of the divide, but if at all some tip of the iceberg was revealed, somehow, the foucs went to the Shia beliefs. And I wouldn't be surprised if the listener was left in confusion. The podcast followers have a lot more content at their disposal. Content to either replace or complement this last episode of In Our Time.

A very good podcast that takes the divide and places it in a contemporary picture is Speaking of Faith's issue in which host Krista Tippett speaks with Vali Nasr. For a more extensive historic background I'd point everyone to the University of California San Diego. An unfortunate circumstance is that UCSD removes the podcast courses at the end of the semester, but recurring courses that are relevant are: UCSD's MMW3 by Chamberlain, UCSD's MMW 3 by Herbst and MMW 4. MMW3 is the course out of which you will find several lectures apply to the origins of Islam and here you will learn extensively about the origins of the Sunni-Shia divide. Professor Chamberlain has a more theological touch to his teachings and this may serve exactly best here, but overall I find the lectures by Professor Herbst more accessible and commendable in general. In MMW4, the Islamic empire is central in the beginning and the Sunni Ulama will be worked out more, as well as the ongoing repression of Shia Islam.

More In Our Time:
Revenge Tragedy,
The Augustan Age,
The trial of king Charles I,
St. Paul,
Whale evolution.

Revenge Tragedy - IOT podcast review

BBC's In Our Time last week contained a discussion about Elizabethan and Jacobean Revenge Tragedy. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth and King James I (1558 - 1625) the motif of revenge was very common in the theater and very popular as well.

The program discusses a number of plays, the most famous among them of course Shakespeare's Hamlet. I was struck however by another one, I think it was The Spanish Tragedy in which the revenge is played out in a play. The revenging character devises a scene in which the object of his revenge is an actor that needs to be stabbed. He replaces the stage dagger with a real one. But of course that real one is a stage dagger in The Spanish Tragedy.

The irony seems to be that revenge as a social phenomenon fits more in the Middle Ages and here, in this era, the State of England is being built and is furnished with a legal system and revenge is worked out of society. It is as if the stage plays represent the public mourning over a way of compensation they have to give up. Later on, revenge continues to be a motif in the theater, but not the only one and not as drawn out and central is in this time.

More In Our Time:
The Augustan Age,
The trial of king Charles I,
St. Paul,
Whale evolution,
Magna Carta.

The Augustan Age - IOT

Here is a quick hint towards BBC's In Our Time before the latest program will be taken out of the feed. I know many of you history podcast listeners out there are interested in Roman History. Well, here is one episode you must download from the feed before tomorrow and listen to: The Augustan Age.

When Octavius became the leader of Rome, he changed his name to Augustus and became the first emperor. This started not only the era of Rome as an Empire it also meant the beginning of immense cultural flourishing. Rome was rebuilt, Rome was reinvented and world history took a definite turn.

More Roman History:
Why did Rome fall?,
Carthage (In Our Time and others),
The Punic Wars (Dan Carlin's hardcore History),
Tacitus (In Our Time),
Roman History in Podcasts.

There is also an Open University vodcast about Roman History, that I have not reviewed (yet).

More In Our Time:
The trial of king Charles I,
St. Paul,
Whale evolution,
Magna Carta,
BBC's In Our Time - always recommended.

The Trial of King Charles I - In Our Time

In Our Time will be on BBC Radio Four tomorrow with a new program. The latest issue about the trial of King Charles the first will by then be taken out of the feed.

The trial of King Charles is treated as an exceptional novelty at the time. It replaces the sheer coup with regicide to a process in which the leader of the nation is held responsible before the law. This seems like a logical follow-up to the chapter about the Magna Carta, where also the reign of the king is bound to the law. The next step was to bind the King also to values and principles of Justice. Thus Charles could be beheaded for this and set a precedent for the trial of King Louis in the French Revolution up to the War Crime tribunals after WW II.

The interesting thing in the discussion is that Charles saw it otherwise. He was the sovereign, who but God could hold him responsible. It took him by surprise that they were actually going to execute him. And so this trial also has traits of a staged case. In that respect it also sets precedent for the future that followed. Show trials all over.

More In Our Time:
St. Paul,
Whale evolution,
Magna Carta,
BBC's In Our Time - always recommended,
Brave New World.

The apostle Paul - guest post on In Our Time

This is a guest post written by Jim Mowatt. Jim is a dedicated listener to history podcasts and the producer of one himself: Historyzine. Like myself Jim loves the BBC podcast In Our Time and when he expressed his enthusiasm about the latest edition, I was happy to find him ready to write about it on my blog.

In Our Time surprises and delights over and over again in that it brings to light so many subjects on the fringes of my consciousness and provides enough depth of discussion to draw me further into the topic. This time they've chosen one of the most important people in the Christian church and yet someone who the non religious (such as myself and the majority of other peoples upon the earth) have barely encountered. As I've stated I have no strong religious belief but I do have a fascination for spirituality and religion and this podcast drew me in and inspired me to read some of the writings of St. Paul and gave me enough context that I could appreciate them all the more.

The presenter, Melvyn Bragg introduces his guests John Haldane, Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews, John Barclay, Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at Durham University and Helen Bond, Senior Lecturer in the New Testament at the University of Edinburgh and gives us these words: A long time ago, a man called Saul was travelling to Damascus when a light flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" Paul (Saul) was a Jewish Pharisee probably going to Damascus to find out more about these troublesome Christians. His job/devotion/whatever was to police the strict adherence of Jews to the codes which had been set down for them. There seem to have been much diluting of these codes and this, he felt, watered down the Jewish faith. Paul received his conversion of faith and was immediately energised spreading a message not only to the Jewish peoples (all the early Christians were Jewish) but also to the Gentiles. He travelled many thousands of miles setting up little cells of Christian peoples throughout the Roman empire and leaving us the legacy we have today of the 13 epistles in the New Testament of the Christian bible. If not for Paul then it is quite likely that Christianity would have been a minority offshoot of the Jewish religion but Paul felt that the death and resurrection of Jesus had heralded a new age where all that had been would be swept away and a new world would come into being. Paul felt that this offered a path to salvation for all the peoples of the earth through Jesus Christ and that everyone could be saved. I suspect that there were many arguments about this at the time. Paul, even though he seems to have been quite well respected for his knowledge of scripture was a latecomer to the Christian movement. His conversion followed soon after the death of Jesus but he never met him and was not one of Jesus' disciples. To the apostles Paul must have seemed more of an irritant than a help. They had met and lived with Jesus. They had heard his teachings directly and yet here was this man Paul who felt he knew better than they, the message from God.

Despite this Paul has had an enormous effect upon the Christian church and this podcast did briefly refer to the influence of Paul upon Augustine and Luther many hundreds of years later. I'm grateful to this podcast for encouraging me to look again at the writings of Paul and feel his passion and enthusiasm for his subject. It shows the power of the written word that even now, 2000 years later I can read his texts and almost see and hear him speak (OK, OK, I wouldn't be able to understand him in the original Greek). His voice is vivid and strong. When he remonstrates, cajoles and harangues the Galatians I reel before his onslaught as they would. I may disagree with much that he says but I respect his belief and enthusiasm. This is an excellent series. Long may it continue.

More Podcasts about Early Christianity:
Philip Harland and others.

More In Our Time:
Whale evolution,
Magna Carta,
BBC's In Our Time - always recommended,
Brave New World,
Rafael's School of Athens and the depiction of Plato and Aristotle.

Whale evolution - In Our Time

BBC's In Our Time deserves a review nearly every week. Not always I manage in the same week and as you all know by now: at the end of the week, the podcast has already disappeared from the feed and can only be heard in stream. Such is already the fate of last week's program about The Siege of Vienna. This week's program had me interested immediately and I managed to listen to it this weekend and so here is the review in time.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests addressed The Whale: a History. The whale had long been rather an anomaly in the animal kingdom, a creature that was not easy to fit into any of the categories in the tree of species. New finds and new technologies have helped establish new insights that reveal the evolution of the whale and in a very accessible, concise and interesting way the program orders this for us. At the beginning it is promised, in a way, that we will see how the whale is a kind of champion of evolution and by the end we come full circle and this is summarized completely.

This champion of evolution shows what evolution is capable of. It evolves all the sorts of adaptations it needs in its exceptional environment, the ocean, whereby its appearance takes it far away from its origins and its kin and only series of fossil finds and microbiology and retrace this. And so we learn how the whale is actually part of the strain of hoofed animals, just like horses and deer. In the show it is likened to seals, otters, beavers and eventually we learn what is its closest living relative: the hippopotamus. Very exciting and very well done.

More In Our Time:
Magna Carta,
BBC's In Our Time - always recommended,
Brave New World,
Rafael's School of Athens and the depiction of Plato and Aristotle,
The Boxer Rebellion.

Magna Carta - In Our Time

With a true history item BBC's In Our Time was back its usual self after last weeks science escapade (Vacuum of Space). History is its main object and usually gives the most accessible items.

The Magna Carta was discussed and mostly how it came into being. Any attempt to revisionist history was stopped immediately and bad king John was at once characterized as 'an absolute rotter'. But this did not mean the Magna Carta got a lazy middle of the road show. Though it was more historic than legal, if political in points.

Only by the end it was pointed out how the Magna Carta opened the way to constitutional thinking and the remark was made that it is more thoroughly studied in the US than in England. This neatly connects to the first series of chapters in the the podcast Binge Thinking History, that lays out exactly this: the English roots of the American constitution. With ample attention for the Magna Carta. It is a nice idea to listen to this IOT episode and these BTHP episodes together.

More In Our Time:
BBC's In Our Time - always recommended,
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.

Previously about BTHP:
It rules the waves,
Royal Navy,
Win, lose or draw,
Blitz on London,
Battle of Britain
and The American Constitution's British roots.

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.