History of Ideas: Simone Weil

In today’s episode David talks to Luke Kemp, author of Goliath’s Curse, about the strengths and weaknesses of modern states and modern structures of authority. Are modern states any different from the criminal enterprises of coercion that preceded them? Does democracy change the ...  Show more

Today’s episode is the first in a series of conversations about what causes human societies to fall apart and what might come next. David talks to Luke Kemp, author of Goliath’s Curse, about how we build our structures of authority and how they can fail. How were human societies ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the French philosopher and social activist Simone Weil. Born in Paris in 1909 into a wealthy, agnostic Jewish family, Weil was a precocious child and attended the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, achieving the top marks in her cla ...  Show more

Why would someone disown their son over a pair of glasses? How could an unmarried woman in 1918 have published a book about sexual pleasure? And what is an appropriate gift for a newlywed prince and princess? 

Today, we’re looking at the complicated woman who wa ...

Today’s show is built around three simple sentences: “Future people count. There could be a lot of them. And we can make their lives better.” Those sentences form the foundat ...

Si la littérature s’avère parfois exotisante ou violente lorsqu’elle aborde les vies colonisées, elle permet aussi de rendre un juste hommage à des vies longtemps jugées indignes d’intérêt. Telle est la démarche d’Abdellah Taïa dans l’ouvrage <a href="https:// ...