Tracing Beauty

Ben Quash considers what we mean when we talk about beauty.

• 45 mins

Swansea's Other Poet

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, on the poetry of Vernon Watkins.

• 45 mins

Immortal Dreams

Professor Raymond Tallis explores the science and culture of immortality.

• 45 mins

The Heritage Wars

Historian Dr Anna Whitelock explores how the heritage industry is battling for our money.

• 60 mins

Arnold Wesker

Matthew Sweet looks back at the life and career of playwright Arnold Wesker.

• 45 mins

Phoenix Rising: The Story of Coventry Cathedral

Giles Fraser examines the history, ministry and artistic legacy of Coventry cathedral.

• 45 mins

Malvinas Madness

Andrew Graham Yooll asks what Argentinians' longing for the Falklands says about Argentina

• 45 mins

Edward James and the Surreal Garden

A strange tale of wealth, wilderness, family intrigue, surrealism and concrete, in Mexico.

• 45 mins

Crowd Psychology

Geneticist Steve Jones investigates the science of crowds.

• 45 mins

The Other Dickens

Laurence Scott on Victorian novelist and contemporary of Dickens, George WM Reynolds.

• 45 mins

Great British Ideas

Robert Malthus

Tristram Hunt on how 18th-century thinker Robert Malthus's ideas wrought havoc in India.

• 45 mins

Great British Ideas

Young England and Young Ireland

Tristram Hunt explores the political philosophies of 'Young England' and 'Young Ireland'.

• 45 mins

Great British Ideas

JA Hobson, Lenin and Anti-Imperialism

Tristram Hunt discovers the decisive impact a liberal English journalist had on Lenin.

• 45 mins

The American Civil War

The War of the South

Adam Smith explores the American South and the Civil War.

• 45 mins

The American Civil War

The War of the North

Dr Adam Smith explores the world of the North and its war.

• 45 mins

The American Civil War

Dividing Lines

Adam Smith traces the dividing lines of the American Civil War beneath US politics today.

• 45 mins

The American Civil War

Blockade Runners and Black Minstrels

What did Britain do in the American Civil War? Louise Welsh investigates.

• 45 mins

Dark Arcadias

Episode 1

Adam Nicolson explores ideas of Arcadia in the work of Hesiod, Virgil and Horace.

• 45 mins

Dark Arcadias

Part 2

Adam Nicolson explores ideas of Arcadia in western culture and why death is at its heart.

• 45 mins

Jacquetta Hawkes and the Personal Past

Christine Finn examines the life and work of fellow archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes.

• 45 mins

John Cage: Beyond Silence

Richard Bernas explores the legacy of John Cage in music and beyond.

• 45 mins

A Social History of the Piano

Michael Goldfarb explores the three-hundred-year history of the piano.

• 45 mins

After the Gold Rush - The Poetry of California

Dana Gioia traces developments in Californian poetry since the Beats in the 1950s.

• 45 mins

The Dragon with Two Tongues

Poet Gwyneth Lewis explores the modern revival of Welsh language.

• 45 mins

Queen's University - Belfast Built

The history of Queen's University in political, cultural and intellectual life in Belfast.

• 60 mins

Way off the Beaten Track

Stephen Smith asks if it matters if travel writing is unreliable.

• 45 mins

On Napoleon

Tolstoy and Napoleon

Rosamund Bartlett explores the truth and the fiction of Tolstoy's War and Peace.

• 45 mins

On Napoleon

Stendhal and Napoleon

Andy Martin on how Stendahl followed Napoleon across Europe in 1812 and changed fiction.

• 45 mins

On Napoleon

British Romanticism and Napoleon

Simon Bainbridge explores how Napoleon shaped poetry in Britain, especially the Romantics.

• 45 mins

Reader Meet Author

Exploring unexpected literary influences on Byron, Tennessee Williams and Virginia Woolf.

• 45 mins