In Our Time 2002-2007 (BBC Radio 4) with Melvyn Bragg - 229 epis

IN OUR TIME 2002-2007 (BBC Radio 4) with Melvyn Bragg - 229 episodes for maintaining the belief in civilisation ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity." Aristotle of Stageira ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ~ In Our Time is a weekly radio programme dedicated to illuminating the history of ideas and broadcast by BBC Radio 4. The presenter, Melvyn Bragg, asks qualified questions to three well-read specialists, who explain and discuss one single theme for forty minutes. Themes are drawn from the humanities, arts and science: foremost philosophy, literature, religion, political history, astronomy, poetry, physics, psychology, art, mathematics - and occasionally an odd one out, like geology. In Our Time seems to have started in 2002 and has been produced, amongst others, by James Cook. ~ The conversational tone radiates a fearless elitism for everybody. In terms of tendency, an appreciation for classical European culture and Enlightenment values seems not to be lacking. ~ Unlike many of his colleagues, Melvyn Bragg does not try to fight his guests in order to keep in control of the centre of attention. Rather, he acts as an instrument enabling the knowledge of the participants to reveal itself to the listener. ~ Every episode is an investigation with the aim of bringing historical erudition, in-depth analysis, and sometimes even a liberatingly uncontemporary picture to the light. Not misleadingly, In Our Time has been called "just about the most fascinating and wide ranging programme out there in the ether". ------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLLECTION COMPLETENESS This collection contains what appears to be every single In Our Time episode released from February 14th, 2002 until December 27, 2007 - a total of 229 episodes with a collective playing time of roughly 93 hours. Please note that a few episodes from this time period may or may not be lacking. At the time of writing, the collector did not have an authoritative exhaustive episode list available. Chronologically, the files in this collection are thus distributed: 2002: 32 episodes 2003: 36 episodes 2004: 40 episodes 2005: 37 episodes 2006: 42 episodes 2007: 42 episodes FILE SOURCES This collection was compiled from different torrents in late July 2008 and released on August 8th, 2008. All episode files but one were drawn from existing torrents available at: http://radioarchive.cc/ Regrettably, the audio files appear to have been originally derived from BBC's web streams or podcasts, not from FM radio. The "IOT [2002-07-18] History of Heritage" file was missing from these collections and has been added. WEB RESOURCES Official website http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/ Fanblog http://www.afterourtime.com/ Select transcripts http://www.afterourtime.com/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Transcript Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Our_Time_(BBC_Radio_4) Guardian Melvyn Bragg Profile: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/sep/17/broadcasting.politics TECHNICAL AUDIO QUALITY Format: .mp3 Resolution: 44,1 kHz Bitrate type: constant Bitrate minimum: 32 Kbit/second Bitrate maximum: 64 Kbit/second Although the bit rates are not generous, the speech is easily audible. All mp3 files are properly tagged. FURTHER DETAILS Short presentations of every episode, including names and titles of the contributors in each episode, can be found in the file named "Episode Presentations and Contributors" contained within this package. The episodes list below is included also. EPISODES LIST (229 episodes) 2002-02-14 Anatomy - 2000 years of anatomical study 2002-02-21 The Celts - what were the Celts in Britain really like? 2002-02-28 Virtue - is it derived from reason? 2002-03-07 John Milton - poet or politician? 2002-03-14 Buddhism - why has it captured the spirit of our age? 2002-03-21 Marriage - its various forms and the role of the State 2002-03-28 The Artist - a special kind of human being? 2002-04-04 ET - new life within our solar system 2002-04-11 Bohemia - what did it mean to be Bohemian? 2002-04-25 Tolstoy - the influence of the Russian Novel 2002-05-02 Schrodinger's Cat - Quantum Mechanics 2002-05-09 The Examined Life - is an unexamined life worth living? 2002-05-16 Chaos Theory - is the universe chaotic or orderly? 2002-05-23 History of drugs - their role in medicine and the arts 2002-05-30 The Grand Tour - what drove this desire for travel? 2002-06-06 The Soul - the key to our individuality as humans? 2002-06-13 The American West - was it an "experiment of liberty"? 2002-06-20 Richard Wagner - his influence on the German spirit 2002-06-27 Cultural Imperialism - should we try to prevent it? 2002-07-04 Freedom - a principle worth fighting and dying for? 2002-07-11 Psychoanalysis - do people crave dictatorship? 2002-07-18 History of Heritage 2002-10-17 Slavery and empire - were Britons also captives? 2002-10-24 The scientist in history - missionary or monster? 2002-10-31 Architecture and power - imagery of imperialism 2002-11-07 Human Nature - innate or nurtured? 2002-11-14 Victorian Realism - how real? 2002-11-21 Cordoba and Muslim Spain - a culture of tolerance? 2002-11-28 Imagination - just what is it? 2002-12-05 The Scottish Enlightenment - how enlightened? 2002-12-12 Disease - the fight against diseases and plagues 2002-12-19 The Calendar - a history of the Calendar 2003-02-06 The Epic - from Homer to Joyce 2003-02-13 Chance and Design in Evolution - Design in Nature 2003-02-20 The Lindisfarne Gospels - unifying Christianity in Britain 2003-02-27 The Aztecs - looking behind the myths 2003-03-06 Meteorology - why does it still fascinate us? 2003-03-13 Redemption - the concept of salvation 2003-03-20 Originality - is it just a romantic notion? 2003-03-27 Supernovas - the life cycle of stars 2003-04-03 The Spanish Civil War - causes and legacy 2003-04-17 Proust - his life and work 2003-04-24 Youth - from Adonis to James Dean 2003-05-01 Roman Britain - the effects of 400 years of occupation 2003-05-08 The Jacobite Rebellion - could it have succeeded? 2003-05-15 The Holy Grail - just a medieval myth? 2003-05-22 Blood - its religious, medical and moral significance 2003-05-29 Memory - and the brain 2003-06-05 The Lunar Society - scientific ferment 200 years ago 2003-06-12 The Art of War - maintaining the objective? 2003-06-19 The Aristocracy - how the ruling class survives 2003-06-26 The East India Co - a corporate route to Empire. 2003-07-03 Vulcanology - significance of volcanoes 2003-07-10 Nature - from Homer to Darwin 2003-07-17 The Apocalypse - was it a revelation? 2003-10-02 James Clerk Maxwell - great 19th century physicist 2003-10-09 Bohemianism - a life of art, freedom & poverty 2003-10-16 The Schism - between East and West in Christianity 2003-10-23 Infinity - a brief history 2003-10-30 Robin Hood - the greatest of English myths. 2003-11-06 Sensation - the best sellers of the 19th century 2003-11-13 Duty - concepts of obligation 2003-11-20 Ageing the Earth - a journey in geological time 2003-11-27 St Bartholomew's Day Massacre - slaughter in Paris 2003-12-04 Wittgenstein - a philosophy of linguistics 2003-12-11 The Devil - a brief biography 2003-12-18 The Alphabet - its creation and development 2003-12-26 Lamarck and Natural Selection - the Lamarckian Heresy 2004-01-29 Cryptography - secret history of ciphers and codes 2004-02-05 The Battle of Thermopylae - battle that defined East & West 2004-02-12 The Sublime - defining the state of awe 2004-02-19 Rutherford - the father of nuclear physics 2004-02-26 The Mughal Empire - the glory of India 2004-03-04 Dreams - is there a science of dreams? 2004-03-11 The Norse Gods - the great myths of pagan Europe 2004-03-18 The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 2004-03-25 Theories of Everything - still the holy grail of physics? 2004-04-01 China: The Warring States Period - the fiery beginnings of Chinese civilisation 2004-04-08 The Fall - how Adam and Eve affect us all 2004-04-15 The Later Romantics - the world of Byron, Keats and Shelley 2004-04-22 Hysteria - the normal state of human beings? 2004-04-29 Tea - an empire in a teacup 2004-05-06 Heroism - do we live in an heroic age? 2004-05-13 Zero - everything about nothing 2004-05-20 Toleration - from medieval intolerance to religious freedom 2004-05-27 Planets - the astronomy of the 21st century 2004-06-03 Babylon - the great forgotten civilisation 2004-06-10 Empiricism - the English philosophy? 2004-06-17 Renaissance Magic - the great passion of the age 2004-06-24 George Washington and the American Revolution - the most significant event in history 2004-09-02 Pi - the number that doesn't add up 2004-09-09 The Odyssey - Homer's epic tale of Odysseus' return home 2004-09-16 Agincourt - the real facts behind the battle 2004-09-23 The Origins of Life - how it all began 2004-09-30 Politeness - the great 18th century craze 2004-10-07 Jean-Paul Sartre - a man condemned to be free 2004-10-14 The Han Synthesis - creating the Chinese cosmos 2004-10-21 Witchcraft - Reformation Europe turned upon itself 2004-10-28 Rhetoric - from the original sophists to latter-day demagogues 2004-11-04 Electrickery - the origins of electricity 2004-11-11 Zoroastrianism - was the religion of the Persian Empire the first monotheism? 2004-11-18 Higgs Boson - the search for the God particle 2004-11-25 The Venerable Bede - the father of English history 2004-12-02 Carl Gustav Jung - Discovering the Self 2004-12-09 Machiavelli and the Italian City States - high politics and low cunning in the Italian Renaissance 2004-12-16 The Second Law of Thermodynamics - the most important thing you will ever know 2004-12-23 Faust - the original pact with the Devil 2004-12-30 The Roman Republic - what were Rome's republican ideals? 2005-01-06 The Assassination of Tsar Alexander II - did his killing cause the Russian Revolution? 2005-01-13 The Mind/Body Problem - does the mind rule the body or the body rule the mind? 2005-02-17 The Cambrian Explosion - the big bang of evolutionary history 2005-02-24 Alchemy - seeking the perfection of all things 2005-03-03 Stoicism - the search for inner calm 2005-03-10 Modernist Utopias - the original 21st century 2005-03-17 Dark Energy - the unknown force breaking the universe apart 2005-03-24 Angels - how they got their wings 2005-03-31 John Ruskin - a different kind of Victorian 2005-04-07 Alfred and the Battle of Edington - without Alfred, no England? 2005-04-14 Archaeology and Imperialism - conquest of the past 2005-04-21 The Aeneid - the Roman history of the world 2005-04-28 Perception and the Senses - how do we see what we see? 2005-05-05 Abelard and Heloise - love, sex and theology in 12th century Paris 2005-05-19 Beauty - the philosophy of beauty 2005-05-26 The Terror - when Madame Guillotine ruled France 2005-06-02 Renaissance Maths - the birth of modern mathematics? 2005-06-09 The Scriblerus Club - the satirists-in-chief of the 18th century 2005-06-16 Paganism in the Renaissance - how the classical gods returned to the Christian cities 2005-06-23 The KT Boundary - did the dinosaurs burn out or fade away? 2005-06-30 Merlin - the original Welsh wizard 2005-07-07 Christopher Marlowe - poet, spy, atheist, murder victim? 2005-07-14 Karl Marx - In Our Time's Greatest Philosopher 2005-09-29 Magnetism - an attractive history 2005-10-06 Field of the Cloth of Gold - a Renaissance entente cordiale 2005-10-13 The Rise of the Mammals - life in a cold climate 2005-10-20 Cynicism - bold and populist, the history of a shocking philosophy 2005-10-27 Samuel Johnson and His Circle - life with the professional man of letters 2005-11-03 Asteroids - celestial bodies from the beginning of time 2005-11-10 Greyfriars and Blackfriars - philosophy, evangelism and fund-raising in the 13th century Church 2005-11-17 Pragmatism - a practical philosophy fit for 20th century America 2005-11-24 The Graviton - the quest for the theoretical gravity particle 2005-12-01 Thomas Hobbes and the political philosophy of 'Leviathan' 2005-12-08 Artificial Intelligence - the quest for a machine that can think 2005-12-15 The Peterloo Massacre - democratic protest and brutal repression 2005-12-22 Heaven - a journey through the afterlife 2005-12-29 Aeschylus' Oresteia - the birth of tragedy 2006-01-05 The Oath - guaranteeing law, government and the army in the Classical world 2006-01-12 Prime Numbers - the building blocks of mathematics 2006-01-19 Relativism - the battle against transcendent knowledge 2006-01-26 Seventeenth Century Print Culture - piety, populism and political protest 2006-02-02 The Abbasid Caliphs - when Baghdad ruled the Muslim world 2006-02-09 Geoffrey Chaucer - the first Great English Poet 2006-02-16 Human Evolution - from early hominids to Homo sapiens 2006-02-23 Catherine the Great - the Enlightened Despot of Eighteenth Century Russia 2006-03-02 Friendship - thinking philosophically about our close companions 2006-03-09 Negative numbers - how they spread across civilizations 2006-03-16 Don Quixote - Spanish romance and the first novel 2006-03-23 The Royal Society - the first club for experimental science 2006-03-30 The Carolingian Renaissance - the revival of early medieval Western Europe 2006-04-06 Goethe - formation of a German cultural icon 2006-04-13 The Oxford Movement - Anglicans and Catholics in the 19th century 2006-04-20 The Search for Immunisation - and the battle against smallpox 2006-04-27 The Great Exhibition - a wonder of the Victorian world 2006-05-04 Astronomy and Empire - the link between colonial expansion and scientific discovery 2006-05-11 Faeries - supernatural creatures that are neither gods nor humans 2006-05-18 John Stuart Mill - one of the most influential philosophers of the 19th Century 2006-05-25 Mathematics and Music - the science behind sound and composition 2006-06-01 The Heart - its anatomical and cultural history 2006-06-08 Uncle Tom's Cabin - the novel that started the American Civil War 2006-06-15 Carbon - the basis of life 2006-06-22 The Spanish Inquisition - one of the most barbaric episodes in European history 2006-06-29 Galaxies - extra-galactic nebulae, black holes, stars and dark matter 2006-07-06 Pastoral Literature - the romantic idealisation of the countryside 2006-07-13 Greek Comedy - sing as you revel and rout 2006-09-28 Alexander von Humboldt - the remarkable career of the Prussian naturalist 2006-10-05 Averroes - the battle between faith and reason 2006-10-12 The Diet of Worms - Luther's stand against the Church 2006-10-19 The Needham Question - did China lay the foundations of modern science? 2006-10-26 The Encyclopedie - the great project of the Enlightenment 2006-11-02 The Poincare Conjecture - how a 19th century mathematician changed how we think about the shape of the universe 2006-11-09 Alexander Pope - "short is my date, but deathless my renown" 2006-11-16 The Peasants' Revolt - a lasting legacy for popular uprising? 2006-11-23 Altruism - how can evolutionary biology explain it? 2006-11-30 The Speed of Light - a cosmic speed limit? 2006-12-07 Anarchism - a question of authority? 2006-12-14 Indian Maths - laying the foundations for modern numerals and zero as a number 2006-12-21 Hell - its representation through the ages 2006-12-28 The Siege of Constantinople - the end of a thousand years of the Byzantine Empire 2007-01-04 Borges - the life and work of Argentina's best loved short story writer 2007-01-11 Mars - the search for life on the Red Planet 2007-01-18 The Jesuits - the school masters of Europe 2007-01-25 Archimedes - the Greek mathematician and his Eureka moments 2007-02-01 Genghis Khan - founder of one of the world's largest ever land-based empires 2007-02-08 Karl Popper - his ideas challenged our approach to the philosophy of science 2007-02-15 Heart of Darkness - one of the most influential novels of the 20th century 2007-02-22 William Wilberforce - the man and his legacy 2007-03-01 The History of Optics - from telescopes to microscopes, a new way of seeing the world 2007-03-08 Microbiology - the story of the invisible masters of the universe 2007-03-15 Epistolary Literature - great novels of fictional letters 2007-03-22 Bismarck - the Iron Chancellor 2007-03-29 Anaesthetics - from ether frolics to pain-free surgery 2007-04-05 St Hilda - the life and times of the Abbess of Whitby 2007-04-12 Opium Wars - a conflict that was to affect British-Chinese relations for generations 2007-04-19 Symmetry - the pattern at the heart of our physical world 2007-04-26 Greek and Roman Love Poetry - the pursuit of the Beloved from Sappho to Catullus 2007-05-03 Spinoza - believed that God and Nature were the same thing 2007-05-10 Victorian Pessimism - fear and loathing in the late 19th century 2007-05-17 Gravitational Waves - a new window on the universe 2007-05-24 The Siege of Orleans - did Joan of Arc really rescue France? 2007-05-31 Ockham's Razor - cutting medieval philosophy down to size 2007-06-07 Siegfried Sassoon - the poet who survived 2007-06-14 Renaissance Astrology - "we are merely the stars' tennis balls, struck and bandied which way please them" 2007-06-21 Common Sense Philosophy - "There is no statement so absurd that no philosopher will make it" 2007-06-28 The Permian-Triassic Boundary - when 95% of life was killed off 2007-07-05 The Pilgrim Fathers - the original American dream 2007-07-12 The Trial of Madame Bovary - "Madame Bovary, c'est moi!" 2007-09-27 Socrates - the man and the myth 2007-10-04 Antimatter - where has it all gone? 2007-10-11 Divine Right of Kings - "there's such divinity doth hedge a king" 2007-10-18 The Arabian Nights - the art of story-telling 2007-10-25 Taste - the good, the bad and the ugly in 18th century Britain 2007-11-01 Guilt - what is it good for? 2007-11-08 Avicenna - wine, women and philosophy 2007-11-15 The Discovery of Oxygen - feuds and revolutions at the birth of modern chemistry 2007-11-22 The Prelude - the greatest poem in the English language? 2007-11-29 The Fibonacci Sequence - the numbers in nature 2007-12-06 Genetic Mutation - the error-strewn secrets of life 2007-12-13 The Sassanian Empire - in the shadow of Ancient Persia 2007-12-20 The Four Humours - yellow bile, blood, choler and phlegm in the original theory of everything 2007-12-27 The Nicene Creed - when Christ became God ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help spread high culture - use http://thepiratebay.se/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Torrent created on August 8th, 2008.

udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80
udp://open.demonii.com:1337
udp://tracker.coppersurfer.tk:6969
udp://exodus.desync.com:6969

Loudwater (2008-08-25)

all I get is error and this is really something that I could use.

Matheron (2008-08-29)

Dear Loudwater -
There should be no problem with this set. It consists of plain .mp3 files and has been tested by myself. Several hundreds of users have downloaded it in the past weeks. Please try again. If a problem related to this set should occur, please describe the problem in more detail.

b0vril (2008-09-12)

This fantastic!! But I have a problem: it seems that 49 of the "in our time" mp3 files are completely unrecognized by the system... I have never seen anything like this. I can't move, rename, delete or play the files. When I try to play them nothing happens, I get no error message in any player.
When I right click on one of these 40 files I get no options to rename, move, delete or enter the properties. All it lets me do "play" "play in wmp" "open with" "send to"
I have tried re-downloading these files but the exact same thing happens.
There is either a virus in here somewhere or you have unchecked these files. It is very wierd all together.
One of the files I am having issues with is:
"IOT [2004-04-01] China, The Warring States Period - The fiery beginnings of Chinese civilisation"

b0vril (2008-09-15)

OK, someone is seeding corrupt files here, can seeders please check there files.

Matheron (2008-09-20)

Dear b0vril -
The files from which I created the original seed on august 8th, 2008 are intact, seeding and still working fine. I have re-checked them and confirmed their integrity, including "IOT [2004-04-01] China, The Warring States Period - The fiery beginnings of Chinese civilisation".
Please let me know if the problem indicated above persists, and, if so, if there is anything I can do to help.

eaglebear (2008-10-30)

I think I figured it out. I was getting the exact same problem. It's because many of the files have too lengthy file names. I don't know what to do about this, but there you go. I tried just renaming them, but it won't let me do this. If someone can think of an answer I'd really appreciate it.
I NEED MORE KNOWLEDGE.

Matheron (2008-11-01)

Hello -
These files were given descriptive names to facilitate identification of programme content.
If case some of you out there have problems with certain files - what operative system, bittorrent client and release are you using?
You may try uTorrent 1.8 for Windows XP, it should work fine.
Suggestions, anyone?

jettb0y (2009-01-09)

Hi all
This works fine. The long file and directory name, though much appreciated, are causing the problem. Windows can't cope with the massive file path. Recommend downloading to C:/ drive rather than C:/My Documents or whatever. After downloading, shorten the torrent folder name to something like "IOT". This will then let you rename and open the problem files.
In brief, shorten the file path to access the files with the v long names.
These radio shows are absolute genius. The fix above is simple. Don't let it put you off downloading. Thanks Matheron.
Now looking for tjhe 2008 series. Anyone got a link?

lostboy69 (2009-04-14)

A total mess here too.
This is now my 3rd attempt at getting the messed up files.
Thanks anyway.

lostboy69 (2009-04-15)

Shoulda read your post 1st jettboy, thanks.
Here's a link for 2008:

lostboy69 (2009-04-15)

Praise God, pariase Buddah, praise Allah, praise Krisna...er I mean Praise Jettboy!

nathansonic (2009-11-15)

holy moly! incredible!

chris9005 (2009-11-26)

Thanks for this - absolutely brilliant, and brings my collection up to date. :)
It's one the best radio strands in the world and still going strong. You can download a podcast of each week's broadcast from and also listen to back editions that came after this lot.

Swamppony (2013-08-29)

Thank you ever so much for the upload!

mark59 (2013-09-06)

beg beg beg beg beg beg beg
please seed !! I swear I will seed this forever if you do !!

mark59 (2013-10-20)

Finally D/L the lot. Awesome torrent. Plays fine so far. Will keep seeding. :-)