Log in

HistoryExtra podcast - Rosa Luxemburg: life of the week
share icon

Rosa Luxemburg: life of the week

HistoryExtra podcast

03/18/25

•

49m

About

Comments

Featured In

While the Suffragettes were fighting to win the vote, over in Germany, Rosa Luxemburg was focused on overthrowing the entire system. A committed Marxist revolutionary and a fervent advocate of internationalism, Luxemburg believed that true freedom lay beyond ‘bourgeois democracy’. Her sharp intellect and uncompromising stance made her a formidable force in the politics of early-20th century Europe. Mark Jones speaks to Danny Bird about Luxemburg’s extraordinary biography – from her rebellious youth and opposition to the First World War to her brutal execution in 1919.

The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Previous Episode

The histories of religious reformations across the globe have largely focused on men. But women were also integral to these major transformations. Speaking with Emily Briffett, historian Merry Wiesner-Hanks explains how early modern women strove to shape the world around them – as wives, mothers, missionaries, mystics and migrants.

(Ad) Merry Wiesner-Hanks is the author of Women and the Reformations: A Global History (Yale University Press, 2024). Buy it now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Women-Reformations-History-Merry-Wiesner-Hanks/dp/0300268238/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty.

The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Next Episode

From true crime pamphlets to reports from the scaffold, early modern Britain was gripped by tales of women who killed. But were these cases as common as they seemed, or was something else at play? Speaking to Lauren Good, historian Blessin Adams explores the obsession with female murderers in this period, and what this tells us about historical attitudes to gender, justice and power.

(Ad) Blessin Adams is the author of Thou Savage Woman: Female Killers in Early Modern Britain (Harper Collins, 2025). Buy it now from Waterstones: https://go.skimresources.com?id=71026X1535947&xcust=historyextra-social-histboty&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waterstones.com%2Fbook%2Fthou-savage-woman%2Fblessin-adams%2F9780008500177.

The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Promoted