In Our Time: History
by BBC Radio 4
Historical themes, events and key individuals from Akhenaten to Xenophon.
Copyright: (C) BBC 2023
Episodes
The Theory of the Leisure Class
55m · PublishedMelvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most influential work of Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929). In 1899, during America’s Gilded Age, Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class as a reminder that all that glisters is not gold. He picked on traits of the waning landed class of Americans and showed how the new moneyed class was adopting these in ways that led to greater waste throughout society. He called these conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption and he developed a critique of a system that favoured profits for owners without regard to social good. The Theory of the Leisure Class was a best seller and funded Veblen for the rest of his life, and his ideas influenced the New Deal of the 1930s. Since then, an item that becomes more desirable as it becomes more expensive is known as a Veblen good.
With
Matthew Watson Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick
Bill Waller Professor of Economics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York
And
Mary Wrenn Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of the West of England
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Charles Camic, Veblen: The Making of an Economist who Unmade Economics (Harvard University Press, 2021)
John P. Diggins, Thorstein Veblen: Theorist of the Leisure Class (Princeton University Press, 1999)
John P. Diggins, The Bard of Savagery: Thorstein Veblen and Modern Social Theory (Seabury Press, 1978)
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Penguin, 1999) Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers (Penguin, 2000), particularly the chapter ‘The Savage Society of Thorstein Veblen’
Ken McCormick, Veblen in Plain English: A Complete Introduction to Thorstein Veblen’s Economics (Cambria Press, 2006)
Sidney Plotkin and Rick Tilman, The Political Ideas of Thorstein Veblen (Yale University Press, 2012)
Juliet B. Schor, The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need (William Morrow & Company, 1999)
Juliet B. Schor, Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2005)
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (first published 1899; Oxford University Press, 2009)
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of Business Enterprise (first published 1904; Legare Street Press, 2022)
Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Learning in America (first published 2018; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015)
Thorstein Veblen, Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times: The Case of America (first published 1923; Routledge, 2017)
Thorstein Veblen, Conspicuous Consumption (Penguin, 2005)
Thorstein Veblen, The Complete Works (Musaicum Books, 2017)
Charles J. Whalen (ed.), Institutional Economics: Perspective and Methods in Pursuit of a Better World (Routledge, 2021)
The Barbary Corsairs
52m · PublishedMelvyn 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. Nominally, these corsairs were from Algiers, Tunis or Tripoli, outreaches of the Ottoman empire, or Salé in neighbouring Morocco, but often their Turkish or Arabic names concealed their European birth. Murad Reis the Younger, for example, who sacked Baltimore in 1631, was the Dutchman Jan Janszoon who also had a base on Lundy in the Bristol Channel. While the European crowns negotiated treaties to try to manage relations with the corsairs, they commonly viewed these sailors as pirates who were barely tolerated and, as soon as France, Britain, Spain and later America developed enough sea power, their ships and bases were destroyed.
With
Joanna Nolan Research Associate at SOAS, University of London
Claire Norton Former Associate Professor of History at St Mary’s University, Twickenham
And Michael Talbot Associate Professor in the History of the Ottoman Empire and the Modern Middle East at the University of Greenwich
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Robert C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500-1800 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)
Peter Earle, Corsairs of Malta and Barbary (Sidgwick and Jackson, 1970)
Des Ekin, The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates (O’Brien Press, 2008)
Jacques Heers, The Barbary Corsairs: Warfare in the Mediterranean, 1450-1580 (Skyhorse Publishing, 2018)
Colin Heywood, The Ottoman World: The Mediterranean and North Africa, 1660-1760 (Routledge, 2019)
Alan Jamieson, Lords of the Sea: A History of the Barbary Corsairs (Reaktion Books, 2013)
Julie Kalman, The Kings of Algiers: How Two Jewish Families Shaped the Mediterranean World during the Napoleonic Wars and Beyond (Princeton University Press, 2023)
Stanley Lane-Poole, The Story of the Barbary Corsairs (T. Unwin, 1890)
Sally Magnusson, The Sealwoman’s Gift (A novel - Two Roads, 2018)
Philip Mansel, Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean (John Murray, 2010)
Nabil Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (Columbia University Press, 1999)
Nabil Matar, Britain and Barbary, 1589-1689 (University Press of Florida, 2005)
Giles Milton, White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa’s One Million European Slaves (Hodder and Stoughton, 2004)
Claire Norton (ed.), Conversion and Islam in the Early Modern Mediterranean: The Lure of the Other (Routledge, 2017)
Claire Norton, ‘Lust, Greed, Torture and Identity: Narrations of Conversion and the Creation of the Early Modern 'Renegade' (Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 29/2, 2009)
Daniel Panzac, The Barbary Corsairs: The End of a Legend, 1800-1820 (Brill, 2005)
Rafael Sabatini, The Sea Hawk (a novel - Vintage Books, 2011)
Adrian Tinniswood, Pirates of Barbary: Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in the 17th century (Vintage Books, 2010)
D. Vitkus (ed.), Piracy, Slavery and Redemption: Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England (Columbia University Press, 2001)
J. M. White, Piracy and Law in the Ottoman Mediterranean (Stanford University Press, 2018)
The Federalist Papers
50m · PublishedMelvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay's essays written in 1787/8 in support of the new US Constitution. They published these anonymously in New York as 'Publius' but, when it became known that Hamilton and Madison were the main authors, the essays took on a new significance for all states. As those two men played a major part in drafting the Constitution itself, their essays have since informed debate over what the authors of that Constitution truly intended. To some, the essays have proved to be America’s greatest contribution to political thought.
With
Frank Cogliano Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh and Interim Saunders Director of the International Centre for Jefferson Studies at Monticello
Kathleen Burk Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London
And
Nicholas Guyatt Professor of North American History at the University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Bernard Bailyn, To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders (Knopf, 2003)
Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention (Harvard University Press, 2015)
Noah Feldman, The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President (Random House, 2017)
Jonathan Gienapp, The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard University Press, 2018)
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison (eds. George W. Carey and James McClellan), The Federalist: The Gideon Edition (Liberty Fund, 2001)
Alison L. LaCroix, The Ideological Origins of American Federalism (Harvard University Press, 2010)
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, The Federalist Papers (Penguin, 1987)
Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 (Simon and Schuster, 2010)
Michael I. Meyerson, Liberty's Blueprint: How Madison and Hamilton Wrote the Federalist Papers, Defined the Constitution, and Made Democracy Safe for the World (Basic Books, 2008)
Jack Rakove, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (Knopf, 1996)
Jack N. Rakove and Colleen A. Sheehan, The Cambridge Companion to The Federalist (Cambridge University Press, 2020)
The Economic Consequences of the Peace
1h 6m · PublishedLouis XIV: The Sun King
47m · PublishedThe Shimabara Rebellion
48m · PublishedThe Battle of Crécy
50m · PublishedCnut
51m · PublishedMercantilism
57m · PublishedMegaliths
50m · PublishedIn Our Time: History has 347 episodes in total of non- explicit content. Total playtime is 249:43:22. The language of the podcast is English. This podcast has been added on February 22nd 2023. It might contain more episodes than the ones shown here. It was last updated on April 21st, 2024 16:43.