In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg Folgen

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.WithLeah Lazar Lecturer in Hellenistic Culture at the University of ManchesterPolly Low Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of DurhamAndPaul Cartledge AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, University of CambridgeProducer: Martha OwenAristophanes (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 productionSpanning 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.

Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the towering figures of Brazilian and world literature, Machado de Assis (1839 - 1908). He was the descendant of slaves and built his career while slavery was still in place in Brazil (abolished 1888) and many of his characters were from the slave-owning class who were also the readers of his books. At the time, those readers were delighted to see themselves represented and it was only later in the 20th Century that critics realized just how much Machado was satirising them. While he brings 19th Century Brazil vividly to life, Machado's works transcend time and place and, according to Salman Rushdie, they seem to have been written yesterday not 100 years ago.With Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva Associate Professor in Brazilian Studies at University College LondonClaire Williams Professor of Brazilian Literature and Culture at the Faculty of Modern Languages at the University of Oxford, fellow of St. Peter's CollegeAnd Viviane Carvalho da Annunciação Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics at the University of CambridgeProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Lamonte Aidoo and Daniel F. Silva (eds.), Emerging Dialogues on Machado de Assis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)Helen Caldwell, The Brazilian Othello of Machado de Assis: A Study of Dom Casmurro (University of California Press, 1960)Viviane Carvalho da Annunciação, The Contradictions of Science in Machado de Assis (Liverpool University Press, 2025)Machado de Assis (trans. Daniel Hahn), The Looking-Glass: Essential Stories (Pushkin Press, 2022)Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), 26 Stories (Liveright, 2019)Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), The Collected Stories of Machado de Assis (Liveright, 2018) Machado de Assis (trans. Flora Thomson-Deveaux), The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (Penguin, 2020)Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (Liveright, 2020)Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), Quincas Borba (WW Norton & Co, 2024)Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), Dom Casmurro (WW Norton & Co, 2024)Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), Memorial de Ayres (Liveright, August 2026)John Gledson, Machado de Assis: Fiction and History (Francis Cairns, 1984)Richard Graham (ed.), Machado de Assis: Reflections on a Brazilian Master Writer (University of Texas Press, 1999)James N. Green, Victoria Langland and Lilia Moritz Schwarcz (eds.), The Brazil Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke University Press, 2019)Daniel Hahn and Padma Viswanathan (eds.), The Penguin Book of Brazilian Short Stories (Penguin, January 2027)Mario Higa (ed.), A History of the Brazilian Novel (Cambridge University Press, August 2026), especially the chapter on Machado de AssisK. David Jackson, Machado de Assis: A Literary Life (Yale University Press, 2015)Anthony W. Pereira, Modern Brazil: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2020)Roberto Schwarz (trans. John Gledson), A Master on the Periphery of Capitalism: Machado de Assis (Duke University Press, 2001) Lilia M. Schwarcz and Heloisa M. Starling (eds.), Brazil: A Biography (Allen Lane, 2018)Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva, Machado De Assis's Philosopher or Dog?: From Serial to Book Form (Routledge, 2010)Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva and Sandra Guardini Vasconcelos (eds.), Comparative Perspectives on the Rise of the Brazilian Novel (UCL Press, 2020), especially the chapters “Capitu against the Elegiac Narrator” by Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva and “Machado de Assis and the Novel” by Sandra Guardini VasconcelosMarcus Wood, The Black Butterfly: Brazilian Slavery and the Literary Imagination (West Virginia University Press, 2019)In Our Time is a BBC Studios ProductionSpanning 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.

As 4th July approaches, we think you’ll like this episode of The Global Story. All week, The Global Story podcast is exploring the surprising and often hidden ways the US has shaped the modern world. Roman Mars – the host of 99% Invisible and the new BBC series A History of the United States in 100 Objects – joins as a guest to set out his theory of how the US used design to shape the world in its image.If you like this episode, find the special collection ‘US and the World at 250’ in The Global Story. If you’re in the UK, listen on BBC Sounds. If you’re outside the UK, listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.