This month, Sarah Dunant looks at what history can tell us about irrationality. Conspiracy theories, anti-vaccination movements and climate change denial are modern examples of ideas that stubbornly cling on in the face of facts. Drawing on a range of historical moments, Sarah scrutinises the idea of the rational and irrational, showing that the boundary between the two is complicated. Ohio University’s Myrna Perez Sheldon describes a 1981 court case in Alabama which saw the muscle-flexing...

This month, Sarah Dunant looks to the past to help us think about the most pressing issue facing the world today - climate change. Although the problem is a relatively modern one, humans have been grappling with the damage that they inflict on the environment throughout history. Scientists and campaigners are calling for urgent measures to halt the climate and ecological crises. While history might not be able to solve those problems directly it can tell us something about why governments...

This month, Sarah Dunant explores the history of fake history. In March this year, the Christchurch attacker invoked a twisted interpretation of medieval history and the crusades to justify his terrorist attack on a mosque. In this programme, Dr Levi Roach contextualises the Battle of Tours, the historical event invoked by the Christchurch attacker, and explains how groups on the extremes, especially in the digital realm, are able to misuse and misrepresent history for their ideological...

At a moment when Brexit and our carbon footprints are prompting us to reassess what it means to move around the world, Sarah Dunant looks at the long history of travel and the ways it has enchanted and alarmed us across the centuries. The anxieties over young Tudor travellers returning radicalised from Catholic Europe was a phenomenon that gripped England after the break with Rome. Nandini Das argues that fears over travel helped to define a nation.  Professor Eric Zuelow shows how the Nazi...

Shame is back. This month, Sarah Dunant delves into the long and deep history of shame, exploring how it has shaped our lives and behaviour at every point in history. Whether it’s thieves on display in the medieval stocks or the forcible head-shaving of French women suspected of fraternising with the Nazis, shame has always been at the centre of society’s attempts to regulate itself. But the potency of this most raw of emotions can sometimes prove a double-edged sword. Oxford Brookes'...

Sarah Dunant presents a monthly dive into stories from the past that might help us make sense of today. This month, as the gears of government grind to a standstill on both sides of the Atlantic, Sarah looks to historical deadlocks and the sometimes radical ways they were resolved. From the elder statesman called from his plough to become Rome’s first benign dictator, through the random selection of citizens resolving bitter conflicts in Imperial China, Medieval Florence and beyond, to...

Sarah Dunant presents a monthly dive into stories from the past that might help us make sense of today. This month, she examines sleep as a source of preoccupation and worry throughout history. Are you feeling tired? How many hours did you get last night? Feeling foggy with exhaustion? What about the leaders whose punishing schedules have them running up sleep debts of mammoth proportions? William Gladstone's detailed diaries recording his insomnia and its effects, are now historical...

Sarah Dunant presents a monthly dive into stories from the past that might help us make sense of today. In this month's episode, Sarah looks at the use of poison in history. After a year that saw the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Salisbury, When Greeks Flew Kites focuses on how this deadly weapon leaves a trail of confusion, fear and doubt through the centuries. From the courts of Renaissance Europe, where rumours of poison spread like wildfire, to the new science but thorny old...

Sarah Dunant presents a monthly dive into stories from the past that might help us make sense of today. This month, as Theresa May‘s Brexit negotiations approach crunch point, Sarah examines promises throughout history, how they bound rulers and their people, and the bitter consequences when they were broken. From the ambitious pledges that return to haunt Ethelred the Unready in the 10th century, to the trust-based oaths sworn by Swedish monarchs in front of their subjects, Sarah traces...

Historical novelist Sarah Dunant presents a monthly dive into stories from the past that might help us make sense of today. In this month's episode, the complex task of dating. Sarah's going behind closed doors to eavesdrop on the most intimate of exchanges. She scrutinises moments in history when the rules of the dating game have been rewritten. From the male-centric ideals of courtly-love at the heart of medieval poetry to the uneasy collision of dating and the gender politics of the...

In this monthly series, broadcaster and acclaimed historical novelist Sarah Dunant, delves into the past to help frame the present, bringing to life worlds that span the centuries. Following the Parklands shooting in America and the eruption of protest and political engagement by its schoolchildren, Sarah Dunant explores moments in history when children have challenged adult authority, assumed their own voice, and changed the world around them. From the 17th century French teenagers taking...

In this monthly series, broadcaster and acclaimed historical novelist Sarah Dunant, delves into the past to help frame the present, bringing to life worlds that span the centuries. Taking a different modern day anxiety, hope or idea as its starting point each month, the series considers how certain questions are constant, yet also change their shape over time. Sarah celebrates the role of imagination in History and History as a discipline is at the heart of the programme, showing how...

In this monthly series, broadcaster and acclaimed historical novelist Sarah Dunant, delves into the past to help frame the present, bringing to life worlds that span the centuries. This month Sarah is looking at antibiotic resistance. As health professions working today consider how to tackle a looming crisis, Sarah's historians look to the past for lessons that may help us cope with a world where diseases we thought were curable are back in existence. Sarah and guests examine how history...

In this final episode of 2017, broadcaster and acclaimed historical novelist Sarah Dunant, delves into the past to help frame moments from the year, as picked by historians, bringing to life worlds that span the centuries. From the East India Company in the 17th Century to corporate power in the White House of 2017; from the second coming of the Ku Klux Klan and an immigration ban in 1920, via fake news in 17th century France to an Irish history lesson that's become vital in this month's...

In this monthly series, broadcaster and acclaimed historical novelist Sarah Dunant, delves into the past to help frame the present, bringing to life worlds that span the centuries. Taking a different modern day anxiety, hope or idea as its starting point each month, the series considers how certain questions are constant, yet also change their shape over time. This month, as waves of accusations about sexual harassment and abuse continue to swell, Sarah looks at times in history when women...

A monthly series in which broadcaster and acclaimed historical novelist Sarah Dunant delves into the past to help frame the present, bringing to life worlds that span the centuries. Taking modern day anxieties as its starting point, the programme considers how certain questions are constant, yet also change their shape over time. This month, Sarah delves into history to find some answers to the age old question of old age. At a time when lengthening life-expectancy brings increasing pressure...

A monthly series in which broadcaster and acclaimed historical novelist Sarah Dunant delves into the past to help frame the present, bringing to life worlds that span the centuries. Taking modern day anxieties as its starting point, the programme considers how certain questions are constant, yet also change their shape over time. This month, Sarah is plunging into the world of personal debt. As present-day concerns rise about ever-increasing levels of consumer borrowing and the...

A monthly series in which broadcaster and acclaimed historical novelist Sarah Dunant delves into the past to help frame the present, bringing to life worlds that span the centuries. Taking modern day anxieties as its starting point, the programme considers how certain questions are constant, yet also change their shape over time. This month, Sarah takes us to the brink - to moments where leaders are willing to cross the ultimate line. She'll be asking what happens when the enemy you're...

In this new monthly series, broadcaster and acclaimed historical novelist Sarah Dunant, delves into the past to help frame the present, bringing to life worlds that span the centuries. Taking modern day anxieties as its starting point, the series considers how certain questions are constant, yet also change their shape over time. Sarah celebrates the role of imagination in History and History as a discipline is at the heart of the programme, showing how historians are continually changing...