Is idleness ever a virtue? In a world that seems to privilege utility and productivity above all else, Matthew Sweet considers whether we can rethink the importance of doing nothing. His guests for Radio 4's late night ideas discussion programme are:Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The ...Show more
Influencing History
Do individuals or broader forces shape history? In the 2025 Reith lectures on BBC Radio 4, Rutger Bregman argues that small groups of individuals can have an outsize influence and he looks to examples in history from suffragism to the ending of slavery. In the Free Thinking studi ...Show more
This week, novelist and playwright Caryl Phillips remembers his friendship with the magnificent James Baldwin; and Robert Potts on the ingenious return of George Smiley.The works of James Baldwin'Karla's Choice', a John le Carré novel, by Nick HarkawayProduced by Charlotte Pardy ...Show more
Two Americans and one Brit were invited to Communist Cambodia in 1978 to meet the brutal dictator Pol Pot. The Brit is called Malcolm Caldwell, a professor from Scotland, and a big Pol Pot fan. Just hours after he meets his hero, Malcolm is shot dead. So, who killed Malcolm Cal ...Show more
In the concluding chapter of our Auschwitz story, Al Murray and James Holland speak to the UK's most famous barrister - Robert Rinder. Robert lost many members of his family to the Holocaust, and has spent his life working with charities and schools in commemoration and remembran ...Show more
Sometimes when a weird little guy gets shot, the guy who killed him is just a weirder little guy.Sources:Schmaltz, William H. (2000). Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. Washington, D.C.: Brassey'sSchmaltz, William H. (2013). For Race And Nation: George Lin ...Show more