Strabo's Geographica

In Our Time: History

04/10/14

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47m

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Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Strabo's Geographica. Written almost exactly two thousand years ago by a Greek scholar living in Rome, the Geographica is an ambitious attempt to describe the entire world known to the Romans and Greeks at that time. Strabo seems to have based his book on accounts of distant lands given to him by contemporary travellers and imperial administrators, and on earlier works of scholarship by other Greek writers. One of the earliest systematic works of geography, Strabo's book offers a revealing insight into the state of ancient scholarship, and remained influential for many centuries after the author's death.

With:

Paul Cartledge AG Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge

Maria Pretzler Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at Swansea University

Benet Salway Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at UCL

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Previous Episode

Weber's The Protestant Ethic

March 27, 2014

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50m

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Max Weber's book the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Published in 1905, Weber's essay proposed that Protestantism had been a significant factor in the emergence of capitalism, making an explicit connection between religious ideas and economic systems. Weber suggested that Calvinism, with its emphasis on personal asceticism and the merits of hard work, had created an ethic which had enabled the success of capitalism in Protestant countries. Weber's essay has come in for some criticism since he published the work, but is still seen as one of the seminal texts of twentieth-century sociology. With: Peter Ghosh Fellow in History at St Anne's College, Oxford Sam Whimster Honorary Professor in Sociology at the University of New South Wales Linda Woodhead Professor of Sociology of Religion at Lancaster University. Producer: Thomas Morris.

Next Episode

The Domesday Book

April 17, 2014

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47m

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Domesday Book, a vast survey of the land and property of much of England and Wales completed in 1086. Twenty years after the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror sent officials to most of his new territories to compile a list of land holdings and to gather information about settlements, the people who lived there and even their farm animals. Almost without parallel in European history, the resulting document was of immense importance for many centuries, and remains a central source for medieval historians.

With:

Stephen Baxter Reader in Medieval History at Kings College London

Elisabeth van Houts Honorary Professor of Medieval European History at the University of Cambridge

David Bates Professorial Fellow in Medieval History at the University of East Anglia

Producer: Thomas Morris.