The Volga Vikings

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the countless venues across the Roman Empire which for over five hundred years drew the biggest crowds both in the Republic and under the Emperors. The shows there delighted the masses who knew, no matter how low their place in society, they were m ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and role of one of the most significant figures in early 20th Century German history. Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934) had been famous since 1914 as the victorious commander at the Battle of Tannenberg against Russian invaders, soon burnish ...  Show more

Scandinavia has always been a world apart. For millennia Norwegians, Danes, Finns, and Swedes lived a remote and rugged existence among the fjords and peaks of the land of the midnight sun. But when they finally left their homeland in search of opportunity, these wanderers—includ ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the North African privateers who, until their demise in the nineteenth century, were a source of great pride and wealth in their home ports, where they sold the people and goods they’d seized from Christian European ships and coastal towns. Nominal ...  Show more

Viking exploration changed the course of history in the northern hemisphere. As raiders and pirates, they dominated the seas of northern Europe for centuries. Their fearless and brutal reputations struck fear into hearts from Constantinople to Canada, while their folklore and myt ...  Show more

In the ninth century, the Vikings earned a fearsome reputation by wreaking chaos on the coasts of western Europe. But what is perhaps less well known is that they also travelled eastwards. By sailing along the great rivers of north-eastern Europe, they reached Constantinople, ...