History of History
In Our Time: History
01/22/09
•42m
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how the writing of history has changed over time, from ancient epics to medieval hagiographies and modern deconstructions. In the 6th century AD, the bishop of Tours began his history of the world with a simple observation that “A great many things keep happening, some of them good, some of them bad”. For a phrase that captures the whole of history it’s among the best, but in writing about the past we are rarely so economical. From ancient epics – Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War - to medieval hagiographies and modern deconstructions, historians have endlessly chronicled, surveyed and analysed the great many things that keep happening, declaring some of them good and some of them bad. But the writing of history always illuminates two periods – the one history is written about and the one it is written in. And to look at how the writing of history has changed is to examine the way successive ages have understood their world. In short, there is a history to history.With Paul Cartledge, AG Leventis Professor of Greek Culture and Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge; John Burrow, Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford and Miri Rubin, Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London.
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Thoreau and the American Idyll
January 15, 2009
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Carthage's Destruction
February 12, 2009
•42m
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Destruction of Carthage. The North African city of Carthage was rich and powerful, but in the second century BC it suffered a terrible fate. The Greek historian Appian wrote about it: “Then came new scenes of horror. As the fire spread and carried everything down, the soldiers did not wait to destroy the buildings little by little, but all in a heap. So the crashing grew louder, and many corpses fell with the stones into the midst. Others were seen still living, especially old men, women, and young children who had hidden in the inmost nooks of the houses, some of them wounded, some more or less burned, and uttering piteous cries.”When the Romans finally conquered their great enemy in 146 BC, they razed it to the ground, sold off its library and tried to destroy not merely the city but the civilisation based upon it. Carthage was removed from history with such effect that it’s hard to know the city save through Roman eyes.It was a pivotal moment in world history that left Rome as the supreme power in the Mediterranean but after it was gone the ghosts of Carthage haunted Rome and seemed to hint at Rome’s own fate. With Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge; Jo Quinn, Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Oxford and Ellen O’Gorman, Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Bristol
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