The Forum

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Sinopsis

A world of ideas

Episodios

  • Neanderthals: meet the relatives

    16/02/2023 Duración: 39min

    Developments in new technology such as DNA sequencing have transformed our understanding of the Neanderthals, one of a group of archaic humans who occupied Europe, the Middle East and Western Asia more than 300,000 years ago. First identified by fossil remains in 1856 in a German quarry, the Neanderthals led an extremely physical existence as hunter-gatherers. They were stronger than us, adaptable as a species to huge variations in climate, with brains as large as ours and sophisticated ways of creating tools. Many of us carry some of the DNA of Neanderthals, thanks to interbreeding with homo sapiens. Although the Neanderthals today are no longer with us, their story has a lot to tell us about ourselves and our future survival on the planet. Rajan Datar is joined by Janet Kelso, a computational biologist and Group Leader of the Minerva Research Group for Bioinformatics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. She specialises in the analysis of DNA sequencing of ancient people such as

  • Cavalry and code-breaking: The Polish-Soviet war

    09/02/2023 Duración: 39min

    A Russian army stands at the gates of the capital of another country, a country that Russia has previously occupied and one that, according to Russian politicians, has no right to independent existence. Sounds familiar? That capital city was Warsaw and the year was 1920. But what happened in Poland just after the end of the First World War bears strong similarities to what went on near Kyiv in 2022. After World War I, Russian Bolsheviks, and Lenin in particular, wanted to re-occupy Poland, and indeed Ukraine, Belarus and some other countries, so that they could serve as a bridge for exporting communist revolution to Western Europe. The Poles resisted even though at first they were outnumbered and outgunned by the Russians. The result was the Polish-Bolshevik war which wasn't fully resolved until 1921 and which had a big impact on the future shape of inter-war Europe. To guide us through the Polish-Bolshevik war, Rajan Datar is joined by three distinguished historians: Dr. Pawel Duber, a Researcher at Nottin

  • How we work: Redesigning the office

    02/02/2023 Duración: 39min

    The pandemic has made us all rethink how we work. Where once millions of people used to travel into work in tall glass buildings in big cities every day, now our idea of the office has come to include the kitchen table or maybe even a coffee shop. Yet despite the temptation to shift permanently to remote working, many organisations say the events of the past few years have actually underlined the importance of offices as spaces that connect people. So what are offices for? We are delving back into the history of the modern office to learn how past designs could help us in the future. Presenter Rajan Datar is joined by three guest experts: Nigel Oseland is an environmental psychologist and consultant at Workplace Unlimited in the UK. He's the author of Beyond the Workplace Zoo: Humanising the Office. Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler is Associate Professor of Design History at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. She's the author of Open Plan: A Design History of the American Office. And Agustin Chevez is

  • When money died: The world's worst inflation

    26/01/2023 Duración: 43min

    In the summer of 1946 inflation in Hungary reached 41.9 quadrillion per cent. That’s 41.9 followed by 14 zeros – the highest rate of inflation ever recorded anywhere in the world. It meant prices of everyday goods and services doubled, on average, every 15 hours. As the shattered country struggled to get to its feet after World War Two, weighed down by a Soviet occupation and punishing reparations, its government had little choice but to print more and more money, further fuelling the price spiral. The hyperinflation stripped wages of almost all their value and plunged millions of Hungarians into a new fight for survival, but as they lost all faith in banknotes they turned to ever more inventive ways to trade and earn a living. We discuss how life for ordinary Hungarians changed amidst the chaos, what caused and eventually halted the economic disaster, and what the whole episode can tell us about the meaning of money. Bridget Kendall is joined by Béla Tomka, professor of modern social and economic history

  • The writer Rachel Carson who fought insecticide wars

    19/01/2023 Duración: 39min

    Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring has probably done more than any other to raise concerns about the damage that uncontrolled use of chemicals can cause to the natural world. Carson imagined a ‘silent spring’ in a world where birds no longer sang, killed off by indiscriminate spraying of pesticides. Her plea for caution when using insecticides led to major changes in government regulation of agrochemicals both in the United States and elsewhere. So who was Rachel Carson? How did this scientist with a passionate interest in marine biology turn first into a best-selling author and then into an environmental campaigner? And - six decades on - have the warnings of Silent Spring been heeded? Bridget Kendall is joined by Dr. Sabine Clarke, Senior Lecturer in Modern History at University of York with a particular interest in the history of synthetic insecticides; Michelle Ferrari, an award-winning film maker who directed a documentary about Rachel Carson's life for the American public broadcaster PBS; and Pr

  • Why do we have a 7-day week?

    12/01/2023 Duración: 45min

    Why do we divide our lives into 7-day chunks? Unlike the day, month or year, there’s no natural reason for this cycle, but nevertheless the week is now deeply ingrained in us and has proven very resistant to change. We explore the pagan, religious and early scientific roots of this man-made rhythm, the ideological battles fought over it, and the reason why the number seven came out on top. Our expert guests explain where the names of our days come from, why the weekend was born, and how the week has come to dominate our economic and social lives. There have, however, been several radical attempts to rip up the 7-day week – we hear about these alternatives and why they ultimately failed. Rajan Datar is joined by Eviatar Zerubavel, distinguished professor of sociology emeritus at Rutgers University, New Jersey, and author of ‘The Seven-Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week’; Ilaria Bultrighini, honorary research fellow in ancient history at University College London; and David Henkin, professor o

  • Forugh Farrokhzad: A trailblazing voice for women in Iran

    05/01/2023 Duración: 39min

    Forugh Farrokhzad burst into the public consciousness with a series of poems that sent shockwaves through Persian society in the mid-1950s. Her early poetry focused on the female experience and female desire, overturning – in the words of one biographer – 1,000 years of Persian literature. Her critics sought to dismiss her skills as a writer by seeing her poetry purely as a confessional outburst of a divorced woman. That attitude has tended to overshadow her achievements, although her private life is so compelling it’s perhaps inevitable. Since her early death in a car accident, Forugh’s life and poetry have been inspirational for many Iranians, who see in her an artist who was prepared to defy authority and convention to speak out. Bridget Kendall is joined by Sholeh Wolpé, a writer-in-residence at the University of California, Irvine. She’s a poet, playwright, librettist and translator of Forugh’s work; author Jasmin Darznik, associate professor and chair of the creative writing progamme at California Col

  • The Cynics: Counter-culture from Ancient Greece

    29/12/2022 Duración: 39min

    Today’s counter-culture and alternative movements question mainstream norms, such as putting too much value on material possessions. The Cynics, practical philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, also rejected conventional desires to seek wealth, power and fame. They were not your usual kind of philosophers: rather than lecturing or writing about their ideas, they acted out their beliefs by denying themselves worldly possessions and tried to live as simply as possible. Their leader, Diogenes of Sinope, allegedly slept in a ceramic jar on the streets of Athens and ate raw meat like a dog, flouting convention to draw attention to his ideas. So who were the Cynics? How influential was their movement? What made it last some 900 years? And why does the term 'cynicism' have a different meaning today? Bridget Kendall is joined by three eminent scholars of Greek philosophy: Dr. William Desmond, Senior Lecturer in Ancient Classics at Maynooth University in Ireland and author of several books on the Cynics; Dr. Ele

  • Calories: How to fuel a human

    22/12/2022 Duración: 43min

    Calories are fundamental to the way many of us view food and our own bodies - you’ll find them on supermarket shelves, restaurant menus, and in cookbooks. But they didn’t start out that way. Originally coined during the study of steam engines and industrial energy, the term ‘calorie’ was transformed into a measurement of food as ‘fuel’ for humans, influencing industrial, public health and even foreign policies for more than 100 years. It’s also spawned a multi-billion dollar diet industry – we learn about the author whose battle with her weight introduced the world to calorie counting. But should we be paying the calorie so much attention? There are growing concerns that it’s a misleading, perhaps even dangerous guide to how our bodies digest food and burn energy. Bridgett Kendall is joined by Dr Giles Yeo, professor of molecular neuroendocrinology at the University of Cambridge and author of ‘Why Calories Don’t Count: How we got the science of weight loss wrong’; Adrienne Rose Bitar, a specialist in

  • Belarus: The crossroads of Eastern Europe

    15/12/2022 Duración: 39min

    Belarusian lands have seen dramatic upheavals throughout the twentieth century and today, like its neighbour Ukraine to the south, Belarus finds itself on the cusp, in between the countries of the European Union on one side and Putin’s Russia on the other. While Belarus often features in the news, its history is less well known. So how far back does the story of Belarus go? How was its sense of national identity forged? And how did it survive the traumas and repressions that it has been subjected to by various invaders and imperial powers? Three historians of Eastern Europe join Bridget Kendall to answer these questions: Dr. Nelly Bekus, Lecturer at the University of Exeter who studies post-Soviet nations; Dr. Natalya Chernyshova, Senior Lecturer in modern history at Winchester University who researches the 20th century in Belarus and beyond; and Dr. Andrej Kotljarchuk, Senior Lecturer at Uppsala University in Sweden who focuses on the Second World War in Eastern Europe. (Photo: Mir Castle in Belarus, a UN

  • Margaret Sanger: Mother of birth control

    08/12/2022 Duración: 39min

    Activist Margaret Sanger is responsible for one of the most significant medical and social changes of the 20th century – giving women the means to control the size of their families. The former nurse, who’d witnessed the aftermath of backstreet abortions and her own mother’s premature death after 18 pregnancies, founded the birth control movement in the United States and helped to spread it internationally. She was also instrumental in developing the pill, now one of the world’s most popular contraceptives. Her campaign was enormously controversial – she faced fierce opposition from the Catholic Church and was arrested several times for breaking strict anti-contraception laws. And her legacy is contested today – her association with the then powerful eugenics movement has thrown doubt on her motives and drawn allegations of racism by some. Even Planned Parenthood, the organisation she helped create, has distanced itself from her. Bridget Kendall discusses her inspiration and battle against the powerful

  • Alice Guy: The first female movie mogul

    01/12/2022 Duración: 39min

    In the late 19th Century, when the motion picture camera was invented and cinema was born, a young French woman called Alice Guy ended up becoming the first ever woman film-maker; rising from being a lowly young secretary to a prolific and pioneering director, producer and entrepreneur. Yet at her death in 1968, she was barely known, most of her thousand or so films had been lost and her crucial role in the history of the film industry was forgotten. In the past few decades, Alice Guy’s reputation has been gradually revived, and today she is recognised as a creative visionary and inspiration to many women film directors. Joining Rajan Datar to track the career of Alice Guy, or Alice Guy Blaché as she was also known by her married name, is the film scholar, Dr Anthony Slide, the editor of The Memoirs of Alice Guy Blaché; Dr Alison McMahan, the author of Alice Guy Blaché: Lost Visionary of the Cinema, and the novelised biography WonderShadows; and Caroline Rainette who performed, wrote, and directed, Alice Guy

  • The Epic of Gilgamesh: A quest for immortality

    24/11/2022 Duración: 39min

    Unearthed from the ruins of ancient cities in modern-day Iraq, the reconstruction of the epic from fragments of clay tablets has been a labour of love for scholars of ancient Mesopotamia. This painstaking work has brought to life a sophisticated story of adventure, heroism and friendship, as well as a reflection on the human condition. Today experts are uncovering additional fragments of cuneiform script, and using artificial intelligence to decipher the text and fill in the gaps of this and other stories. Professor Anmar Fadhil from the University of Baghdad tells the programme about the latest discoveries. Bridget Kendall is joined by Andrew George, Emeritus Professor of Babylonian at SOAS at the University of London and author of an acclaimed English translation of the epic; Professor Enrique Jiménez is chair of Ancient Near Eastern Literature at Ludwig-Maximiliens University in Munich, Germany. He has published widely on Babylonian literature of the first millennium BC; and Dr Louise Pryke is Honorary

  • Uruguay 1930: The first football World Cup

    17/11/2022 Duración: 43min

    As the spotlight falls on Qatar for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, we tell the story of how the world's biggest sporting spectacle began, in Uruguay in 1930. How did a small South American nation of just 2 million people, thousands of miles from football's centre of power in Europe, come to launch this major global competition? We discuss the fractious international relations, the political cunning, and the sporting excellence behind the successful bid. We learn how football helped shape a nation riven by civil war for much of its short existence, and hear about the tournament itself - the unfinished stadium, the dodgy refereeing decisions and, for some of the teams, the sheer ordeal of just getting there. Rajan Datar is joined by Andreas Campomar, a writer and publisher from London and author of ‘Golazo! A History of Latin American Football'; Dr Philippe Vonnard, a historian specialising in the internationalisation of sport at the University of Fribourg and the University of Lausanne, both in Switzerland; and

  • Moths: The story of the butterfly of the night

    10/11/2022 Duración: 39min

    The moth is an insect that’s almost 200 million years old. Throughout human history, its attraction to light, its amazing ability to camouflage, and its nocturnal activity have given rise to myths, spiritual beliefs and been the inspiration for art and literature – especially the genres of horror and the supernatural. In the natural world, moths also play a hugely important role in promoting global diversity as prolific pollinators. Yet, this ancient insect is often regarded as little more than the poor relation of the butterfly, an annoying creature that feeds on our favourite clothes and eats crops. Today, the moth is under threat from light pollution and climate change. So is it time we re-evaluate our views on moths? Rajan Datar is joined by Professor Matthew Gandy, from the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge in the UK; Dr Alma Solis, research scientist on moths for the US department of Agriculture, and curator at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC; Dr Franziska Kohlt, a p

  • The end of civilisation: Bronze Age collapse

    03/11/2022 Duración: 41min

    More than 3,000 years ago a group of powerful and intricately connected Mediterranean kingdoms collapsed over the course of just a few decades. The palaces of Mycenaean Greece were destroyed, entire cities in Hittite Turkey were abandoned, and whole empires disintegrated. Some civilisations disappeared completely. But what caused the so-called Bronze Age collapse - climate change, trade breakdown, internal rebellion, or a mysterious group of invaders known as the ‘Sea Peoples'? Some historians have called the aftermath a 'dark age', but was it really as gloomy as that, and might this period of wealth, pressure, and decline offer us any lessons today? Rajan Datar is joined by İlgi Gerçek, assistant professor of ancient Near Eastern languages and history at Bilkent University, in Ankara; Eric Cline, professor of classics, history, and anthropology at The George Washington University, in Washington DC, and author of ‘1177BC: The Year Civilisation Collapsed’; and Marc van de Mieroop, professor of history at C

  • From straw poll to opinion poll

    27/10/2022 Duración: 39min

    Today, we can’t imagine an election without an opinion poll gauging public opinion on who’s leading, who’s won a debate or who’s more popular with a specific group of voters. Even our favourite chocolate bars and footballers are subject to a poll. But how did straw polls evolve into the scientific number crunching we know now? What is their purpose and impact? How differently are they used around the world? And just how reliable are they? Bridget Kendall is joined by economist and chairman of Gallup Pakistan, Dr. Ijaz Shafi Gilani; Scott Keeter, Senior Survey Advisor for the Pew Research Center in Washington; and Sir John Curtice from the University of Strathclyde. (Photo: American President Harry S. Truman smiles and waves to the excited Kansas City crowd after hearing the news that he had won the United States elections in 1948, despite what the polls had predicted. Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)

  • Süleyman the Magnificent: longest-reigning Ottoman sultan

    20/10/2022 Duración: 39min

    The 46-year reign of Süleyman the Magnificent across central Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East was defined by territorial expansion and economic growth, as well as a flowering of art, architecture and culture. The epithet ‘magnificent’ invites us to believe the Ottoman sultan could do no wrong. But he broke with precedent on several occasions and his private life came in for criticism. So how much does he owe his reputation to his advisers? Bridget Kendall is joined by Gábor Ágoston, professor of history at Georgetown University in Washington DC and author of many books on the Ottomans, including The Last Muslim Conquest: The Ottoman Empire and Its Wars in Europe; Ebru Turan, assistant professor of History at Fordham University. She’s writing a book entitled Last World Emperor: The Origins of Ottoman-Habsburg Imperial Rivalry in the Apocalyptic Mediterranean, 1516-1527; and Marc David Baer, professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He’s publis

  • William Cobbett: Champion of rural workers

    11/10/2022 Duración: 39min

    William Cobbett was a 19th century English writer, politician and campaigner, at a time when England was on the verge of riots and revolution, and many lived in extreme poverty. Born in 1763, Cobbett started off as a ploughboy, educated himself to run a best-selling newspaper, wrote beautifully accurate descriptions of the countryside which were to form his classic book Rural Rides, and later in life, even became a member of parliament. But it was for his sharp-tongued criticism of the British establishment that William Cobbett became most famous, exposing the corruption and hypocrisy of a system that favoured the rich over the poor, and in 1810, Cobbett was even jailed for his writings for two years, when he condemned the flogging of soldiers who were protesting about their pay. William Cobbett was often greeted by adoring crowds wherever he went, but some of his populist ideas and his dream of a return to an idealised vision of England’s past, also makes him a controversial and divisive figure today. Joi

  • How the paparazzi transformed photojournalism

    06/10/2022 Duración: 39min

    They are the bane of every celebrity’s life: that pack of press photographers who stake out the homes, hotels and other haunts of the rich and famous in the hope of bagging a revealing and lucrative image to sell to newspapers and magazines around the world. Known as paparazzi, these photo journalists stop at nothing to catch their prey – climbing trees, hiding in cars and chasing after their quarry on motor scooters at high speed. But where does the term ‘paparazzi’ come from? When did these celebrity snappers first appear? And why were the most famous of them almost all Italian to start with? To seek out the origins of the paparazzi, the Forum takes you back to the glitzy world of film stars in 1950s Rome. Bridget Kendall is joined by Antonella Pelizzari, professor of the history of photography at Hunter College in New York and author of many books on Italian photography; the film critic Shawn Levy whose books include Dolce Vita Confidential about film and photography in 1950s Rome; and cultural histori

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