Accessibility links

Skip to content
Accessibility Help

Home
News
Sport
Weather
iPlayer
Sounds
Bitesize
CBeebies
CBBC
Food

Home
News
Sport
Business
Innovation
Culture
Travel
Earth
Video
Live

Home
News
Sport
Weather
iPlayer
Sounds
Bitesize
CBeebies
CBBC
Food

Home
News
Sport
Business
Innovation
Culture
Travel
Earth
Video
Live

.sc-c-sounds-nav { position: relative; } .sc-c-sounds-nav__menu-button { display: none; } .sc-c-sounds-nav__items { max-height: 500px; visibility: visible; position: static; } .sc-c-sounds-nav__overlay { display: none; } @media screen and (max-width: 659px) { .sc-c-sounds-nav__wrapper { padding-bottom: 0px; } .sc-c-sounds-nav__wordmark-link { padding-bottom: 18px; } }

Sounds home page

Home
Music
Podcasts
My Sounds

In Our Time - The Library of Alexandria - BBC Sounds

In Our Time - The Library of Alexandria - BBC Sounds

The Library of AlexandriaThe Library of Alexandria

Released On: 12 Mar 2009

Available for over a year

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Library of Alexandria.

Programme Website

Coming Up Next

now playing
In Our Time
The Library of Alexandria
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Library of Alexandria.
45 mins
In Our Time
The Boxer Rebellion
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Boxer Rebellion in the summer of 1900.
45 mins
In Our Time
The School of Athens
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Raphael's depiction of Plato and Aristotle.
45 mins
In Our Time
Baconian Science
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Jacobean thinker Francis Bacon and Baconian Science.
45 mins
In Our Time
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aldous Huxley's dystopian 1932 novel Brave New World.
45 mins
In Our Time
Suffragism
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss suffragism, the movement for women's voting rights.
45 mins
In Our Time
The Building of St Petersburg
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the building of St Petersburg.
45 mins
In Our Time
The Vacuum of Space
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Vacuum of Space.
45 mins
In Our Time
The Magna Carta
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Magna Carta.
45 mins
In Our Time
The Siege of Vienna
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1683 siege of Vienna by the Ottoman Army.
45 mins
In Our Time
The Whale - A History
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the evolutionary history of the whale.
45 mins
In Our Time
St Paul
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influence of St Paul on the early Christian church.
45 mins
In Our Time
The Trial of Charles I
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the trial of Charles I.
45 mins
In Our Time
The Augustan Age
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Augustan Age in Rome.
45 mins
In Our Time
Elizabethan Revenge
Melvyn Bragg discusses why revenge tragedy was so popular with Elizabethan theatre goers.
45 mins
In Our Time
Sunni and Shia Islam
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins of the split between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims
45 mins
In Our Time
Logical Positivism
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the radical philosophy of the Vienna Circle.
45 mins
In Our Time
Ediacara Biota
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Ediacara Biota.
45 mins
In Our Time
St Thomas Aquinas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss St Thomas Aquinas.
45 mins
In Our Time
Calculus
The dispute between Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz over who invented calculus.
45 mins
In Our Time
Akhenaten
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Pharaoh Akhenaten.
45 mins
In Our Time
The Dreyfus Affair
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Dreyfus Affair, which tore France apart in the 1890s.
45 mins
In Our Time
The Death of Elizabeth I
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the death of Queen Elizabeth I.
45 mins
In Our Time
The Geological Formation of Britain
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the geological formation of Britain.
45 mins
In Our Time
Schopenhauer
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pessimistic philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer.
45 mins
In Our Time
The Siege of Munster
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Siege of Munster in 1534-35.
45 mins
In Our Time
Radiation
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the discovery of radiation, from radio waves to gamma rays
45 mins
In Our Time
Sparta
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Ancient Greek city-state of Sparta.
45 mins
In Our Time
Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
45 mins
In Our Time
The Silk Road
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Silk Road, the trade routes which spanned Asia.
45 mins
In Our Time
Pythagoras
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas of Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans.
45 mins

Cymraeg
Gaeilge
Gàidhlig

BBC Sounds Help
Contacts, Privacy and Information
Help with Signing In
Newsletter

Explore the BBC

Home
News
Sport
Weather
iPlayer
Sounds
Bitesize
CBeebies
CBBC
Food

Home
News
Sport
Business
Innovation
Culture
Travel
Earth
Video
Live

Terms of Use
About the BBC
Privacy Policy
Privacy Policy
Cookies
Cookies
Accessibility Help
Parental Guidance
Contact the BBC
Make an editorial complaint
BBC emails for you
Advertise with us

Copyright © 2025 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.