In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg Folgen

As 4th July approaches, we think you’ll like this episode of The Global Story. All week, The Global Story podcast is exploring the surprising and often hidden ways the US has shaped the modern world. Roman Mars – the host of 99% Invisible and the new BBC series A History of the United States in 100 Objects – joins as a guest to set out his theory of how the US used design to shape the world in its image.If you like this episode, find the special collection ‘US and the World at 250’ in The Global Story. If you’re in the UK, listen on BBC Sounds. If you’re outside the UK, listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the earliest evidence we have of the existence of trees and how even plants we might have on windowsills or as vegetables in gardens can and do, in the right conditions, evolve into trees. Since their emergence around 400 million years ago after low lying plants started to develop stronger stems and grow taller and more upright, trees have transformed our planet, so creating ecosystems, altering the atmosphere and setting the stage for the world as we know it today. With Jenny McElwain 1711 Chair of Botany at Trinity College Dublin and Director of Trinity Botanic GardensChristopher Berry Senior Lecturer in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Cardiff UniversityAndBill Baker Senior Researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, KewProduced by Conor GarrettReading list:David Beerling: The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History (Oxford University Press, 2008)C.M. Berry, ‘Palaeobotany: The Rise of the Earth’s Early Forests’ (Current Biology 29, 2019)Christopher M. Berry and John E.A. Marshall, ‘Lycopsid forests in the early Late Devonian paleoequatorial zone of Svalbard’ (Geology 43:12, 2015)N.S. Davies, W.J. McMahon and C.M. Berry, ‘Earth’s earliest forest: fossilized trees and vegetation-induced sedimentary structures from the Middle Devonian (Eifelian) Hangman Sandstone Formation, Somerset and Devon, SW England’ (J. Geol. Soc. 181, 2024)P. Geisen and C.M. Berry, ‘Reconstruction and Growth of the Early Tree Calamophyton (Pseudosporochnales, Cladoxylopsida) Based on Exceptionally Complete Specimens from Lindlar, Germany (Mid-Devonian): Organic Connection of Calamophyton Branches and Duisbergia Trunks’ (International Journal of Plant Sciences 174 (4), 2013) A. Groover and Q. Cronk (eds), Comparative and Evolutionary Genomics of Angiosperm Trees: Plant Genetics and Genomics (Crops and Models, vol 21. Springer, 2017), especially ‘The Evolution of Angiosperm Trees: From Palaeobotany to Genomics’ by Q.C.B. Cronk and F. ForestJennifer McElwain, Marlene Hill Donnelly, and Ian Glasspool, Tropical Arctic: Lost Plants, Future Climates, and the Discovery of Ancient Greenland (University of Chicago Press, 2021)Harriet Rix, The Genius of Trees: How Trees Mastered the Elements and Shaped the World (Vintage, 2026)W.E. Stein et al., ‘Mid-Devonian Archaeopteris roots signal revolutionary change in earliest fossil forests’ (Current biology, 30:3, 2020) pp.421-431William E. Stein, Christopher Mark Berry, Linda VanAller Hernick and Frank Mannolini ‘Surprisingly complex community discovered in the mid-Devonian fossil forest at Gilboa’ (Nature 483, 7387, 2012) Max Telford, The Tree of Life: Solving Science's Greatest Puzzle (John Murray, 2026)K.J. Willis, J.C. McElwain, The Evolution of Plants (Oxford University Press, 2014)James Woodford, The Wollemi Pine: The Incredible Discovery of a Living Fossil from the Age of the Dinosaurs (The Text Publishing Company, 2005)Alexandre R. Zuntini et al, ‘Phylogenomics and the rise of the angiosperms’ (Nature vol. 629, April 2024) Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

At the Hay Festival, Misha Glenny and guests discuss the impact of the Norman invasion on the people and land of Wales and across the modern border with England in what became known as The Welsh Marches, march being a term for a militarized borderland. Hay was one of the first Marcher lordships. Even before 1066, William the Conqueror knew that he would have to subdue the Welsh if he were to control the English and he allowed more and more Norman warlords to establish virtually their own private kingdoms in these Marches. Later some of the Lords were to use these bases to invade Ireland rather than conquer the rest of Wales. Marcher Lords built numerous castles such as the one at Hay and many new towns would then grow up alongside these where there was one law for the English and another for the Welsh and, though the Acts of Union under the Tudors brought an end to much of the Marcher Lords' powers, the distinct identity of these Welsh Marches continued.With Rhun Emlyn Lecturer in the Department of History and Welsh History at Aberystwyth UniversityHelen Fulton Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of BristolAnd Huw Pryce Emeritus Professor of Welsh History at Bangor UniversityProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:R. R. Davies, The Age of Conquest: Wales 1063-1415 (Oxford University Press, 2001)R.R. Davies, Lordship and Society in the March of Wales 1282-1400 (Oxford University Press, 1978)John Fleming, The Welsh Marcher Lordships II: South-West (Logaston Press, 2023)Ben Giles, The Welsh Marches: 40 Town and Country Walks (Pocket Mountains, 2012)Philip Hume, The Welsh Marcher Lordships I: Central & North (Logaston Press, 2021)Max Lieberman, The March of Wales, 1067–1300: A Borderland of Medieval Britain (University of Wales Press, 2018)Max Lieberman, The Medieval March of Wales: The Creation and Perception of a Frontier, 1066-1283 (Cambridge University Press, 2010)D. Huw Owen, The Lordship of Denbigh 1282-1543 (University of Wales Press, 2024)Mike Parker, All the Wide Border: Wales, England and the Places Between (HarperNorth, 2024)Dewi Roberts, Both Sides of the Border: An Anthology of Writing on the Welsh Border Region (Gwasg Carreg Gwalch/Eagle Rock Press, 1998)Christopher Somerville, The Welsh Borders (Philips, 1991)David Stephenson, Patronage and Power in the Medieval Welsh March: One Family's Story (University of Wales Press, 2021)David Walker, Medieval Wales (Cambridge University Press, 2008)In Our Time is a BBC Studios ProductionSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.