This week’s programme is an interview with Fiona Stafford, in which we discuss humanity’s long, rich and complex relationship with trees. Fiona, who is a professor of English at Oxford,… Read More
Fiona Stafford on the long, long life of trees
Category: From the Archive
Gay Bradshaw: elephants on the edge
“Elephants are not treated much differently now than they were in the mid-eighteenth century: they are objects of awe and conservation, yet legally hunted, made captive, abused, and forced to… Read More
Of micro-histories and Vikings
I heard an interesting interview with Robert Ferguson on the New York Times Books podcast at the weekend in which he talked about his new book on Scandinavia (“an engaging,… Read More
Martin Kemp on the human animal in art and science
‘As soon as humans make images, they make them about humans and they make them about animals and the relationship between them.’ My guest on this programme from the archive… Read More
Zoë Anderson on The Ballet Lover’s Companion
In the spring of 2015 I interviewed Zoë Anderson, who writes on ballet for the Independent and Dancing Times, to talk about her Ballet Lover’s Companion, published by Yale University… Read More
Mary Beard on the Roman triumph
“I’m interested in saying, look, how can you challenge the Asterix-and-the-Romans kind of image that we tend to have of Rome? We are determined to turn a blind eye to… Read More
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst: Becoming Dickens
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst on Becoming Dickens from George Miller on Vimeo.
Roger Luckhurst on the mummy’s curse
My guest on this newly re-edited programme from the archive is Roger Luckhurst, who – as he puts it – teaches “horror and the occasional respectable novel by Henry James”… Read More
Jeremy Mynott on birdscapes
Birding World called it “an absolutely fascinating book, exhaustively researched, beautifully written, both learned and humorous, and endlessly stimulating. . . . A book which informs and delights at first… Read More
Craig Stanford: The end of the apes?
“Evolutionary success is not a birthright nor is it a guarantor of survival in perpetuity. Natural selection wrought the living ape species, and like all animals their time on Earth… Read More