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BBC Radio 4


Historical themes, events and key individuals from Akhenaten to Xenophon.


In Our Time: History

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the origins and evolution of an alliance which transformed the geopolitics of the classical world: the Delian League. Since the start of the 5th Century BCE, city states across Greece had been fighting a series of armed conflicts in the Greco-Persian Wars. After the defeat of a second Persian invasion in 478 BCE, a league of cities across Greece came together and formed a new alliance led by Athens. That alliance is now known as the Delian League, after the island of Delos where it was established. In the following decades, Athens used the Delian League to grow its own wealth and formidable naval power. Cities which tried to leave the alliance found themselves violently put down and their lands confiscated by the Athenians. What had begun as a cooperative alliance sworn to resist the Persian Empire gradually started to seem like it may have created another imperial power: the Athenian Empire.

With

Leah Lazar
Lecturer in Hellenistic Culture at the University of Manchester

Polly Low
Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Durham

And

Paul Cartledge
AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge

Producer: Martha Owen

Aristophanes (trans. David Barrett and Alan H. Sommerstein), The Birds and Other Plays (Penguin Classics, 2003)

Mary Beard, The Parthenon (Profile Books, 2010)

M. Canevaro and D. M. Lewis, 'Between ‘The Character of the Athenian Empire’ and The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (and beyond): The Popularity of the Athenian Empire Revisited' (Polis 41:1, 2024)

Paul Cartledge, Ancient Greece: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011)

Lisa Kallet and John H. Kroll, The Athenian Empire: Using Coins as Sources (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Leah Lazar, Athenian Power in the Fifth Century BC (Oxford University Press, 2024)

Polly Low (ed.), The Athenian Empire (Edinburgh University Press, 2008)

Malcolm F. McGregor, The Athenians and their Empire (UBC Press, 1987)

Robin Osborne (ed. and trans.), The Athenian Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

P. J. Rhodes, The Athenian Empire (Clarendon Press, 1985)

Thucydides (trans. Robin Waterfield, introduced by Polly Low), The History of the Peloponnesian War (Basic Books, 2025)

Thucydides (ed. Robert B Strassler), The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War (Free Press, 1998)

Thucydides (trans. Rex Warner), History of the Peloponnesian War (Penguin Books, 2000)

Thucydides (trans. Martin Hammond), The Peloponnesian War (Oxford University Press, 2009)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

The Delian League

At the Hay Festival, Misha Glenny and guests discuss the impact of the Norman invasion on the people and land of Wales and across the modern border with England in what became known as The Welsh Marches, march being a term for a militarized borderland. Hay was one of the first Marcher lordships. Even before 1066, William the Conqueror knew that he would have to subdue the Welsh if he were to control the English and he allowed more and more Norman warlords to establish virtually their own private kingdoms in these Marches. Later some of the Lords were to use these bases to invade Ireland rather than conquer the rest of Wales. Marcher Lords built numerous castles such as the one at Hay and many new towns would then grow up alongside these where there was one law for the English and another for the Welsh and, though the Acts of Union under the Tudors brought an end to much of the Marcher Lords' powers, the distinct identity of these Welsh Marches continued.

With 

Rhun Emlyn
Lecturer in the Department of History and Welsh History at Aberystwyth University

Helen Fulton
Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol

And 

Huw Pryce
Emeritus Professor of Welsh History at Bangor University

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

R. R. Davies, The Age of Conquest: Wales 1063-1415 (Oxford University Press, 2001)

R.R. Davies, Lordship and Society in the March of Wales 1282-1400 (Oxford University Press, 1978)

John Fleming, The Welsh Marcher Lordships II: South-West (Logaston Press, 2023)

Ben Giles, The Welsh Marches: 40 Town and Country Walks (Pocket Mountains, 2012)

Philip Hume, The Welsh Marcher Lordships I: Central & North (Logaston Press, 2021)

Max Lieberman, The March of Wales, 1067–1300: A Borderland of Medieval Britain (University of Wales Press, 2018)

Max Lieberman, The Medieval March of Wales: The Creation and Perception of a Frontier, 1066-1283 (Cambridge University Press, 2010)

D. Huw Owen, The Lordship of Denbigh 1282-1543 (University of Wales Press, 2024)

Mike Parker, All the Wide Border: Wales, England and the Places Between (HarperNorth, 2024)

Dewi Roberts, Both Sides of the Border: An Anthology of Writing on the Welsh Border Region (Gwasg Carreg Gwalch/Eagle Rock Press, 1998)

Christopher Somerville, The Welsh Borders (Philips, 1991)

David Stephenson, Patronage and Power in the Medieval Welsh March: One Family's Story (University of Wales Press, 2021)

David Walker, Medieval Wales (Cambridge University Press, 2008)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

The Welsh Marches

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the group which came to be known as the Levellers and emerged during what would become arguably one of the bloodiest and most turbulent periods of English history. After the First English Civil War, the Levellers started calling for reforms to achieve legal and social equality. They pushed for a new constitution, extended franchise, popular sovereignty, and religious toleration. To do this, the Levellers pioneered the use of pamphlets and petitions, as well as taking to the streets in their thousands to demonstrate wearing their signature sea-green ribbons and sprigs of rosemary. To some they were radical, and to others not radical enough. Though the Leveller movement itself may have been short-lived, the arguments that they made have both inspired and challenged generations since.

With

Teresa Bejan
Professor of Political Theory and Fellow of Oriel College, University of Oxford

Ted Vallance
Professor of History and Dean of Research and Doctoral Study at the University of Roehampton

And

Clare Jackson
Honorary Professor of Early Modern History and Walter Grant Scott Fellow in History at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge

Producer: Martha Owen

Reading list:

Teresa M. Bejan, First Among Equals: Visions of Equality before Egalitarianism (Belknap Press, forthcoming in 2026)

Michael Braddick, The Common Freedom of the People: John Lilburne and the English Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2018)

Rachel Foxley, The Levellers; Radical Political Thought in the English Revolution (Manchester University Press, 2013)

Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (Penguin, 1972)

Ann Hughes, Gender and the English Revolution (Routledge, 2011)

John Rees, The Leveller Revolution: Radical Political Organisation in England, 1640-1650 (Verso Books, 2016)

John Rees (ed.), John Lilburne and the Levellers: Reappraising the Roots of English Radicalism 400 years on (Routledge, 2017), including 'Reborn John: The Eighteenth-Century Afterlife of John Lilburne' by Edward Vallance

Andrew Sharp (ed.), The English Levellers (Cambridge University Press, 1998)

Edward Vallance, A Radical History of Britain: Visionaries, Rebels and Revolutionaries - the men and women who fought for our freedoms (Abacus, 2010)

Blair Worden, Roundhead Reputations: The English Civil Wars and The Passions of Posterity (Penguin, 2002)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

The Levellers

Misha Glenny and guests discuss an ancient civilisation who lived over 2000 years ago in the southwest of modern-day Libya. During prehistoric times, the Sahara Desert was greener and even had large lakes, but for the last 5000 years it has been a hyperarid environment. Extreme swings of temperature and limited surface water might make the Sahara seem like an inhospitable place to live, but an ancient people in North Africa known to us as the Garamantes thrived there. Following descriptions of the Garamantes in Roman and Greek texts, the Garamantes have often been seen as pastoral nomads, or as tribal barbarians on the periphery of the Mediterranean world. But the work of archaeologists in recent decades has revealed something different. Evidence suggests a society with flourishing towns and cities, complex underground irrigation systems, a key role in trade routes across the Sahara – and may give us a broader view of ancient history.

With

David Mattingly
Emeritus Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of Leicester

Farès Moussa
Visiting Fellow at the University of Southampton and Cultural Heritage Consultant

And

Josephine Quinn
Professor of Ancient History and Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge

Producer: Martha Owen

Reading list:

C.M. Daniels, The Garamantes of Southern Libya (Oleander Press, 1970)

C. Duckworth, A. Cuénod and D.J. Mattingly (eds), Mobile Technologies in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond (Trans-Saharan Archaeology Volume 4, Cambridge University Press, 2020)

M.C. Gatto, D.J. Mattingly, N. Ray and M. Sterry (eds), Burials, Migration and Identity in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond (Trans-Saharan Archaeology Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, 2019)

R.B. Hitchner (ed.), A Companion to North Africa in Antiquity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2020), especially ‘Beyond barbarians: the Garamantes of the Libyan Sahara’ by D.J. Mattingly

D.J. Mattingly, Between Sahara and Sea: Africa in the Roman Empire (Michigan University Press, 2023)

D.J. Mattingly (ed.), The Archaeology of Fazzan, Volume 1, Synthesis (Society for Libyan Studies, 2003) 

D.J. Mattingly (ed.), The Archaeology of Fazzan, Volume 2, Site Gazetteer, Pottery and other Survey Finds (Society for Libyan Studies, 2007) 

D.J. Mattingly (ed.), The Archaeology of Fazzan, Volume 3, Excavations Carried out by C.M. Daniels (Society for Libyan Studies, 2010) 

D.J. Mattingly (ed.), The Archaeology of Fazzan, Volume 4, Survey and Excavations at Old Jarma (Ancient Garama) Carried out by C. M. Daniels (1962–69) and the Fazzan Project (1997–2001) (Society for Libyan Studies, 2013)

D.J. Mattingly, V. Leitch, C.N. Duckworth, A. Cuénod, M. Sterry and F. Cole (eds), Trade in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond (Trans-Saharan Archaeology Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, 2017)

D. Mattingly, S. McLaren, E. Savage, Y. Fasatwi and K. Gadgood (eds), The Libyan Desert: Natural Resources and Cultural Heritage (Society for Libyan Studies, 2006), especially ‘The Garamantes: The First Libyan state’ by D. Mattingly 

P. Mitchell and P. Lane (eds), The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology (Oxford University Press, 2013), especially ‘Roman Africa and the Sahara’ by A. Leone and F. Moussa 

M. Sterry and D.J. Mattingly (eds), State Formation and Urbanisation in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Some of these books are available for free from Open Access Books: British Institute for Libyan & Northern African Studies

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

The Garamantes

Misha Glenny and guests discuss a turning point in world affairs in 1898 that left Spain greatly reduced as an imperial power and the US the owner of the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico, with a significant influence over the newly independent Cuba where the war broke out. The US had been eyeing Cuba for decades, waiting for the right moment and the right kind of action, and in April 1898 intervened in the long-running fighting on the island for independence from Spain. With a much stronger navy it was a very uneven battle and the US soon triumphed over Spanish forces from Manila to Santiago de Cuba. This brief war confirmed the US as a power on the world stage and made a shocked Spain turn inwards to ask what had gone wrong. Meanwhile, people in the Philippines were about to attempt a new and bloody independence fight with the US.

With

Frank Cogliano
Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh

Mary Vincent
Professor of Modern European History at the University of Sheffield

And

Stephen Wilkinson
Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Buckingham

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Sebastian Balfour, The End of the Spanish Empire, 1898-1923 (Clarendon Press, 1997)

Sebastian Balfour, ‘Riot, Regeneration and Reaction: Spain in the Aftermath of the 1898 Disaster’ (The Historical journal 38.2, 1995) 

Ada Ferrer, Cuba: An American History (Scribner, 2021)

Greg Grandin, America, América: A New History of the New World (Torva, 2025)

Richard Kluger, Seizing Destiny: How America Grew from Sea to Shining Sea (Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2007)

Robert W. Merry, President McKinley: Architect of the American Century (Simon & Schuster, 2017)

Walter Nugent, Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion (Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2008)

Louis A. Pérez Jr., Cuba Between Empires, 1878–1902 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983) 

John Lawrence Tone, War and Genocide in Cuba, 1895-1898 (University of North Carolina Press, 2006) 

Mary Vincent, Spain, 1833-2002: People and State (Oxford University Press, 2007), especially chapter 3

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

The Spanish-American War 1898

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the woman who, as a child bride, became mother to the boy who would eventually become the first king in the Tudor dynasty. Lady Margaret Beaufort (c1443-1509) was twelve when she married Edmund Tudor, half his age, and gave birth to their son Henry when she was thirteen and Edmund was already dead from the plague. Margaret Beaufort made it her life's work to protect Henry during the Wars of the Roses, which had begun soon before his birth and, as many more obvious successors to the crown died or were killed in the wars, she pivoted to supporting Henry when he became the strongest contender against Richard III. She was to survive Richard III declaring her a traitor and went on to see Henry become Henry VII, the first Tudor king, and herself become the King's Mother. Outliving her son by a few months, she was then to help her grandson Henry VIII succeed and the Tudor dynasty continue.

With

Joanna Laynesmith
Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading

Katherine Lewis
Honorary Professor of Medieval History at the University of Lincoln and Research Associate at the University of York

And

David Grummitt
Staff Tutor in History at the Open University

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Nathen Amin, The House of Beaufort (Amberley Publishing, 2017)

Rachel Delman, 'The Vowesses, the anchoresses, and the aldermen's wives: Lady Margaret Beaufort and the Devout Society of Late Medieval Stamford' (Urban History 49, 2022) 

David Grummitt, A Short History of the Wars of the Roses (revised edition, Bloomsbury Academic, 2025)

Michael Hicks, The Wars of the Roses (Yale University Press, 2010)

Lauren Johnson, Margaret Beaufort: Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025)

Michael K. Jones and Malcolm G. Underwood, The King's Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby (Cambridge University Press, 1991)

Rebecca Krug, Reading Families: Women's Literate Practice in Late Medieval England (Cornell University Press, 2008), especially the chapter ‘Margaret Beaufort's Literate Practice: Service and Self-Inscription'

J.L. Laynesmith, Cecily Duchess of York (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017)

Susan Powell, The Household Accounts of Lady Margaret Beaufort, 1443-1509 (The British Academy, 2022)

Nicola Tallis, Uncrowned Queen: The Fateful Life of Margaret Beaufort, Tudor Matriarch (Michael O'Mara, 2019) 

Micheline White (ed.), English Women, Religion, and Textual Production, 1500-1625 (Ashgate, 2016), especially ‘Lady Margaret Beaufort’s Translations as Mirrors of Practical Piety’ by Brenda M. Hosington
 
In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

Margaret Beaufort

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the exchange of cultures and biology across the Atlantic and Pacific after 1492. That was when Columbus reached the Bahamas, a time when Europe had no potatoes, tomatoes, sunflowers or, arguably, syphilis in its most virulent form; the Americas had no cattle, bananas, sugar cane or smallpox. The lists of what was then exchanged are long and as these flora, fauna and diseases moved between continents, their impact ranged from transformation to devastation. In parts of the Americas, European viruses helped kill over 90 percent of the population. In parts of Europe, Africa and Asia populations boomed on the new American foods. Sheep from Europe grazed fertile land into deserts in some parts of the Americas, while the lowered populations in others led to local reforestation which, arguably, is linked to a particularly cold period in the Little Ice Age.

With

Rebecca Earle
Professor of History at the University of Warwick

John Lindo
Associate Professor of Anthropology at Emory University 

And

Mark Maslin
Professor of Earth System Science at University College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list

Steven R. Brechin and Seungyun Lee (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Climate Change and Society (Routledge, 2024), especially the chapter ‘Human Impacts on the Climate Prior to the Industrial Revolution’ by Alexander Koch, Simon Lewis, Chris Brierley and Mark Maslin

Judith Carney and Richard Rosomoff, In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World (University of California Press, 2009)

EJ Collen, AS Johar, JC Teixeira and B. Llamas, ‘The Immunogenetic Impact of European Colonization in the Americas’ (Front Genet, August 2022)

Alfred W. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Greenwood Press, 1972)

Rebecca Earle, ‘‘‘If You Eat Their Food . . .”: Diets and Bodies in Early Colonial Spanish America’ (American Historical Review 115:3, 2010)

Raymond Grew (ed.), Food in Global History (Routledge, 1999), especially ‘The Impact of New World Food Crops on the Diet and Economy of China and India, 1600-1900’ by Sucheta Mazumda 

Simon L. Lewis and Mark A. Maslin, The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene (Pelican, 2018)

Nathan Nunn and Nancy Qian, ‘The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas’ (Journal of Economic Perspectives 24:2, 2010)

Jeffrey Pilcher (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Food History (Oxford University Press, 2012), especially ‘The Columbian Exchange’ by Rebecca Earle

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

The Columbian Exchange

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the laws that Hammurabi (c1810 - c1750 BC), King of Babylon, had carved into a black basalt pillar in present day Iraq and which, since its rediscovery in 1901 in present day Iran, has affirmed Hammurabi's reputation as one of the first great lawmakers. Visitors to the Louvre in Paris can see it on display with almost 300 rules in cuneiform, covering anything from ‘an eye for an eye’ to how to handle murder, divorce, witchcraft, false accusations and more. The Code of Hammurabi, as it became known, made such an impression in Mesopotamia that it was copied and shared for a millennium after his death and, since its reemergence, Hammurabi and his Code have been commemorated in the US Capitol and the International Court of Justice.

With

Martin Worthington
Professor in Middle Eastern Studies at Trinity College Dublin

Frances Reynolds
Shillito Fellow and Associate Professor of Assyriology at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow at The Queen’s College

And 

Selena Wisnom
Lecturer in the Heritage of the Middle East at the University of Leicester

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Zainab Bahrani, Mesopotamia: Ancient Art and Architecture (Thames and Hudson, 2017)

Dominique Charpin, Hammurabi of Babylon (I.B. Tauris, 2021)

Prudence O. Harper, Joan Aruz and Françoise Tallon, The Royal City of Susa: Ancient Near Eastern Treasures from the Louvre (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992)

J. Nicholas Postgate (ed.), Languages of Iraq, Ancient and Modern (British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2007), especially ‘Babylonian and Assyrian: A History of Akkadian’ by Andrew R. George 

Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (2nd edition, Scholars Press, 1997)

Marc Van De Mieroop, King Hammurabi of Babylon: A Biography (Wiley, 2005) 

Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000–323 BC (4th edition (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006)

Selena Wisnom, The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History (Allen Lane, 2025)

Martin Worthington, Complete Babylonian: A Comprehensive Guide to Reading and Understanding Babylonian with Original Texts (Teach Yourself Library, 2012)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

The Code of Hammurabi

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the countless venues across the Roman Empire which for over five hundred years drew the biggest crowds both in the Republic and under the Emperors. The shows there delighted the masses who knew, no matter how low their place in society, they were much better off than the gladiators about to fight or the beasts to be slaughtered. Some of the Roman elites were disgusted, seeing this popular entertainment as morally corrupting and un-Roman. Moral degradation was a less immediate concern though than the overspill of violence. There was a constant threat of gladiators being used as a private army and while those of the elite wealthy enough to stage the shows hoped to win great prestige, they risked disappointing a crowd which could quickly become a mob and turn on them.

With 

Kathleen Coleman
James Loeb Professor of the Classics at Harvard University

John Pearce
Reader in Archaeology at King’s College London

And

Matthew Nicholls
Fellow and Senior Tutor at St John’s College, Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

C. A. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton University Press, 1993)

Roger Dunkle, Gladiators: Violence and Spectacle in Ancient Rome (Pearson, 2008)

Garrett G. Fagan, The Lure of the Arena: Social Psychology and the Crowd at the Roman Games (Cambridge University Press, 2011)

A. Futrell, Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power (University of Texas Press, 1997)

A. Futrell, The Roman Games: A Sourcebook (Blackwell Publishing, 2006)

Keith Hopkins and Mary Beard, The Colosseum (Profile, 2005)

Luciana Jacobelli, Gladiators at Pompeii (The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003)

Eckart Köhne and Cornelia Ewigleben (eds.), Gladiators and Caesars: The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome (University of California Press, 2000)

Donald Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (Routledge, 1998)

F. Meijer, The Gladiators: History’s Most Deadly Sport (Souvenir, 2004)

Jerry Toner, The Day Commodus killed a Rhino: Understanding the Roman Games (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014)

K. Welch, The Roman Amphitheatre from its Origins to the Colosseum (Cambridge University Press, 2007)

T. Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators (Routledge, 1992)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production

The Roman Arena

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and role of one of the most significant figures in early 20th Century German history. Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934) had been famous since 1914 as the victorious commander at the Battle of Tannenberg against Russian invaders, soon burnishing this fame on the Western Front and Hindenburg was to claim he would have won there too, if enemies at home had not 'stabbed Germany in the back'. He won Germany’s Presidential election twice during the Weimar Republic, as a candidate of national unity and, while he gained his second term as a ‘stop Hitler’ candidate, President Hindenburg was to appoint Hitler as Chancellor and transfer some of his charisma onto him – a move so disastrous that Germans were later to ask if the myth of Hindenburg had always been an illusion. 

With

Anna von der Goltz
Professor of History at Georgetown University, Washington DC

Chris Clark
Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge

And

Colin Storer
Associate Professor in Modern European History at the University of Warwick

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

William J. Astore and Dennis E. Showalter, Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism (Potomac Books, 2005)

Benjamin Carter Hett, The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power (William Heinemann, 2018)
 
Andreas Dorpalen, Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic (first published 1964; Princeton University Press, 2016)

Jürgen W. Falter, 'The Two Hindenburg Elections of 1925 and 1932: A Total Reversal of Voter Coalitions' (Central European History, 32/2, 1990)

Peter Fritzsche, 'Presidential Victory and Popular Festivity in Weimar Germany: Hindenburg's 1925 Election' (Central European History, 32/2, 1990)
 
Larry Eugene Jones, Hitler Versus Hindenburg: The 1932 Presidential Elections and the End of the Weimar Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2016)
 
Martin Kitchen, The Silent Dictatorship: The Politics of the German High Command under Hindenburg and Ludendorff, 1916-1918 (first published 1976; Routledge, 2021)
 
John Lee, The Warlords: Hindenburg and Ludendorff (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005)
 
Frank McDonough, The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall, 1918-1933 (Apollo, 2023)
 
Nadine Rossol and Benjamin Ziemann (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Weimar Republic (Oxford University Press, 2022)

Richard Scully, 'Hindenburg: The Cartoon Titan of the Weimar Republic, 1918-1934' (German Studies Review, 35/3, 2012)

Colin Storer, A Short History of the Weimar Republic (Revised Edition, Bloomsbury, 2024)

Anna von der Goltz, Hindenburg: Power, Myth and the Rise of the Nazis (Oxford University Press, 2009)
 
Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918 (Penguin, 2015)

J. W. Wheeler-Bennett, Hindenburg: The Wooden Titan (first published 1936; Macmillan, 1967)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Paul von Hindenburg

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the changes in the intellectual world of Western Europe in the 12th Century, and their origins. This was a time of Crusades, the formation of states, the start of Gothic architecture, a reconnection with Roman and Greek learning and their Arabic development and the start of the European universities, and has become known as The 12th Century Renaissance.

The image above is part of Notre-Dame de la Belle-Verrière, Chartres Cathedral, from 1180.

With

Laura Ashe
Associate Professor of English at Worcester College, University of Oxford 

Elisabeth van Houts
Honorary Professor of European Medieval History at the University of Cambridge 

and 

Giles Gasper
Reader in Medieval History at Durham University

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

The 12th Century Renaissance

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