<description>&lt;p&gt;Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Italian author of Invisible Cities, If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, Cosmicomics and other celebrated novels, fables and short stories of the 20th Century. Calvino (1923 -1985) had a passionate belief that writing and art could make life better for everyone. Despite his parents being scientists, who dearly wanted him to be a scientist too, and his time fighting with the Partisans in Liguria in WWII during which his parents were held hostage by the Nazis, Calvino turned away from realism in his writing. Ideally, he said, he would have liked to be alive in the Enlightenment. He moved towards the fantastical, drawing on his childhood reading while collecting a huge number of the fables of Italy and translating them from dialect into Italian to enrich the shared culture of his fellow citizens. His fresh perspective on the novel continues to inspire writers and delight readers in Italian and in translations around the world.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Guido Bonsaver
Professor of Italian Cultural History at the University of Oxford&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jennifer Burns
Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Warwick&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Beatrice Sica
Associate Professor in Italian Studies at UCL&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Producer: Simon Tillotson&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reading list: &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Elio Baldi, The Author in Criticism: Italo Calvino’s Authorial Image in Italy, the United States, and the United Kingdom (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2020)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Elio Baldi and Cecilia Schwartz, Circulation, Translation and Reception Across Borders: Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities Around the World (Routledge, 2024)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Peter Bondanella and Andrea Ciccarelli (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Novel (Cambridge University Press, 2003), especially the chapter ‘Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco: Postmodern Masters’&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;James Butler, ‘Infinite Artichoke’ (London Review of Books, vol. 45, no. 12, 15 June 2023)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Italo Calvino (trans. Martin McLaughlin), The Path to the Spiders’ Nests (first published 1947; Penguin Classics, 2009)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Italo Calvino (trans. Mikki Taylor), The Baron in the Trees (first published 1957; Vintage Classics, 2021)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Italo Calvino, Marcovaldo (first published 1963; Vintage Classics, 2023) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Italo Calvino (trans. William Weaver and Ann Goldstein), Difficult Loves and Other Stories (first published 1970; Vintage Classics, 2018)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Italo Calvino (trans. William Weaver), Invisible Cities (first published 1972; Vintage Classics, 1997)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Italo Calvino (trans. Patrick Creagh), The Uses of Literature (first published 1980; Houghton Mifflin, 1987)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Italo Calvino (trans. Geoffrey Brock), Six Memos for the Next Millennium (first published 1988; Penguin Classics, 2016) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Italo Calvino (trans. Tim Parks), The Road to San Giovanni (first published 1990; HMH Books, 2014) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Italo Calvino (trans. Ann Goldstein), The Written World and the Unwritten World: Essays (Mariner Books Classics, 2023)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Kathryn Hume, Calvino's Fictions: Cogito and Cosmos (Clarendon Press, 1992)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Martin McLaughlin, Italo Calvino (Edinburgh University Press, 1998)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential 20th-century Italian novelist and essayist

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Italian author of Invisible Cities, If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, Cosmicomics and other celebrated novels, fables and short stories of the 20th Century. Calvino (1923 -1985) had a passionate belief that writing and art could make life better for everyone. Despite his parents being scientists, who dearly wanted him to be a scientist too, and his time fighting with the Partisans in Liguria in WWII during which his parents were held hostage by the Nazis, Calvino turned away from realism in his writing. Ideally, he said, he would have liked to be alive in the Enlightenment. He moved towards the fantastical, drawing on his childhood reading while collecting a huge number of the fables of Italy and translating them from dialect into Italian to enrich the shared culture of his fellow citizens. His fresh perspective on the novel continues to inspire writers and delight readers in Italian and in translations around the world.With Guido Bonsaver
Professor of Italian Cultural History at the University of OxfordJennifer Burns
Professor of Italian Studies at the University of WarwickAndBeatrice Sica
Associate Professor in Italian Studies at UCLProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list: Elio Baldi, The Author in Criticism: Italo Calvino’s Authorial Image in Italy, the United States, and the United Kingdom (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2020)Elio Baldi and Cecilia Schwartz, Circulation, Translation and Reception Across Borders: Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities Around the World (Routledge, 2024)Peter Bondanella and Andrea Ciccarelli (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Novel (Cambridge University Press, 2003), especially the chapter ‘Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco: Postmodern Masters’James Butler, ‘Infinite Artichoke’ (London Review of Books, vol. 45, no. 12, 15 June 2023)Italo Calvino (trans. Martin McLaughlin), The Path to the Spiders’ Nests (first published 1947; Penguin Classics, 2009)Italo Calvino (trans. Mikki Taylor), The Baron in the Trees (first published 1957; Vintage Classics, 2021)Italo Calvino, Marcovaldo (first published 1963; Vintage Classics, 2023) Italo Calvino (trans. William Weaver and Ann Goldstein), Difficult Loves and Other Stories (first published 1970; Vintage Classics, 2018)Italo Calvino (trans. William Weaver), Invisible Cities (first published 1972; Vintage Classics, 1997)Italo Calvino (trans. Patrick Creagh), The Uses of Literature (first published 1980; Houghton Mifflin, 1987)Italo Calvino (trans. Geoffrey Brock), Six Memos for the Next Millennium (first published 1988; Penguin Classics, 2016) Italo Calvino (trans. Tim Parks), The Road to San Giovanni (first published 1990; HMH Books, 2014) Italo Calvino (trans. Ann Goldstein), The Written World and the Unwritten World: Essays (Mariner Books Classics, 2023)Kathryn Hume, Calvino's Fictions: Cogito and Cosmos (Clarendon Press, 1992)Martin McLaughlin, Italo Calvino (Edinburgh University Press, 1998)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Italo Calvino

<description>&lt;p&gt;Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 2000-year-old device which transformed our understanding of astronomy in ancient Greece. In 1900 a group of sponge divers found the wreck of a ship off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. Among the items salvaged was a corroded bronze object, the purpose of which was not at first clear. It turned out to be one of the most important discoveries in marine archaeology. Over time, researchers worked out that it was some kind of astronomical analogue computer, the only one to survive from this period as bronze objects were so often melted down for other uses. In recent decades, detailed examination of the Antikythera Mechanism using the latest scientific techniques indicates that it is a particularly intricate tool for showing the positions of planets, the sun and moon, with a complexity and precision not surpassed for over a thousand years.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mike Edmunds 
Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics at Cardiff University&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jo Marchant 
Science journalist and author of 'Decoding the Heavens' on the Antikythera Mechanism&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Liba Taub 
Professor Emerita in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and Visiting Scholar at the Deutsches Museum, Munich&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Producer: Simon Tillotson
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reading list:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Derek de Solla Price, Gears from the Greeks: The Antikythera Mechanism (American Philosophical Society Press, 1974)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;M. G. Edmunds, ‘The Antikythera mechanism and the mechanical universe’ (Contemp. Phys. 55, 2014) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;M.G. Edmunds, ’The Mechanical Universe’ (Astronomy &amp;amp; Geophysics, 64, 2023)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;James Evans and J. Lennart Berggren, Geminos's Introduction to the Phenomena: A Translation and Study of a Hellenistic Survey of Astronomy (Princeton University Press, 2006)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;T. Freeth et al., ‘Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera mechanism’ (Nature 454, 2008)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Alexander Jones, A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World (Oxford University Press, 2017)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jo Marchant, Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World’s First Computer (Windmill Books, 2009)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;J.H. Seiradakis and M.G. Edmunds, ‘Our current knowledge of the Antikythera Mechanism’ (Nature Astronomy 2, 2018)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Liba Taub, Ancient Greek and Roman Science: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2022)&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the mysterious ancient Greek astronomical computer.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 2000-year-old device which transformed our understanding of astronomy in ancient Greece. In 1900 a group of sponge divers found the wreck of a ship off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. Among the items salvaged was a corroded bronze object, the purpose of which was not at first clear. It turned out to be one of the most important discoveries in marine archaeology. Over time, researchers worked out that it was some kind of astronomical analogue computer, the only one to survive from this period as bronze objects were so often melted down for other uses. In recent decades, detailed examination of the Antikythera Mechanism using the latest scientific techniques indicates that it is a particularly intricate tool for showing the positions of planets, the sun and moon, with a complexity and precision not surpassed for over a thousand years.With Mike Edmunds 
Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics at Cardiff UniversityJo Marchant 
Science journalist and author of 'Decoding the Heavens' on the Antikythera MechanismAnd Liba Taub 
Professor Emerita in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and Visiting Scholar at the Deutsches Museum, MunichProducer: Simon Tillotson
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio ProductionReading list:Derek de Solla Price, Gears from the Greeks: The Antikythera Mechanism (American Philosophical Society Press, 1974)M. G. Edmunds, ‘The Antikythera mechanism and the mechanical universe’ (Contemp. Phys. 55, 2014) M.G. Edmunds, ’The Mechanical Universe’ (Astronomy &amp; Geophysics, 64, 2023)James Evans and J. Lennart Berggren, Geminos's Introduction to the Phenomena: A Translation and Study of a Hellenistic Survey of Astronomy (Princeton University Press, 2006)T. Freeth et al., ‘Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera mechanism’ (Nature 454, 2008)Alexander Jones, A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World (Oxford University Press, 2017)Jo Marchant, Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World’s First Computer (Windmill Books, 2009)J.H. Seiradakis and M.G. Edmunds, ‘Our current knowledge of the Antikythera Mechanism’ (Nature Astronomy 2, 2018)Liba Taub, Ancient Greek and Roman Science: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2022)

The Antikythera Mechanism

<description>&lt;p&gt;Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poet George Herbert (1593-1633) who, according to the French philosopher Simone Weil, wrote ‘the most beautiful poem in the world’. Herbert gave his poems on his relationship with God to a friend, to be published after his death if they offered comfort to any 'dejected pour soul' but otherwise be burned. They became so popular across the range of Christians in the 17th Century that they were printed several times, somehow uniting those who disliked each other but found a common admiration for Herbert; Charles I read them before his execution, as did his enemies. Herbert also wrote poems prolifically and brilliantly in Latin and these he shared during his lifetime both when he worked as orator at Cambridge University and as a parish priest in Bemerton near Salisbury. He went on to influence poets from Coleridge to Heaney and, in parish churches today, congregations regularly sing his poems set to music as hymns. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Helen Wilcox
Professor Emerita of English Literature at Bangor University&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Victoria Moul
Formerly Professor of Early Modern Latin and English at UCL&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Simon Jackson
Director of Music and Director of Studies in English at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Producer: Simon Tillotson&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reading list: &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Amy Charles, A Life of George Herbert (Cornell University Press, 1977)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thomas M. Corns, The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry: Donne to Marvell (Cambridge University Press, 1993) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;John Drury, Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert (Penguin, 2014)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;George Herbert (eds. John Drury and Victoria Moul), The Complete Poetry (Penguin, 2015)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;George Herbert (ed. Helen Wilcox), The English Poems of George Herbert (Cambridge University Press, 2007)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Simon Jackson, George Herbert and Early Modern Musical Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2022)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Gary Kuchar, George Herbert and the Mystery of the Word (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cristina Malcolmson, George Herbert: A Literary Life (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Victoria Moul, A Literary History of Latin and English Poetry: Bilingual Literary Culture in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2022)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Joseph H. Summers, George Herbert: His Religion and Art (first published by Chatto and Windus, 1954; Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, New York, 1981)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Helen Vendler, The Poetry of George Herbert (Harvard University Press, 1975)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;James Boyd White, This Book of Starres: Learning to Read George Herbert (University of Michigan Press, 1995)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Helen Wilcox (ed.), George Herbert. 100 Poems (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
 
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss arguably the greatest devotional poem writer in English.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poet George Herbert (1593-1633) who, according to the French philosopher Simone Weil, wrote ‘the most beautiful poem in the world’. Herbert gave his poems on his relationship with God to a friend, to be published after his death if they offered comfort to any 'dejected pour soul' but otherwise be burned. They became so popular across the range of Christians in the 17th Century that they were printed several times, somehow uniting those who disliked each other but found a common admiration for Herbert; Charles I read them before his execution, as did his enemies. Herbert also wrote poems prolifically and brilliantly in Latin and these he shared during his lifetime both when he worked as orator at Cambridge University and as a parish priest in Bemerton near Salisbury. He went on to influence poets from Coleridge to Heaney and, in parish churches today, congregations regularly sing his poems set to music as hymns. WithHelen Wilcox
Professor Emerita of English Literature at Bangor UniversityVictoria Moul
Formerly Professor of Early Modern Latin and English at UCLAndSimon Jackson
Director of Music and Director of Studies in English at Peterhouse, University of CambridgeProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list: Amy Charles, A Life of George Herbert (Cornell University Press, 1977)Thomas M. Corns, The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry: Donne to Marvell (Cambridge University Press, 1993) John Drury, Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert (Penguin, 2014)George Herbert (eds. John Drury and Victoria Moul), The Complete Poetry (Penguin, 2015)George Herbert (ed. Helen Wilcox), The English Poems of George Herbert (Cambridge University Press, 2007)Simon Jackson, George Herbert and Early Modern Musical Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2022)Gary Kuchar, George Herbert and the Mystery of the Word (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)Cristina Malcolmson, George Herbert: A Literary Life (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)Victoria Moul, A Literary History of Latin and English Poetry: Bilingual Literary Culture in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2022)Joseph H. Summers, George Herbert: His Religion and Art (first published by Chatto and Windus, 1954; Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, New York, 1981)Helen Vendler, The Poetry of George Herbert (Harvard University Press, 1975)James Boyd White, This Book of Starres: Learning to Read George Herbert (University of Michigan Press, 1995)Helen Wilcox (ed.), George Herbert. 100 Poems (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
 
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

George Herbert

<description>&lt;p&gt;Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable rise of Venice in the eastern Mediterranean. Unlike other Italian cities of the early medieval period, Venice had not been settled during the Roman Empire. Rather, it was a refuge for those fleeing unrest after the fall of Rome who settled on these boggy islands on a lagoon and developed into a power that ran an empire from mainland Italy, down the Adriatic coast, across the Peloponnese to Crete and Cyprus, past Constantinople and into the Black Sea. This was a city without walls, just one of the surprises for visitors who marvelled at the stability and influence of Venice right up to the 17th Century when the Ottomans, Spain, France and the Hapsburgs were to prove too much especially with trade shifting to the Atlantic.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Maartje van Gelder
Professor in Early Modern History at the University of Amsterdam&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stephen Bowd
Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Edinburgh&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Georg Christ
Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Manchester&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Producer: Simon Tillotson&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reading list:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Michel Balard and Christian Buchet (eds.), The Sea in History: The Medieval World (Boydell &amp;amp; Brewer, 2017), especially ‘The Naval Power of Venice in the Eastern Mediterranean’ by Ruthy Gertwagen&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stephen D. Bowd, Venice's Most Loyal City: Civic Identity in Renaissance Brescia (Harward University Press, 2010)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Frederic Chapin Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Georg Christ and Franz-Julius Morche (eds.), Cultures of Empire: Rethinking Venetian rule 1400–1700: Essays in Honour of Benjamin Arbel (Brill, 2020), especially ‘Orating Venice's Empire: Politics and Persuasion in Fifteenth Century Funeral Orations’ by Monique O'Connell&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Eric R. Dursteler, A Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797 (Brill, 2013), especially ‘Venice's Maritime Empire in the Early Modern Period’ by Benjamin Arbel&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Iain Fenlon, The Ceremonial City: History, Memory and Myth in Renaissance Venice (Yale University Press, 2007)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Joanne M. Ferraro, Venice: History of the Floating City (Cambridge University Press, 2012)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Maria Fusaro, Political Economies of Empire: The Decline of Venice and the Rise of England 1450-1700 (Cambridge University Press, 2015)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Maartje van Gelder, Trading Places: The Netherlandish Merchant Community in Early Modern Venice, 1590-1650 (Brill, 2009)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Deborah Howard, The Architectural History of Venice (Yale University Press, 2004)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Kristin L. Huffman (ed.), A View of Venice: Portrait of a Renaissance City (Duke University Press, 2024) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Peter Humfrey, Venice and the Veneto: Artistic Centers of the Italian Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 2008)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;John Jeffries Martin and Dennis Romano (eds.), Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297-1797 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Erin Maglaque, Venice’s Intimate Empire: Family Life and Scholarship in the Renaissance Mediterranean (Cornell University Press, 2018)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Michael E Mallett and John Rigby Hale, The Military Organization of a Renaissance State Venice, c.1400 to 1617 (Cambridge University Press, 1984)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;William Hardy McNeill, Venice: The Hinge of Europe (The University of Chicago Press, 1974)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jan Morris, The Venetian Empire: A Sea Voyage (Faber &amp;amp; Faber, 1980)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Monique O'Connell, Men of Empire: Power and Negotiation in Venice’s Maritime State (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dennis Romano, Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City (Oxford University Press, 2023)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;David Rosand, Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State (University of North Carolina Press, 2001)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;David Sanderson Chambers, The Imperial Age of Venice, 1380-1580 (Thames and Hudson, 1970) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sandra Toffolo, Describing the City, Describing the State: Representations of Venice and the Venetian Terraferma in the Renaissance (Brill, 2020)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production
.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rise and eventual decline of the Venetian Empire.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable rise of Venice in the eastern Mediterranean. Unlike other Italian cities of the early medieval period, Venice had not been settled during the Roman Empire. Rather, it was a refuge for those fleeing unrest after the fall of Rome who settled on these boggy islands on a lagoon and developed into a power that ran an empire from mainland Italy, down the Adriatic coast, across the Peloponnese to Crete and Cyprus, past Constantinople and into the Black Sea. This was a city without walls, just one of the surprises for visitors who marvelled at the stability and influence of Venice right up to the 17th Century when the Ottomans, Spain, France and the Hapsburgs were to prove too much especially with trade shifting to the Atlantic.With Maartje van Gelder
Professor in Early Modern History at the University of AmsterdamStephen Bowd
Professor of Early Modern History at the University of EdinburghAndGeorg Christ
Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of ManchesterProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Michel Balard and Christian Buchet (eds.), The Sea in History: The Medieval World (Boydell &amp; Brewer, 2017), especially ‘The Naval Power of Venice in the Eastern Mediterranean’ by Ruthy GertwagenStephen D. Bowd, Venice's Most Loyal City: Civic Identity in Renaissance Brescia (Harward University Press, 2010)Frederic Chapin Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973)Georg Christ and Franz-Julius Morche (eds.), Cultures of Empire: Rethinking Venetian rule 1400–1700: Essays in Honour of Benjamin Arbel (Brill, 2020), especially ‘Orating Venice's Empire: Politics and Persuasion in Fifteenth Century Funeral Orations’ by Monique O'ConnellEric R. Dursteler, A Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797 (Brill, 2013), especially ‘Venice's Maritime Empire in the Early Modern Period’ by Benjamin ArbelIain Fenlon, The Ceremonial City: History, Memory and Myth in Renaissance Venice (Yale University Press, 2007)Joanne M. Ferraro, Venice: History of the Floating City (Cambridge University Press, 2012)Maria Fusaro, Political Economies of Empire: The Decline of Venice and the Rise of England 1450-1700 (Cambridge University Press, 2015)Maartje van Gelder, Trading Places: The Netherlandish Merchant Community in Early Modern Venice, 1590-1650 (Brill, 2009)Deborah Howard, The Architectural History of Venice (Yale University Press, 2004)Kristin L. Huffman (ed.), A View of Venice: Portrait of a Renaissance City (Duke University Press, 2024) Peter Humfrey, Venice and the Veneto: Artistic Centers of the Italian Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 2008)John Jeffries Martin and Dennis Romano (eds.), Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297-1797 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000)Erin Maglaque, Venice’s Intimate Empire: Family Life and Scholarship in the Renaissance Mediterranean (Cornell University Press, 2018)Michael E Mallett and John Rigby Hale, The Military Organization of a Renaissance State Venice, c.1400 to 1617 (Cambridge University Press, 1984)William Hardy McNeill, Venice: The Hinge of Europe (The University of Chicago Press, 1974)Jan Morris, The Venetian Empire: A Sea Voyage (Faber &amp; Faber, 1980)Monique O'Connell, Men of Empire: Power and Negotiation in Venice’s Maritime State (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009)Dennis Romano, Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City (Oxford University Press, 2023)David Rosand, Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State (University of North Carolina Press, 2001)David Sanderson Chambers, The Imperial Age of Venice, 1380-1580 (Thames and Hudson, 1970) Sandra Toffolo, Describing the City, Describing the State: Representations of Venice and the Venetian Terraferma in the Renaissance (Brill, 2020)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production
.

The Venetian Empire

<description>&lt;p&gt;Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Louisa May Alcott's 1868 novel, credited with starting the new genre of young adult fiction. When Alcott (1832-88) wrote Little Women, she only did so as her publisher refused to publish her father's book otherwise and as she hoped it would make money. It made Alcott's fortune. This coming of age story of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March, each overcoming their own moral flaws, has delighted generations of readers and was so popular from the start that Alcott wrote the second part in 1869 and further sequels and spin-offs in the coming years. Her work has inspired countless directors, composers and authors to make many reimagined versions ever since, with the sisters played by film actors such as Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, Kirsten Dunst, Saoirse Ronan and Emma Watson. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bridget Bennett
Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Leeds&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Erin Forbes
Senior Lecturer in African American and U.S. Literature at the University of Bristol&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tom Wright
Reader in Rhetoric and Head of the Department of English Literature at the University of Sussex&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Producer: Simon Tillotson&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reading list:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Louisa May Alcott (ed. Madeline B Stern), Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott (William Morrow &amp;amp; Co, 1997)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Kate Block, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado and Jane Smiley, March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women (Library of America, 2019)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Anne Boyd Rioux, Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters (W. W. Norton &amp;amp; Company, 2018)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Azelina Flint, The Matrilineal Heritage of Louisa May Alcott and Christina Rossetti (Routledge, 2021)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Robert Gross, The Transcendentalists and Their World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;John Matteson, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father (W. W. Norton &amp;amp; Company, 2007)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bethany C. Morrow, So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix (St Martin’s Press, 2021)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Anne K. Phillips and Gregory Eiselein (eds.), Critical Insights: Louisa May Alcott (Grey House Publishing Inc, 2016)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Harriet Reisen, Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women (Picador, 2010)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Daniel Shealy (ed.), Little Women at 150 (University of Mississippi Press, 2022)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Elaine Showalter, A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx (Virago, 2009)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Simon Sleight and Shirleene Robinson (eds.), Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World (Palgrave, 2016), especially “The ‘Willful’ Girl in the Anglo-World: Sentimental Heroines and Wild Colonial Girls” by Hilary Emmett&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Madeleine B. Stern, Louisa May Alcott: A Biography (first published 1950; Northeastern University Press, 1999) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Louisa May Alcott's influential story of the March sisters

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Louisa May Alcott's 1868 novel, credited with starting the new genre of young adult fiction. When Alcott (1832-88) wrote Little Women, she only did so as her publisher refused to publish her father's book otherwise and as she hoped it would make money. It made Alcott's fortune. This coming of age story of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March, each overcoming their own moral flaws, has delighted generations of readers and was so popular from the start that Alcott wrote the second part in 1869 and further sequels and spin-offs in the coming years. Her work has inspired countless directors, composers and authors to make many reimagined versions ever since, with the sisters played by film actors such as Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, Kirsten Dunst, Saoirse Ronan and Emma Watson. With Bridget Bennett
Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of LeedsErin Forbes
Senior Lecturer in African American and U.S. Literature at the University of BristolAndTom Wright
Reader in Rhetoric and Head of the Department of English Literature at the University of SussexProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Louisa May Alcott (ed. Madeline B Stern), Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott (William Morrow &amp; Co, 1997)Kate Block, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado and Jane Smiley, March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women (Library of America, 2019)Anne Boyd Rioux, Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters (W. W. Norton &amp; Company, 2018)Azelina Flint, The Matrilineal Heritage of Louisa May Alcott and Christina Rossetti (Routledge, 2021)Robert Gross, The Transcendentalists and Their World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022)John Matteson, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father (W. W. Norton &amp; Company, 2007)Bethany C. Morrow, So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix (St Martin’s Press, 2021)Anne K. Phillips and Gregory Eiselein (eds.), Critical Insights: Louisa May Alcott (Grey House Publishing Inc, 2016)Harriet Reisen, Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women (Picador, 2010)Daniel Shealy (ed.), Little Women at 150 (University of Mississippi Press, 2022)Elaine Showalter, A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx (Virago, 2009)Simon Sleight and Shirleene Robinson (eds.), Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World (Palgrave, 2016), especially “The ‘Willful’ Girl in the Anglo-World: Sentimental Heroines and Wild Colonial Girls” by Hilary EmmettMadeleine B. Stern, Louisa May Alcott: A Biography (first published 1950; Northeastern University Press, 1999) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Little Women

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.

In Our Time

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