The Cultural Revolution

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the French portrait painter Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755 - 1842). From her teens she delighted her high society subjects in and around Paris, notably Marie Antoinette who she painted around 30 times, and she invariably found ways to show her sitte ...  Show more

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the origins and evolution of an alliance which transformed the geopolitics of the classical world: the Delian League. Since the start of the 5th Century BCE, city states across Greece had been fighting a series of armed conflicts in the Greco-Persi ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Chairman Mao and the revolt he led within his own party from 1966, setting communists against each other, to renew the revolution that he feared had become too bourgeois and to remove his enemies and rivals. Universities closed and the students for ...  Show more

China's Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao was one of the most staggeringly brutal events in recent human history. Tom and Dominic are joined by historian Rana Mitter, who specialises in the history of Republican China. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic ...  Show more

Mao’s ‘Cultural Revolution’ sets out to purge the minds of an entire population. Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader himself leads a life of debauchery and excess - as his former doctor remembers. The Chairman seems invincible. But as his health deteriorates, his legacy is anything but ...  Show more

In 1969, the tone and direction of the Cultural Revolution shifted dramatically. For the next seven years, until Mao Zedong's death, he tried to remake the government, and the country, after his own vision. Read the show notes here.