On Start the Week Andrew Marr finds out if it's possible to create a world less impersonal and more equal. David Cameron's former senior adviser, Steve Hilton, believes our governments and institutions are too big, and he argues for a more human-focused society. The US economist Joseph Stiglitz tackles rising inequality in the West and blames the unjust and misguided priorities of neoliberalism. The Russian writer Masha Gessen looks at the struggle between assimilation and alienation as she asks...
May 18, 2015•42 min
On Start the Week Mariella Frostrup talks to the academic Hamid Dabashi about his critique of European intellectual heritage and identity. In his polemic Can Non-Europeans Think? Dabashi argues that those outside the West are often marginalised and mis-represented. Ancient Greece dominates the intellectual landscape in Europe and Edith Hall looks back to explore what made this civilisation so successful. The Greeks of Ancient Athens were always questioning their society and asking what makes peo...
May 11, 2015•42 min
Tom Sutcliffe talks to the Indian writer Vikram Seth about his latest collection of poetry, Summer Requiem, which traces the dying days of summer and is haunted by loss and decay. The cuckoo's song may celebrate the arrival of spring, but as Nick Davies explains the cuckoo is also a signal of doom, as he explores how cheating evolves and thrives in the natural world. The writer Olivia Laing finds inspiration in a murmuration of birds to ask questions about the beauty of patterns and freedom of m...
May 04, 2015•42 min
On Start the Week Anne McElvoy discusses our obsession with violence. The historian Richard Bessel explores its past ubiquity, but argues that our modern attitudes towards it have changed. There's little change in the attitudes towards women in the armed forces, according to a play by the academic Helen Benedict. Diana Preston sees history repeating itself as weapons of mass destruction continue to be used in much the same way as a century ago. For June Oscar, an Indigenous leader from North Wes...
Apr 27, 2015•42 min
On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe explores life in the oceans. The biologist Luke Rendell studies the evolution of social learning in whales and dolphins, and seeks to define their culture beneath the waves. The seahorse is a creature with a rich mythical history and is the subject of Andrew Motion's latest poem, while the biologist Helen Scales weaves science, natural history and culture in her story of the seashell. The biochemist Nick Lane looks back over 4 billion years to explain why life is ...
Apr 21, 2015•42 min
On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe asks whether altruism is best explained through evolutionary science or moral philosophy. David Sloan Wilson argues for the former and believes altruism is part of group dynamics and social behaviour. William MacAskill may study the moral case for doing good, but is more interested in the practical impact than the heroic sacrifice. The Mexican campaigner Lydia Cacho knows what it means to make enormous personal sacrifices for the sake of others - her exposure of s...
Apr 13, 2015•42 min
On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe talks to Adrienne Mayor about the Amazons, the legendary warrior women who glorified in fighting, hunting and sexual freedom. The Greeks described these wild barbarian archers, and Mayor reveals new archaeological discoveries which prove these women were not merely figments of their imagination. Five hundred years ago wolves roamed throughout Britain's wilderness and in her latest novel, The Wolf Border, Sarah Hall considers the possibility of re-wilding the count...
Apr 06, 2015•42 min
On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to Robert Douglas-Fairhurst about the life of Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has become an influential part of our cultural heritage but beneath the fairy tale lies the complex history of the author and his subject. Gillian Beer explores the links between Darwin and Carroll and the struggle to define and classify a changing world. The children's author Katherine Rundell enjoys the chaos and ambivalence in the Alice stories, and brings a sense ...
Mar 30, 2015•42 min
On Start the Week Susan Pinker argues that face-to-face contact increases longevity and reduces the risks of illness. She tells Anne McElvoy that although new technology connects more people, it can often leave us more disconnected. However the writer and gamer Nicholas Lovell explains that online gamers have their own sense of community. The philosopher Daniel Dennett considers whether it's possible to create a robot that can rival the human brain, and the poet Sam Riviere has used and manipula...
Mar 23, 2015•42 min
On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe discusses shame and betrayal. Jennifer Jacquet argues that modern-day shaming of corporations is a powerful tool to bring about change. However Jon Ronson believes too many lives have been devastated by public shaming and ridicule. Judas is a name synonymous with betrayal but Peter Stanford asks whether in the 21st century he has become the ultimate scapegoat? Arthur Miller's play All My Sons is a classic tale of family, loyalty, guilt, and betrayal and is brought...
Mar 16, 2015•42 min
On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe finds out what goes on inside the mind of a mathematician. Cédric Villani explains the obsession and inspiration which led him to being awarded the Fields Medal, 'the mathematicians' Nobel Prize' in 2010. Zia Haider Rahman combines pure maths, investment banking and human rights in his exploration of how abstract theory can impact on real life. Vicky Neale reveals the beauty of prime numbers, while the director Morgan Matthews finds love in his film x+y at the Int...
Mar 09, 2015•42 min
On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe explores the fracturing political landscape and the rise of anti-establishment parties. The politics lecturer Robert Ford explains the increasing support for the SNP, UKIP, and the Greens and what that means for the forthcoming General Election. Catherine De Vries is a Professor of European politics and compares what's happening across the Channel. Srdja Popovic was one of the leaders of Otpor - the movement that played a pivotal role in bringing down Slobodan Mil...
Mar 02, 2015•42 min
Andrew Marr looks at what happens when political power fractures and how 'soft power' retains its influence. Peter Pomerantsev spent a decade working in Russia's fast-growing television industry and tells the story of a country changing from communism and nascent democracy to a mafia-state and oligarchy. The political analyst Joseph Nye coined the phrase 'soft power' in 1990 and in his latest essay argues that while America's economy may have been overtaken by China, the US century is far from o...
Feb 16, 2015•42 min
Anne McElvoy talks to the novelist Adam Thirlwell about his latest book, described as 'suburban noir'; its setting "a kind of absence, without a focus or centre". The academic Nick Hubble takes issue with the cultural representation of suburbia and the snobbery surrounding it. When Richard McGuire created his graphic masterpiece 'Here' he collapsed millennia of history into the corner of one suburban house, and the photographer Hannah Starkey looks back at photos from the end of the twentieth ce...
Feb 09, 2015•42 min
Tom Sutcliffe talks to the journalist Patrick Cockburn about the rise of the Islamic State and the failure of the West's foreign policy in the Middle East. The academic Katherine Brown looks at the long-term strategy of IS by focusing on how it has persuaded Muslim women in the West to join its cause. While Leena Hoffman turns to the workings of another Islamist group - Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria. Gerard Russell is a former British diplomat in the Middle East and he recounts the demise of re...
Feb 02, 2015•42 min
Tom Sutcliffe is joined in the studio by Daniel Levitin, author of New York Times bestseller 'The Organized Mind'. Levitin dismisses the idea of multi-tasking and explores how we can counter information overload. But the poet Frances Leviston with her latest collection, Disinformation, believes her best work is conceived in disorganisation. The cognitive scientist Maggie Boden puts forward the idea that computers can be highly creative, and the conductor Ian Page celebrates the genius of Mozart ...
Jan 26, 2015•42 min
Tom Sutcliffe's joined in the studio by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Paul Muldoon, Oxford professor of Russian Catriona Kelly, Philip Schofield who is a professor at UCL and director of The Bentham Project and by Canadian blogger and science fiction writer Cory Doctorow. How do we respond, creatively, when people or algorithms put our physical and virtual worlds under surveillance? Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Jan 20, 2015•42 min
Tom Sutcliffe discusses the connection between the Tudors and modern times with author Lady Antonia Fraser, composer Claire van Kampen, director Peter Kosminsky and historian Dan Jones. Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Jan 12, 2015•42 min
Andrew Marr discusses why we react so strongly to some places, look for meaning in them and build up stories about them over time. Joining him in the studio are author and travel writer Philip Marsden who has been exploring Cornwall with Sense of Place in mind; Scottish artist Victoria Crowe who's been returning to paint the Pentland Hills for thirty years; singer Ian Bostridge who's performing and analysing Schubert's Winterreise; and lecturer Joanne Parker on the maps we make in our minds, as ...
Dec 29, 2014•42 min
Tom Sutcliffe discusses hedonism, from the ultra-hedonists in ancient Greece to the seasonal impulse to indulge. Tom's joined by RSC artistic director Greg Doran who's looking at hedonism in Shakespeare, from Toby Belch to Falstaff; by Prof Julia Twigg who assesses hedonism and asceticism in the contemporary world; by writer Zoe Cormier who's explored the science of hedonism and the hedonism of science; and by Kurt Lampe from Bristol University on the philosophical hedonists of Cyrene, an ancien...
Dec 22, 2014•42 min
Tom Sutcliffe discusses invention and reinvention in science. He is joined in the studio by Danielle George of the University of Manchester, where she is Professor in the Microwave and Communications Systems research group; by John Barrow, Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge; by Professor Armand Marie Leroi of Imperial College London; and by Misbah Arif from UCL Institute of Education. Prof George is giving this year's Christmas Lectures at the Royal Institution, Prof Barrow's been l...
Dec 15, 2014•42 min
Anne McElvoy's joined by Egyptian novelist Alaa Al Aswany, author of The Yacoubian Building, to discuss writing in the contemporary Arabic world and the continuing influence of stories from 1000 years ago. Joining him are Rose Issa, a Lebanese/Iranian curator of Arabic art and film and two British experts on The Arabian Nights: Robert Irwin, who introduces a new, English translation of a medieval fantasy collection and Marina Warner, whose interests stretch from Scheherazade to a new collection ...
Dec 08, 2014•42 min
Tom Sutcliffe discusses evolution and extinction with Jules Pretty, who's been travelling to meet "enduring people in vanishing lands" and is concerned about their future; with Andreas Wagner on solving what he calls evolution's greatest puzzle - how can random mutations over a mere 3.8 billion years solely be responsible for eyeballs; poet Ruth Padel on what we can learn from animals and Chris Stringer who's been looking at ancient human occupation of Britain and how homo sapiens may have drive...
Dec 01, 2014•42 min
Tom Sutcliffe explores our relationship with computer technology and the interplay of alien and familiar in science fiction. Tom's joined in the studio by writer William Gibson, novelist Michel Faber, LSE Professor Judy Wajcman and historian Dominic Sandbrook. How have computer technologies transformed our sense of outer space, cyber space and our own inner space? Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Nov 24, 2014•42 min
Self-portraits rarely fail to compel, but to what extent are they a true form of self-examination? James Hall maps the history of self-portraiture, from the earliest myths of Narcissus to the prolific self-image-making of contemporary artists. Rembrandt's self-portraits are the highlight of a major exhibition of the artist's work at The National Gallery. Its curator Betsy Wieseman discusses what these paintings can tell us about the artist. Poetry and memoir are the tools of John Burnside's self...
Nov 17, 2014•42 min
Do we value longevity more than quality of life, towards our final years? That's the discussion Andrew Marr's having with surgeon Atul Gawande, who's giving this year's Reith Lectures. Joining them in the studio are the legendary editor, novelist and memoirist Diana Athill, who has recently written about her attitude to death and the process of dying; Professor Deborah Bowman who advises on the ethics of medical care, including whether to prolong life when death is imminent; and Dr Carl Watkins,...
Nov 10, 2014•42 min
'Money talks' in a special edition of Start the Week recorded in front of an audience at Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. Anne McElvoy explores the language and morality of money, from the super-rich to zombie debt, with the writers John Lanchester and Naomi Alderman, plus the journalists Martin Wolf and John Kampfner. Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Nov 03, 2014•42 min
Russell Brand's calling for revolution now, to overthrow the system that he says supports extreme inequality. David Babbs, executive director of 38 Degrees, wants popular campaigns to bring about change and strengthen democracy. Juliet Barker re-examines the Great Revolt of 1381 and finds not a peasants' revolt but one by a new middle class in the shires, dissatisfied with a London elite. Philosopher Susan Neiman looks at how we are expected to abandon the adventures of youth if we are to grow u...
Oct 27, 2014•42 min
What was Napoleon's impact during his lifetime, in France and across Europe and how much of this can we see today? With Tom Sutcliffe, Andrew Roberts examines the man in his new biography, Jenny Uglow explores living in Britain through Napoleon's Wars, 1793-1815, Sudhir Hazareesingh looks at his legend, while musicologist Gavin Plumley focuses on Schubert in Vienna in the aftermath of Napoleon. Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Oct 20, 2014•42 min
Why do we seek explanations for most mysterious events but prefer some when they're unresolved? That's the discussion with Anne McElvoy today, including Val McDermid who uncovers the secrets of forensic science, Susan Hill exploring suspense and atmosphere in ghost stories, Alex Werner from the Museum of London's new Sherlock Holmes exhibition and Dr David Clarke, who reveals the official accounts behind well known paranormal events. Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Oct 13, 2014•42 min
