Start the Week

The Man Booker prize winning novelist George Saunders turns to short-stories for his latest book, Liberation Day. From workers dressed as ‘ghouls’ in an underground amusement park to brainwashed political protestors and story-telling slaves his protagonists underscore what it means to live in community with others. George Saunders tells Tom Sutcliffe how his stories veer from bizarre fantasy to brutal reality. The move from fantasy to stark reality can be seen in the history of Russians living in exile in Paris after the Revolution in 1917. Helen Rappaport’s After the Romanovs details how former princes, used to a life of luxury, could be seen driving taxicabs. While some emigres, like Diaghilev and Chagall, found great success in this new world, others became trapped in a cycle of poverty and homesickness for a country that was no longer theirs.The BFI and UK-wide horror film season In Dreams are Monsters celebrates how monstrous bodies of all kinds have been represented on screen over the past hundred years. Curator Anna Bogutskaya explores the symbolism and emotional impact of ghosts, vampires, witches and, arguably the most politicised of all cinematic monsters, the zombie – a terrifying, dead-eyed blank canvas for social commentary.Producer: Katy Hickman

The first event marking Black History Month UK took place thirty five years ago, and the re-claiming and documenting of Black British and International History has since evolved into a national movement. But how much has changed in those three decades? The historian Miranda Kaufmann has spent years uncovering evidence of Africans in Renaissance Britain. Her first book Black Tudors: The Untold Story was published five years ago and has since become a free online course. The British Nigerian poet Yomi Ṣode interweaves his native Yoruba with English slang in his debut collection Manorism. He explores what it means to grow up black in Britain and the pressure to be constantly adapting his behaviour and language. But he also shows the past works in mysterious ways by finding inspiration in the life of the 17th century Italian painter, Caravaggio. The curator Christine Checinska explores how fashion has formed a key part of Africa’s cultural renaissance in a ground-breaking exhibition at the V&A. Africa Fashion starts with the years of African independence that sparked radical political and social movements. But the show also includes contemporary designers who have broken with historical ideas to look to the future.The historian Peter Frankopan makes the case for world history – a view of the past from multiple foci – in the essay collection, What Is History, Now? He questions the role of history; whose stories are told and why. But the challenge of broadening horizons to encompass the whole world can make it oversimplistic and fractured. Frankopan believes the job of the historian is to look at the connections between societies, and explore what the past can tell about today’s world.Image: Thomas Gainsborough's 'Portrait of Ignatius Sancho', 1768

In her latest novel, The Unfolding, the prize-winning AM Homes has created a compelling central character: a larger than life American patriot and family man. Undone by Obama’s victory in the 2008 presidential election, he collects together a band of like-minded men to spread their version of the American dream, and to reclaim it by force if necessary. AM Homes tells Tom Sutcliffe her Big Guy’s fight to retain his influence is confounded by his failure to keep his own family from fracturing.Power, reputation and family dynamics are also central to Ibsen’s play John Gabriel Borkman, now playing at the Bridge Theatre, directed by Nick Hytner, in a new version by Lucinda Coxon. Borkman was once a great man, who put wealth and influence ahead of his family and personal life. But now, disgraced and destitute after a financial scandal, he sits alone in an upstairs room obsessively planning his comeback.Families and dynastic power is at the heart of Simon Sebag Montefiore’s history of The World: A Family History Of Humanity. The grand themes of war, migration, plague, religion and technology are told through the stories of the world’s great dynasties as they battle to stay relevant and retain power through the ages.Producer: Katy HickmanImage credit: Photograph - Front l-r Simon Russell Beale (John Gabriel Borkman) and Sebastian De Souza (Erhart Borkman), photo by Manuel Harlan

During the pandemic our laws were radically remade by a government which exercised almost unlimited power, according to the human rights barrister, Adam Wagner. In Emergency State: How We Lost Our Freedoms in the Pandemic and Why it Matters he decries the lack of parliamentary debate and oversight as restrictions became tighter, and warns against the possiblity of future emergencies following the same political path. But how effective is our parliamentary democracy in scrutinising the government? The Assistant Editor of the Spectator, Isabel Hardman is a seasoned politician-watcher and joins the programme from the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham. She fears MPs are failing in their role as effective legislators both because of demands on their time from their constituencies, and because of concern about ruining their chances of joining the executive. The historian Tim Bale studies the fortunes of the Conservative Party, and is looking with interest at the direction the new government is heading. Not since 1979 has the country faced such challenging economic circumstances. But Bale asks how far the new Prime Minister Liz Truss is reaching back in history for answers to today’s problems. The Italian film director and journalist, Annalisa Piras is also following Italy’s new government with interest, following the snap election last week. As the far-right leader Giorgia Meloni is set to become the country’s first female prime minister, Piras looks at her policies for dealing with the cost of living crisis, and how Italy’s politicians are placed to oversee government decisions. Producer: Katy Hickman

In a special edition of the show, in front of an audience at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, Adam Rutherford and guests focus on scientific curiosity – its thrills and its dangers. Professor Matthew Cobb looks back over the last fifty years at the extraordinary development in gene editing. In his book The Genetic Age: Our Perilous Quest to Edit Life he traces the excitement of innovation and progress. But as the full potential of manipulating life is understood, he sounds a warning too.The science historian Professor Alison Bashford tells the history of modern science and culture through the story of one family – the extraordinary Huxley dynasty. Through four generations the family profoundly shaped how we see ourselves, and pushed the boundaries of knowledge in science, literature and film.Born in Bradford is an internationally-recognised research programme which aims to find out what keeps families healthy and happy. Professor Deborah Lawlor was born in the city and was one of the many scientists involved in setting up the programme. She explains how this vast ‘city of research’ – with data from more than 700,000 citizens – is being used to improve population health.Producer: Katy Hickman

Forget the north south divide, what about the ‘squeezed middle’? Tom Sutcliffe and guests discuss the cultural and political status of the country’s ‘second city’ Birmingham. The writer Kit de Waal looks back at growing up in the city, caught between three worlds – Irish, Caribbean and British – in her memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes. The historian Richard Vinen argues, in his new book Second City, that Birmingham is the overlooked heart of modern Britain, and the remnants of the West Midland’s Victorian industrial heyday can be glimpsed in the poetry of Liz Berry – in The Dereliction and Black Country. Producer: Katy Hickman

When people feel ill they go to the doctor for a diagnosis and what they hope will be the first step on the road to recovery. But former consultant neurologist Jules Montague argues that getting a diagnosis isn’t as simple as it sounds – they can be infected by medical bias, swayed by Big Pharma or political expedience, even refused because the condition isn’t officially recognised. In The Imaginary Patient Dr Montague meets those who have had to fight to get the right treatment.The GP Gavin Francis knows only too well how desperate patients can feel with undiagnosed symptoms, but in his latest work, Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence he’s looking at the other end of the medical journey. He warns that getting better can take longer and be far more complex than most people understand. The academic, Jennifer Jacquet, is interested in how far patients can be pawns in the wider power plays in the corporate world and Big Pharma. In The Playbook: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World, she uses satire to expose the extraordinary lengths that corporations will go to quash inconvenient research, target scientists and forestall regulations. Producer: Katy HickmanThis is the last show in the series; back on Monday 12th September.

Linda Kinstler’s Latvian grandfather disappeared after WWII and the family never spoke about him. But as she delved into Boris Kinstler’s life she found he had been a member of a killing brigade in the SS linked to the ‘Butcher of Riga’ Herbert Cukurs, before becoming a KGB agent and then vanishing. She attempts to uncover the truth in Come To This Court and Cry: How The Holocaust Ends, but also interrogates the uncertainties of memory, family, nation and justice.Although Herbert Cukur’s name came up frequently at the Nuremberg war crime trials for the killing of tens of thousands of Jews, he managed to escape and find refuge in South America. It was there he was murdered by Mossad agents who left a note from Those Who Will Never Forget saying ‘the condemned man has been executed’. The Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman has uncovered his country’s most secret activities in Rise and Kill First: The Secret History Of Israel's Targeted Assassinations (translated by Ronnie Hope).The Nuremberg trials in the aftermath of WWII mark the birth of international law and set the framework of modern human rights law. The barrister and writer Philippe Sands has appeared frequently before international courts, and has been involved in many of the most important cases of recent years from Yugoslavia to Rwanda to Guantanamo. He explains what can be done when countries – like Russia – refuse to recognise the jurisdiction of international law.Producer: Katy Hickman

The failure of British politics and public institutions to tackle social inequality is down to proximity, so says the writer, performer and activist Darren McGarvey. In The Social Distance Between Us: How Remote Politics Wrecked Britain he looks at the huge gulf – geographic, economic and cultural – between those who make decisions and the people on the receiving end of them. He tells Adam Rutherford it’s time for a meaningful discussion in which the voiceless and powerless get heard. The Social Distance Between Us is BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week.The poet Jo Clement gives voice to the stories and people of her family’s Romany past. In her collection Outlandish she has no time for Romantic impressions of British Gypsy ethnicity as she moves from ancient stopping-places to decaying council estates. Her poems are imaginative protests that cast light on a hidden and threatened culture. It’s a far cry from the world of former broker Brett Scott. But in his latest book, Cloudmoney: Cash Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets he argues that social inequality will only increase if cash is allowed to disappear. A cashless society is the vision of big finance and tech, and he warns that it will end up only benefitting the few, while infringing the privacy of the many. Producer: Katy Hickman

The environmentalist George Monbiot argues that farming is the world’s greatest cause of environmental destruction, but few people want to talk about it. In Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet he presents a vision for the future of food production. He tells Tom Sutcliffe that new ideas and technologies from soil ecology to laboratory-grown food could change the way people eat while regenerating the landscape. But many farmers believe that they have been unfairly accused of ecological mismanagement, and that they are uniquely placed to restore the earth and provide a sustainable future. Sarah Langford has returned to her country roots after working for many years as a criminal barrister in the city. In her book, Rooted: Stories of Life, Land and a Farming Revolution she shows how a new generation of farmers are set on a path of regenerative change.While Sarah Langford comes from a family of farmers, for many city dwellers it can be difficult to cultivate a connection with the earth. In her memoir, Unearthed: On Race and Roots and How the Soil Taught Me I Belong, Claire Ratinon, explores how she grew up feeling disconnected with the natural world and with family stories of slave ancestors forced to work the land. Through learning to grow her own vegetables and especially the food of Mauritius, she has finally felt able to put down roots.Producer: Katy Hickman

In front of an audience at this year’s Hay Festival Helen Lewis talks to three prize winning authors about their work. Damon Galgut’s Booker-winning The Promise tells the story of a family and a country – South Africa – and the failed promises that destroy them both. The exciting promise of a super-connected world where memories are currency is set against the quest for privacy in Jennifer Egan’s new novel The Candy House. And Margo Jefferson examines every passion, memory and influence – from family to jazz to art – in her new memoir, Constructing a Nervous System. Producer: Katy Hickman

Adam Rutherford explores how other species can help us understand our own. The world-renowned primatologist Frans de Waal has spent decades observing the behaviours of chimps and bonobos. In Different: What Apes Can Teach Us About Gender he looks at, and questions, the interplay of biology and culture. Using his knowledge of apes he challenges widely held beliefs about masculinity and femininity and assumptions about authority, power, cooperation and sexual behaviour. Nichola Raihani’s research focuses on the evolution of social behaviour in humans and non-human species. In her book, The Social Instinct, she looks at the science of cooperation and how humans have evolved socially and built, and fought over, hugely complex communities. But she also suggests we might have something to learn from the pied babblers of the Kalahari, and the cleaner fish of the Great Barrier Reef – two of the most fascinating and extraordinarily successful species on the planet. While ants and honey bees are often held up as exemplars of social cohesion, the entomologist Seirian Sumner wants to rehabilitate the much-maligned thug of the insect world, the wasp. In Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps she shows how wasps are older, cleverer and more diverse than their evolutionary new-comer the bee. And she makes the case that they hold hidden treasures of relevance to human culture, survival and health, and one species even taught us how to make paper.Producer: Katy Hickman

Every moment of the day tiny biological clocks are ticking throughout the body, but Russell Foster, world-renowned expert in circadian neuroscience, warns that modern life is playing havoc with these ancient and delicate mechanisms. In his latest book, Life Time: The New Science Of The Body Clock And How It Can Revolutionise Your Sleep and Health, Professor Foster reveals how this essential part of our biology works. He tells Tom Sutcliffe how new understandings about our daily routines could help reset how we live and sleep.ViSiBLE is a professional theatre company dedicated to creating new and provocative works, with and about older people. Its latest performance, Five Characters in Search of a Good Night's Sleep, is at the Southwark Playhouse until 21st May. ViSiBLE’s founder, the playwright Sonja Linden, says the new piece was inspired by the experiences of the actors who as they’ve aged have found sleep more elusive and sleep-inducing techniques more desperate. Ros Holmes is a lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of St Andrews. Her research focuses on ideas about sleep and insomnia, and how they’ve been represented in the visual culture of twentieth century and contemporary China. From the images of ‘national awakening’ in the early years of the Republic and the always-alert workers of the Cultural Revolution to the cities that never sleep today – sleep deprivation has become part of life in China.Producer: Katy HickmanPhoto Image: 'Five Characters in Search of a Good Night's Sleep' (credit: Bessell Photography)

The Syrian architect Marwa al-Sabouni is the Guest Co-Director of this year’s Brighton Festival and her flagship project The Riwaq on Hove seafront provides a space for social and artistic exchange. Rebuilding is the festival’s theme and the subject of her latest book, Building for Hope – Towards an Architecture of Belonging which explores how cities can be rebuilt after crisis and war. She tells Helen Lewis that architecture has a pivotal role in generating community, not just in devastated cities, but all around the world. Dame Jo da Silva is an engineer at the building firm Arup who specialises in disaster relief. After years spent realising the high designs of architects for everything from airports to bus shelters, she became involved in projects to rebuild communities hit by catastrophes. As urbanisation reaches record levels globally she argues that it’s more important than ever to build in sustainability and resilience. The historian Jessie Childs focuses her story of the violence and disaster of the English civil war on The Siege of Loyalty House in the 1640s. To the parliamentarians Basing House, the royalist stronghold, was the devil’s seat. Over two years, the inhabitants were bombarded, starved and gassed from the outside, and faced smallpox, spies and mutiny from within.Producer: Katy Hickman

Wonder at the natural world has inspired people and fuelled curiosity for millennia. The ancient Greek Theophrastus had interests that spread far and wide, from biology and physics to ethics and metaphysics. But although he was Aristotle’s friend and collaborator, and his notes on botany inspired Linnaeus, his name has mostly been forgotten. The writer Laura Beatty’s new book, Looking for Theophrastus, aims to rescue him from obscurity. The scientist, Suzie Sheehy, still feels a childlike wonder at the way physics seems to be able to describe everything – from the smallest subatomic particle to the scale of the Universe. In The Matter of Everything: Twelve Experiments That Changed Our World, she looks back at the people who engineered ground-breaking experiments, and the human ingenuity, creativity and curiosity, as well as luck and serendipity that propelled them forward.While physicists attempt to describe and define the universe, the workings of the human mind still remain a challenge to scientists and philosophers. In The Book of Minds, the science writer Philip Ball looks at what we know about the minds of other creatures, from octopuses to chimpanzees, and of the workings of computers and alien intelligences. By understanding how minds differ, he argues, the better we can understand our own.Producer: Katy Hickman

In The Age of the Strongman, the journalist Gideon Rachman explores how populist and authoritarian leaders have become a central feature of global politics. Since Vladimir Putin took power in Russia at the beginning of the new millennium, self-styled strongmen have emerged across the globe, from Trump and Bolsonaro to Orbán, Xi and Modi. Rachman tells Tom Sutcliffe how these leaders have taken power and the challenge they pose to liberal democracy. Judy Dempsey is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and editor in chief of the Strategic Europe blog. She explains how Viktor Orbán has tightened his grip on power in Hungary, while the EU has dragged its heels. And how Putin’s war in Ukraine has not only exacerbated pre-existing global divisions but divided Europe as well. History is littered with powerful leaders, and Christopher de Bellaigue, tells of the rise of one of the most feared – Suleyman the Magnificent. In The Lion House: The Coming of a King the 16th century Ottoman Sultan dominates the lives of those from Baghdad to the walls of Vienna.Producer: Katy Hickman

The new novel, Glory, by prize winning writing NoViolet Bulawayo is a postcolonial tale of power and tyranny – an African Animal Farm. It’s set in the fictional Jidada, that resembles Zimbabwe during the overthrow of Robert Mugabe, and is populated by a vivid cast of animals – from the vicious dog-soldiers to the powerful Old Horse leader himself. She tells Adam Rutherford how her chorus of animal voices help reveal the human world more clearly. The journalist Dipo Faloyin wants to push against harmful stereotypes of modern Africa. In his latest book, Africa Is Not A Country, he argues that a continent of over 1.4 billion people, 54 countries and more than 2,000 languages has been reduced to a simplistic story. He looks at how politics, culture and community have emerged in different ways across Africa.Julia Gallagher is Professor of African Politics at SOAS, University of London. Her research explores the architecture of state buildings in different African countries – from the re-purposed colonial structures to the new palatial palaces of post-independence – and how citizens respond to them. Also as the African Union celebrates twenty years since it was founded – housed in a new compound built by the Chinese in Addis Ababa – she looks at the position of the AU in the 21st century. Producer: Katy HickmanImage: photograph of NoViolet Bulawayo - copyright Nye' Lyn Tho

"Stand still, and I will read to thee / A lecture, love, in love's philosophy." John Donne is one of the greatest love poets in the history of the English language. In a new biography, Super-Infinite, Katherine Rundell reveals the many transformations in his life – from scholar to sea adventurer to priest. She also tells Kirsty Wark of his extraordinary ability to transform language into something new. Copies of his Metaphysical Poems will be well-thumbed by students around the country. But what of the power of books in general? In Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers, Emma Smith presents an iconoclastic and revisionist story of our love affair with books. Megan Walsh meanwhile has been looking at contemporary Chinese literature. The Subplot: What China is Reading and Why it Matters, reveals the huge appetite for books and the wonderful diversity of Chinese writing – from migrant-worker poetry movements and homoerotic romances to surreal stories and sci-fi.Producer: Katy Hickman

The picture of a lone figure, plastic bags in hand, standing in front of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square in China in 1989 has become an iconic image of resistance to overpowering might. As Russian tanks have crossed into Ukraine, individuals have put themselves in similar positions to halt the advance. But what about in Russia itself. Arkady Ostrovksy is Russia and eastern Europe editor for The Economist. He tells Tom Sutcliffe about the thousands who have been arrested protesting against the war, and President Putin’s measures to quash any dissent. In Resistance: The Underground War in Europe, 1939-45, Halik Kochanski has written a sweeping history of occupation and resistance. She uncovers extraordinary tales of ordinary people who carried out exceptional acts of defiance against Nazi Germany. But she also challenges the heroic myths that surround underground resistance, and asks painful questions about why people didn’t resist, and equally what was actually achieved by those that did. Nathan Law was one of the student leaders whose week-long class boycott against China’s increasing interference in Hong Kong led to the 79-day Umbrella Movement protest in 2014. In Freedom: How We Lose It And How We Fight Back he argues for the importance of standing up to authoritarianism around the world, despite the dangers. He left Hong Kong as the Chinese government enacted wide-ranging security laws, and has since been granted political asylum in Britain.Producer: Katy HickmanImage: People participate in a Unity March to show solidarity and patriotic spirit over the escalating tensions with Russia on February 12, 2022 in Kiev, Ukraine.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine images of war in Europe dominate the news, and questions rage about the political failure to both prevent and end the atrocities. Amol Rajan discusses the political forces that have allowed the West to flourish and the cracks that are beginning to widen. Developed in the wake of European wars of religion and nationalism, Liberalism was designed as a system to govern diverse societies, with a strong emphasis on the rights of individuals, equality and the rule of law. In Liberalism and Its Discontents Francis Fukuyama argues for a return to its classical form but shows how attacks from both the left and right have left it in a state of crisis.Europe’s dependence on Russian oil is central to Helen Thompson’s book, Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century. She looks back at the historical origins of today’s overlapping geopolitical, economic and political failures.Shifts in the global balance of power in the 19th century between Old Europe and the New World of American Imperialism are at the heart of Edward Shawcross’s extraordinary tale. He describes the ignoble end of a Habsburg Archduke, aided by Napoleon III, who crossed the world to become The Last Emperor of Mexico.Producer: Katy HickmanImage credit: Francis Fukuyama – © Djurdja Padejski

In May Wales will hold local elections to elect members of all twenty-two local authorities. Richard Wyn Jones, professor of Welsh politics, examines the issues facing the country. He tells Helen Lewis how nationalism plays an important role in politics in Wales, but that its national identity is a complex mix of Welsh, English and British. What does it meant to be Welsh today? And what of the future of Wales? These are the questions posed in a series of essays, Welsh [Plural]. The poet Hanan Issa is one of the co-editors, and is looking to get beyond the stereotype images of castles, coal and choirs, and understand the full rich diversity of Welsh identities.The historian Dr Marion Loeffler explores how pivotal works of art and literature have helped shape Wales. In a landmark BBC series, Art That Made Us (on BBC2 in April) she looks back to the 7th century poem Y Gododdin and the painter Penry Williams’ depiction of Cyfarthfa Ironworks Interior at Night, 1825. Wales’s industrial landscape is at the centre of Richard King’s oral history, Brittle With Relics, which focuses on the huge changes that took place during the second half of the 20th century. The story of the effects of deindustrialisation, loss of employment and social cohesion, as well as the fight for a voice, language and identity, is told through the people who lived through it.Producer: Katy HickmanImage credit: BBC ClearStory - Artist and Performer Sean Parry with a byddar drum

Humans have been fascinated with birdlife since the first cave drawings 12,000 years ago. In Birds and Us, Tim Birkhead explores how birds have captured our imaginations and inspired both art and science. He looks back to the mummified ibises of Ancient Egypt and the Victorian obsessions with egg collecting, to today’s bustling guillemot colonies on the Faroe Islands and the fight to save endangered species. Around 1820 John James Audubon declared his intention to paint every bird species in North America. The result was the hugely ambitious Birds of America featuring 435 life-size, hand-coloured prints. The National Museum of Scotland is currently exhibiting several of his original unbound prints, and the curator Mark Glancy tells the story of this controversial figure who shot thousands of birds in his pursuit of the perfect pose and specimen, but also had a unique eye for their beauty. Alison Richard has spent five decades investigating one of the most extraordinarily diverse places on earth – Madagascar. She recreates the island of the past with its towering flightless Elephant birds and giant tortoises. Her latest book, The Sloth Lemur’s Song captures the magic and mystery of Madagascar today, but also serves as a warning at what could lie ahead for its unique wildlife.Producer: Katy HickmanImage Credit: Detail from a print depicting Carolina Pigeons or Turtle Doves from Birds of America by John James Audubon © National Museums Scotland.jpg

New York, 1984: the iconic artist Andy Warhol meets the rising star Jean-Michel Basquiat. Their relationship as they work together on a landmark exhibition is at the heart of the world premiere of Anthony McCarten’s new drama, The Collaboration, at the Young Vic theatre. The director Kwame Kwei-Armah tells Kirsty Wark how the drama pulls apart the creative, racial and sexual tensions between the two, and explores artistic reputations and rivalries. The artist Louise Bourgeois was already in her 70s in the 1980s and slowly getting the attention she deserved. An exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London focuses on the decades that followed as she had a late burst of creativity using fabric and textiles. The curator of Woven Child Ralph Rugoff explains how the artist began to incorporate clothes from all stages of her life into her art, mining themes of personal trauma, memory, identity and reparation.The Somali-British poet Warsan Shire has been hailed as the voice of a generation, who has collaborated with the superstar Beyoncé. Her debut collection, Bless The Daughter: Raised By A Voice In Her Head is full of sounds and smells, exploring the lives of refugees and the relationship between mothers and daughters. While she is celebrated as an exciting poet of our time, Shire says she looks to Somalia’s literary heritage for inspiration. Producer: Katy HickmanPhoto credit: Jeremy Pope and Paul Bettany in 'Collaboration' (c) Marc Brenner. Concept and design by Émilie Chen.

The historian Peter Hennessy asks whether post-Covid Britain needs to set out a new social contract, comparable to the Beveridge report after WWII. In A Duty of Care, he looks back to the foundations of the modern welfare state and the ‘five giants’ against which society had to battle – want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. He tells Helen Lewis that after the effects of the pandemic, it’s time to be ambitious and try and work together to tackle today’s comparable giants. In a damning report commissioned by the NHS Race and Health Observatory earlier this month, it was revealed that minority ethnic patients suffered overwhelming inequalities. If a new Beveridge is to be conceived diversity will need to be at its heart, but the anthropologist Farhan Samanani is concerned that increasingly ‘difference’ is being seen as a threat to societal cohesion. He has undertaken field research in the north London area of Kilburn – one of the most diverse in the UK. In How To Live With Each Other he explores the capacity of people to connect across divides and cultivate common ground.While post-war governments looked to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and create a new welfare state in the aftermath of the trauma of war, the arts and education in Britain were also viewed as vital to the economy and to reuniting the nation. Jane Alison is the curator of the Barbican’s new exhibition, Postwar Modern: New Art in Britain, 1945–1965 (opening on 3rd March). She says that artists at the time – both home grown and refugees – sought to find meaning and purpose in a changed world. And she argues that artists today are asking similar probing questions about what kind of society we want and need. Producer: Katy HickmanImage credit: Eva Frankfurther, West Indian Waitresses, c.1955 Ben Uri Collection, presented by the artist’s sister, Beate Planskoy, 2015,© The Estate of Eva Frankfurther, photograph by Justin P (from the exhibition, 'Postwar Modern: New Art in Britain 1945-1965' Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK)

The Sassoons were one of the great commercial dynasties of the 19th century: ‘the Rothschilds of the East’. In Global Merchants the historian Joseph Sassoon charts how his ancestors – Jewish refugee exiles from Ottoman Baghdad – built a vast enterprise of trade and influence across the world. He tells Tom Sutcliffe how their meteoric rise and ultimate fall mirrored the British imperial project.At the height of their ambition the Sassoons led an extravagant lifestyle, but never quite overcame their origins to be accepted in upper class society in the West. Money, power, class and caste are at the centre of Pankaj Mishra’s new novel, Run and Hide. The heroes of his story are lower class Indians determined to succeed – at a time when success is counted in private jets and lavish parties, and failure leads to a global financial scandal.The Head of Economics at the Open University, Professor Susan Newman, provided expert advice for the recent BBC 2 series, The Decade the Rich Won: Stories of power and influence, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. In her studies she’s interested in the question of how wealth is accumulated today, the impact of globalisation on national decision-making, and growing inequality. Producer: Katy Hickman

Stonehenge is one of Britain’s most iconic monuments: an ancient stone circle still shrouded in layers of speculation and folklore. A new exhibition at the British Museum looks at the human story behind the stones, and offers new insights into the beliefs, rituals and worldview of our Neolithic ancestors. The curator Neil Wilkin tells Adam Rutherford about one of the objects on show – the metal Nebra Sky Disc – which is the world’s oldest surviving map of the sky. The palaeobiologist Thomas Halliday looks even further back in deep time to reveal the Earth as it used to exist. In his new book Otherlands: A World in the Making he uses the latest technology and fossil records to examine ancient landscapes – from the mammoth steppe in Ice Age Alaska to the lush rainforests of Eocene Antarctica, with its colonies of giant penguins. While these distinct ecosystems appeared stable for millions of years, their disappearance is a reminder of the both the fragility and tenacity of the natural world.Change and survival are at the centre of the writer and ecologist, Rebecca Nesbit’s book, Tickets for the Ark. As the current rate of extinction starts to resemble the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, conservationists appear to be fighting a losing battle. Nesbit questions the motives behind what we fight to save, in an examination of what we should conserve and why.Producer: Katy Hickman

Forget the Victorians, the Georgian era is having its moment. Regencycore, a fashion style inspired by the Netflix period drama Bridgerton was shortlisted for Word of the Year 2021, and there will be more frocks and 18th century gossip when the television series returns in the Spring. In The Georgians the historian Penelope Corfield explores all aspects of 18th century life, from politics and empire to culture and society, science and industry. She tells Tom Sutcliffe that Britain at the time was often seen as both a sentimental and enlightened place, where frippery and satire sat side by side. Before the Industrial Revolution The Staffordshire potter Josiah Wedgwood exemplified the era’s entrepreneurial spirit. He was, according to Tristram Hunt’s biography, The Radical Potter, the Steve Jobs of the 18th century. His innovative designs and marketing strategies made his wares popular throughout the country and further afield, and he was instrumental in building the infrastructure to enable the region to flourish economically.What could today’s policies to ‘level up’ the regions learn from the 18th century, and Wedgwood’s championing of his home town. Professor Philip McCann is Chair in Urban and Regional Economics at the University of Sheffield. He argues that during the last century the system of localised finance was lost as the country became highly centralised. This has had a serious impact on poorer regions and smaller local firms, and today the UK has some of the worst regional inequality in the world.Producer: Katy Hickman / Natalia FernandezPhoto Credit: LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIX Bridgerton, Series 2 (L to R) Bessie Carter as Prudence Featherington, Polly Walker as Lady Portia Featherington, Harriet Cains as Philip

The award-winning poet Fiona Benson retells the Greek myth of the Minotaur, upending the legend of the dashing male hero slaying the monster in the labyrinth. In a series of poems in her new collection Ephemeron we hear from the bull-child’s mother – the betrayed and violated Pasiphae. Benson tells Helen Lewis she wanted to explore male and female desire, and the extraordinary cycles of violence and abuse of power in the Greek myths.The cultural historian Ivan Jablonka has taken his native France by storm with his history of Masculinity – From Patriarchy to Gender Justice, translated by Nathan Bracher. In it he asks what it means to be a good man? Using examples from the past he explores the origins and structure of male dominance. He argues that it’s time that men took more responsibility and fought harder for genuine equality. The political philosopher Nina Power is more circumspect about the demonisation of men, which she believes is now rampant in today’s society. In What Do Men Want, Power looks at what happens when men feel beleaguered and retreat to the ‘manosphere’, and she explores ways in which men and women can live together more harmoniously. The number of people living alone has increased over the last decade, but it’s still a path that goes against what society expects, according to the entrepreneur and Founder of the lifestyle magazine, About Time, Angelica Malin. She became single at the beginning of lockdown and has now brought together 30 women to explore what single womanhood means in the modern age, in Unattached. Producer: Katy Hickman

Modernism is a cultural and philosophical movement that emerged in the West during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s a complex hydra-headed beast that was pervasive in the arts, but also spread through modern industrial societies influencing architecture and science. As part of a series of programmes on BBC Radio 3 and 4 celebrating modernism, Kirsty Wark presents an introduction to modernism – how and why did it arise at this time, and its legacy today. She is joined by the cultural historian Matthew Sweet who is presenting a 10-part series for BBC Radio 4 on a crucial year for modernism: 1922 – The Birth of Now. Suzanne Hobson, from Queen Mary University of London, is an expert on modernist literature, and examines the defining characteristics of the genre, while the musician Soweto Kinch discusses the impact of modernism on music, especially the development of jazz, and how it plays out today. While innovations in the arts including stream of consciousness, atonal music and abstract art are the headline acts for modernism the academic Charlotte Sleigh looks more closely at what was happening in the sciences, and how innovations in physics, psychology and technology changed the way people experienced the world. Producer: Katy HickmanImage: Modulor le Corbusier. Cover template.

Are we heading into an era of unending low-level conflict, of foreign interference and buying of influence? In The Weaponisation of Everything, the security expert Mark Galeotti argues that traditional warfare is on the wane, replaced by hybrid wars, disinformation, espionage and subversion. He tells Adam Rutherford that this 21st century way of war often goes unnoticed and can be dangerously destabilising, but it also offers opportunities for those who are able to take full advantage of this new armoury. The political philosopher Cécile Fabre explores the ethics of espionage and counterintelligence. In Spying Through a Glass Darkly she looks to answer a fundamental question: when is spying justified? In the context of war and foreign policy what actions are morally justified, and when? Fabre brings together philosophical arguments and historical examples to study the moral justification of state blackmail, mass surveillance, treason and bribery.How far are the subversive techniques discussed uniquely human? It’s a question the primatologist Kirsty Graham considers as she studies the way bonobos and chimpanzees communicate in the field. Her research has shown that both groups share not only the physical form of the gestures but many of the same meanings. Producer: Katy Hickman

The historian, writer and former politician Michael Ignatieff talks to Tom Sutcliffe about how consolation offers a way to survive the anguish and uncertainties of the 21st century. In his new book, On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times, he looks at how works of literature – from the Psalms to Albert Camus and Anna Akhmatova – help increase hope and resilience. On Consolation will be Radio 4's Book of the Week from February 7th. Christopher Prendergast’s Living and Dying with Marcel Proust is the result of a lifetime’s reading of Proust’s masterpiece A la Récherche du Temps Perdu. It serves as a guide to readers embarking on Proust’s colossal work, highlighting the author’s many obsessions, from insomnia and food to memory, humour and colour.The London Literary Salon is a community built around the study of literature and ideas, with its mantra: ‘opening books, meeting minds, creating community’. During the pandemic its founder and director Toby Brothers broadened its reach, welcoming people into the salon from all over the world.Producer: Katy Hickman

Andrew Marr talks to two of the leading scientists who were at the forefront of research into fighting the spread of Covid-19. Professor Teresa Lambe was one of the Principal Investigators overseeing the Oxford/ AstraZeneca vaccine programme. She co-designed the vaccine and led the pre-clinical studies, as well overseeing the impact on immunity. She will be taking part in this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (to be aired on BBC 4 at 8pm on 28th, 29th and 30th December), alongside Professor Catherine Noakes. As an engineer Noakes is one of a tiny number of specialists worldwide who study ventilation and the spread of airborne diseases. From the beginning of the pandemic she has been instrumental in providing advice on how the virus transmits and the best strategies to control its spread.Covid-19 is a respiratory disease and one of the books on this year’s Royal Society prize shortlist is at the centre of revived interest in how we breathe. James Nestor argues, in his book Breath, that humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with damaging consequences that reach beyond snoring, asthma and allergies. Drawing on ancient wisdom and the latest scientific studies Nestor highlights the huge benefits from breathing through your nose, rather than your mouth.Producer: Katy HickmanPhoto: Professor Catherine Noakes doing a demonstration at the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures 2021

The internationally renowned cellist Steven Isserlis talks to Andrew Marr about his companion guide to The Bach Cello Suites. Isserlis explores why Bach’s Six Suites have become some of the most cherished music, and how Bach takes the audience on a spiritual journey, from joy, through tragedy, to jubilation.Schubert’s heart-breaking song-cycle Winterreise tells of a young man’s desperate wanderings: the music and the poems creating images of fire and snow, of scalding and frozen tears. The baritone Benjamin Appl, accompanied by James Baillieu, stars in a new BBC film, Winter Journey, filmed in a tower on the snow-covered summit of the Julierpass in south-east Switzerland. An album of the music will be released in February.The composer and pianist Kate Whitley is also interested in the importance of place in music. But she has taken a different tack, eschewing the often rarefied atmosphere of concert halls, for the concrete heart of city centres. She runs The Multi-Storey Orchestra which performs in car parks around the UK.Producer: Katy HickmanPhoto copyright: Satoshi Aoyagi

What if virtual worlds become indistinguishable from the real one? In 1999 the science fiction film, The Matrix, depicted a dystopian future in which people are unknowingly trapped inside a simulated reality, run by intelligent machines. As the fourth film, The Matrix Resurrections, is about to be released, the writer Naomi Alderman considers the influence this movie franchise has had in the last two decades, and how far virtual reality has become part of everyday life. The philosopher, David J Chalmers, proposes that the Matrix scenario could be the future, but that rather than trapped, humanity can lead a meaningful life in virtual reality. Chalmers is one of the leading thinkers on consciousness. In his latest book, Reality+ he provocatively argues that VR is not escapism. And that we may even be living in a computer simulation already – and if that is true, it’s not so bad.Philippa Garety is Professor of Clinical Psychology at Kings College London and has been at the forefront of treatments for problems associated with psychosis, including hearing voices and hallucinations. She is currently working on innovative treatments using digital technology, including avatars and virtual reality, to alleviate suffering. In a clinical setting VR can be managed as a safe environment for patients who struggle in the real world, as a place they can confront and understand their delusions. Producer: Katy HickmanPhoto Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. PicturesCaption: (L-r) CARRIE-ANNE MOSS as Trinity and KEANU REEVES as Neo/Thomas Anderson in Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures and Venus Castina Productions’ “THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.

The acclaimed actor Kathryn Hunter plays all three witches in the forthcoming Hollywood adaptation of The Tragedy of Macbeth. The film is directed by Joel Coen and starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand as the central couple. Hunter tells Andrew Marr that she studied the witch hunts of the 17th century and was inspired by the ‘outcast women’ who survived and suffered. Her performance is rooted in something real, but also hints at something created in the mind of Macbeth. Claire Askew’s latest collection of poems, How To Burn A Woman, is a cauldron full of spells, power and love. It’s peopled with witches, outsiders, and women who stand out. It too traces historic atrocities and celebrates the lives of those accused of witchcraft. But it also looks at contemporary relationships, of love bordering on infatuation, and the feelings of loss, bitterness and isolation at the end of an affair.When peculiar things begin to happen in the frontier town of Springfield, Massachusetts in 1651, tensions rise and rumours spread of witches and heretics. What follows is a web of spite, paranoia and denunciation – a far cry from the English settlers’ dreams of love and liberty at the dawn of the New World. The historian Malcolm Gaskill retells this dark, real-life folktale of witch-hunting in The Ruin Of All Witches.Producer: Katy Hickman(Image: Kathryn Hunter as one of the witches in The Tragedy of Macbeth, courtesy of Apple TV+)

Is it possible to ‘level up’ the economy and help struggling places halt decline and become more prosperous? Paul Swinney is Director of Policy and Research at the think tank Centre for Cities and his research focuses on city economies and their development over time. He considers what strategies might be implemented to support declining town and city centres and if the government’s Levelling Up agenda is likely to deliver concrete results.The prize-winning poet Paul Batchelor was born in Northumberland and often explores the lost worlds of Britain’s mining communities, and the memories that have survived. The title of his new collection, The Acts of Oblivion, refers to seventeenth-century laws that required not only the pardon of revolutionary deeds, but also made discussing them illegal. His poems rebel against such restrictions, and against forgetting. In the forest landscape of northern Varmland in Sweden lies the village of Osebol. In just five decades, the automation of the lumber industry and the draw of city-living, has seen the adult population dwindling to a mere 40 residents. Marit Kapla grew up there, and in Osebol: Voices from a Swedish Village she has returned and gathered the stories of all the inhabitants – from those whose families have lived there for generations, to the more recent arrivals. They tell of their griefs and joys, resentments and pleasures, and despite the village’s decline, life goes on.Producer: Katy Hickman

Pentecostalism is global sensation: a Christian movement, founded at the turn of the 20th century by the son of freed slaves, that has become the fastest-growing religion in the world. Elle Hardy explains to Andrew Marr how this flourishing, tech-savvy movement is reshaping not only the expression of faith and one’s relationship with God, but whole societies as well. In her exposé, Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over The World, Hardy explores how miracles, money and power have become intertwined, but also how the movement has brought meaning and community to many of the most marginalised and rootless worldwide.In the Middle East there are some of the oldest continuous Christian communities, going back 2,000 years. But in The Vanishing, the award-winning journalist Janine di Giovanni paints a portrait of faith communities in serious decline. With threats of war, religious persecution and economic uncertainty, their futures are in doubt. But amongst the stories of attacks on churches and political harassment, di Giovanni reveals glimmers of hope and resilience in Christian communities across Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Gaza.In her roles as Canon of Westminster and Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons the Reverend Tricia Hillas is situated at the spiritual heart of political power. She reflects on the continuing importance of faith in modern society and the issues facing the Church of England today. With congregation numbers in steep decline, in what ways can the Church spread its appeal, diversify and attract the younger generation?Producer: Katy Hickman

The Nobel prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa’s latest novel revolves around the lies, schemes and vested interests that infected the development of Latin America. In Harsh Times (translated by Adrian Nathan West) a CIA-supported military coup topples the government of Guatemala, but the idea that the country was a Soviet satellite is shown up as manipulated fiction. Llosa tells Tom Sutcliffe about the murky tales of Cold War conspiracies that dominated at the time, and their legacy today. Natalia Sobrevilla Perea is Professor of Latin American History at the University of Kent and looks at the impact of the Cold War proxy battles on countries like Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala and El Salvador. She highlights the power of the drug barons and the current Peruvian government’s war on corruption. Her research focuses on how historical events have set the stage for contemporary debates about how Andean nations should be governed and how to define citizenship.But what of the land before outside interference? Peru: a journey in time is the latest exhibition at the British Museum and showcases the civilisations and societies that rose and fell in the remarkable landscapes of the Andes mountains. On display will be objects from the early culture of Chavin in 1200 BC to the Incas in the 16th century. The co-curator Jago Cooper says the ancient Peruvian societies had their unique approaches to economy, gender, power and beliefs, and they thrived against the odds up until the Inca conquest by the Spanish.(Image: Funerary mask - Peru, Moche, AD 100–800. Museo de Arte de Lima. Donated by James Reid.)Producer: Katy Hickman

At times it can feel as though we’re in the middle of a generational war, with the baby boomers battling the much maligned post-millennials. But in Generations the Director of The Policy Institute at King’s College London, Bobby Duffy explores just how far when we’re born determines our attitudes to money, sex, politics and much else. He tells Andrew Marr how the data from more than 40 countries unravels many of our preconceptions. Born since the mid-1990s, Generation Z is the first age group never to know the world without the internet. It is also the generation most often pilloried in the press as replete with woke snowflakes, obsessed by identity. But the linguist Sarah Ogilvie believes that young people have much to teach about how to live in the digital world. She is the co-author of GenZ, Explained which seeks to draw a more optimistic and nuanced portrait of this generation, and delves into their specific cultural language. Olivia Yallop is young enough to be part of the digital generation and in Break the Internet she explores the royalty of the attention economy, influencers (such as Molly-Mae Hague, pictured above). In the new media landscape online celebrities dominate and their value is estimated in billions of pounds. Yallop traces how online personas are built, uncovering what it is really like to live a branded life and trade in a ‘social stock market’.Producer: Katy Hickman(Photo image: Molly-Mae Hague, Creative Director at Pretty Little Thing and Influencer)

The internationally-renowned artist Ai Weiwei explores the origins of his creativity and political beliefs through his own life story and that of his father. In 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, translated by Alan H. Barr, he looks back at the blighted life of his father Ai Qing, once China’s most celebrated poet before he was banished during the Cultural Revolution. Ai Weiwei tells Tom Sutcliffe about his own journey to becoming an artist and how his work has been shaped by living under a totalitarian regime.The Professor of Political Theory, Lea Ypi, understands only too well growing up in a repressive Communist state – she was born in Albania, the last Stalinist outpost in Europe. In her memoir, Free: Coming of Age at the End of History she describes how the isolated world of her childhood was swept away. But also how the promised freedoms after the fall of the Berlin Wall quickly turned sour. The pianist Kirill Gerstein was born in the former Soviet Union, but is now an American citizen based in Berlin. His career and musical heritage is similarly international, and he plays all around the world. Gerstein considers what creative freedom has meant to some of his favourite composers – from Viktor Ullmann to Shostakovich – who produced great art during times of intense political upheaval.Producer: Katy Hickman Photo credit: Ai Weiwei studio

‘Outside my work the thing I care most about is gardening’, wrote George Orwell in 1940. In Orwell’s Roses Rebecca Solnit explores how the writer’s love for growing things, especially flowers, seeps into his work. She reflects on how he uses pleasure, beauty and joy as powerful acts of resistance. And how far these can counter the political and environmental challenges we face today.The father of science fiction, H.G. Wells was also driven by a desire to reform the society he lived in at the turn of the 20th century. The biographer Claire Tomalin brings to life his early years in The Young H.G. Wells: Changing the World. He was born into poverty and achieved international fame, but never lost his boundless curiosity for the world around him, and the possibilities of science to change it.The journalist Peter Hetherington asks why land reform is not higher on the government’s agenda. In Land Renewed he looks at the competing elements in the reshaping of the countryside and aiding nature’s recovery, including protecting valuable farmland, encouraging more local food production, re-wilding and ‘re-peopling’ remote places. But he argues it needs a wider vision to re-work the countryside for the benefit of all.Producer: Katy Hickman

In his new book, Rationality, the experimental psychologist Steven Pinker argues that human beings have the power to think, act and behave rationally, if given the right tools to do so. He asks why rationality so often plays second fiddle to opinion, bias and prejudice. And he believes that in order to ensure our survival as a species we need to learn how to apply rational thought to our daily lives.Our attitudes towards sexual desire may not always be regarded as rational. Amia Srinivasan is Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford University and in ‘The Right to Sex’ she considers this universal topic from a modern feminist perspective – a collision of pleasure, ethics and gender politics.If physical relationships are often the result of irrational decisions, then the belief in ghosts takes the human scope for irrationality to a whole new level. In The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies, British Museum curator Irving Finkel goes right back to the beginning and shows how the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians believed in the spirit world and considers why this enduring belief in ghosts is something that spans diverse cultures and historical periods.Producer: Natalia Fernandez

‘Devil-Land’ – that was how foreign observers viewed England in the 17th century: a ‘failed state’ torn apart by seditious rebellion, religious extremism and royal collapse. The historian Clare Jackson recounts this stormy and radical era through the eyes of outsiders across the Channel. But she tells Andrew Marr that the country’s turbulence also bred great creativity and curiosity about the wider world.The Anglo-French journalist Benedicte Paviot is the UK correspondent of France 24. She explores how the French view Britain today. From Brexit to the government’s pursuit of ‘Global Britain’ and the new Australia/UK/US defence pact, contemporary French neighbours often look on with hostility and bemusement. Fintan O’Toole is an Irish journalist and polemicist who has spent much of his career commenting on Britain from the other side of the water. But in his latest book, We Don’t Know Ourselves, he turns his attention to Ireland since his birth in 1958. It’s another story of great turbulence and rebellion, from underdevelopment, domination by the Church and a sectarian civil war in the North, to struggles for intellectual, civil and sexual freedoms. Producer: Katy Hickman

What does the face of power look like? It’s a question the academic Mary Beard explores in her latest book, Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern. She tells Kirsty Wark how the depiction of Roman autocrats have influenced art, culture and the presentation of power for more than two thousand years. King George III was condemned in the 18th century as ‘the cruellest tyrant of his age’ and depicted as a diminutive and pompous figure in the 21st century musical, Hamilton. These are images the historian Andrew Roberts seeks to counter in his new biography of the King. His revisionist account argues that far from being a tyrant or incompetent he was one of the country’s most admirable monarchs. Modern political leaders are no strangers to the importance of public image. As the Conservative government holds its party political conference in Manchester the political commentator and sometime-stand-up comedian Ayesha Hazarika looks at how leaders of different parties have tried to stage manage their hold on power.Producer: Katy Hickman

The prize-winning author Colm Tóibín recreates the life and work of one of Germany’s most famous and acclaimed writers Thomas Mann. The Magician is a deeply intimate portrait of a private man, revealing both his suppressed homosexuality and complex family ties, and of a public writer who sought to explicate the soul of Germany in the 20th century.When Hitler came to power Thomas Mann fled his homeland and went into exile in America, and in Switzerland, never to return to live in the country that inspired his creativity. Karen Leeder, Professor of Modern German Literature at Oxford, considers how German writers have become embroiled in the major events of history, and the impact on their writing. She has translated the lectures of the poet Durs Grünbein, For the Dying Calves, to be published in November.Mann’s novel Buddenbrooks, which earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature, is the story of the decline of a wealthy bourgeois merchant family. As a family saga it’s been likened to Jesse Armstrong’s 21st century creation, Succession. As the television drama reaches its third series Armstrong explains why the back-stabbing, power-grabbing antics of a superrich, dysfunctional family has so caught the public imagination. Producer: Katy Hickman

Richard Powers’s prize-winning Overstory was an impassioned evocation of the natural world and a call to arms to save it. In his latest novel, Bewilderment, a father and son navigate a world seemingly bent on destruction. Powers tells Andrew Marr how the father, an astrobiologist, models planets in far away galaxies searching for life, while his nature-loving 9 year old struggles to understand why earth’s life forms are so thoughtlessly destroyed. Mya-Rose Craig, aka ‘birdgirl’, is a young British-Bangladeshi ornithologist and activist. From a deep love of bird watching she has gone on to become a prominent environmentalist. In ‘We Have A Dream’ she speaks to 30 young indigenous people of colour to find out how their environments have been affected by climate change, and why young people are so involved in protecting the natural world. The journalist Simon Mundy argues that climate change is affecting more than just the environment: everything from energy, farming, technology and business, as well as migration. In Race for Tomorrow, Mundy has travelled the world talking to the people at the front line of this transformation, from those battling to survive the worst impacts, to those eager to reap the financial rewards.Producer: Katy Hickman

The neuroscientist Anil Seth is a leading researcher into consciousness. In his book, Being You, he explores why we experience life in the first person. He tells Tom Sutcliffe how our perceptual experiences are less a reflection of an objective external reality, and more a kind of controlled hallucination. He argues that perception is a brain-based ‘best guess’ – including our core sense of self – designed by evolution to keep the body alive.Tiffany Watt Smith is interested in how the individual self can feel swept up and subsumed in crowds, and the tension between ‘feeling yourself’ and ‘losing yourself’. This has taken on added significance during a pandemic when collective experience has become tinged with anxiety. As Director of the Centre of the History of Emotions at Queen Mary University of London, she has also looked at how far being able to name an emotion makes it more real.Emotional turmoil, from revenge to love, are writ large in Rigoletto – the season opener at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. It’s the first production by the company’s Director, Oliver Mears, and the first new show since the opera house closed because of Covid-19. Mears sees Verdi’s masterpiece as a modern morality play that pits power against innocence, in a pitiless world of decadence, corruption and decay.Producer: Katy Hickman(Photo: Gilda) Lisette Oropesa (c) ROH 2021. Rigoletto Studio Rehearsal. Photograph by Ellie Kurttz.)

Ali Smith talks to Andrew Marr about Summer, the finale to her ambitious, ground-breaking Seasonal quartet of novels. Since 2016, the prize-winning writer has been working on a cycle of novels that not only explore the changing seasons, but reflect the times we are living in. With the tightest turnaround from manuscript to book, Smith’s ambition was to create real contemporaneous ‘state of the nation’ works. She reflects on a country voting on its future, people and families on the brink of change, and now living through a pandemic, while also understanding how art, nature and landscape speak of a deeper truth.Producer: Katy Hickman Photograph by Sarah Wood

Scotland’s former National Poet Jackie Kay celebrates the tempestuous life of the great blues singer, Bessie Smith. Born in Tennessee in 1894 Bessie was a street singer before she made it big at a time of racial violence and segregation. Jackie Kay remembers growing up as a young black girl in Glasgow and she tells Kirsty Wark how she idolised this iconic singer. In Time’s Witness the historian Rosemary Hill explores the historical shift in focus from the grand sweeping narratives of kings and statesmen to a new interest in the lives of ordinary people. She argues that the turn of the 19th century and the age of the Romantics ushered in a more vibrant and serious debate about the importance of oral history, clothes, music, food and art.The artist Michael Armitage is exhibiting his latest work at the Royal Academy in London until September. Born in Kenya in 1984 but based between Nairobi and London, Armitage is influenced by contemporary East African art and politics, as well as drawing on European art history from Titian to Gauguin. His exhibition Paradise Edict showcases 15 of his large scale works painted on lubugo bark cloth, a material traditionally made in Uganda.Producer: Katy Hickman

Love it or hate it, London dominates the UK politically, economically and culturally. It’s nearly 200 years since one critic famously described the capital as ‘the Great Wen’ a monstrous cyst sucking the life blood from the rest of the country. And for many that belief still stands. In The London Problem: What Britain Gets Wrong About Its Capital City the academic, and Londoner, Jack Brown untangles the complex strands of anti-London rhetoric, separating hyperbole from fact. In 2019 the former special advisor Dominic Cummings told journalists to ‘get out of London. Go and talk to people who are not rich Remainers’, feeding into another perception of the capital. But the city is far from homogenous: 40% of Londoners voted for Brexit, and the population is the most ethnically and religiously diverse and has the greatest levels of poverty, compared to the rest of the country. The writer Jennifer Kavanagh spent two years getting out and talking to people on the streets of London – from beggars, to stall owners, to entertainers to thieves. Let Me Take You By The Hand tells the stories in their own words, of those who work and live in the capital. The German composer George Frideric Handel moved to London in 1712 and made it his home. The countertenor Iestyn Davies celebrates Handel’s life in the capital, following his footsteps from his operatic triumphs in Covent Garden, past his local church in Hanover Square, to his Mayfair home. In Handel’s London Altos, at King’s Place on 24th June, Davies will perform a series of pieces showcasing his best work.Producer: Katy Hickman