In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg Folgen

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Mamluks, who ruled Egypt and Syria from about 1250 to 1517. Originally slave soldiers who managed to depose their masters, they went on to repel the Mongols and the Crusaders to become the dominant force in the medieval Islamic Middle Eastern world. Although the Mamluks were renowned as warriors, under their rule art, crafts and architecture blossomed. Little known by many in the West today, the Mamluks remained in power for almost 300 years until they were eventually overthrown by the Ottomans.With:Amira Bennison Reader in the History and Culture of the Maghrib at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Magdalene CollegeRobert Irwin Former Senior Research Associate in the Department of History at SOAS, University of LondonDoris Behrens-Abouseif Nasser D Khalili Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology at SOAS, University of LondonProducer: Victoria Brignell.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests begin a new series of the programme with a discussion of the French polymath Blaise Pascal. Born in 1623, Pascal was a brilliant mathematician and scientist, inventing one of the first mechanical calculators and making important discoveries about fluids and vacuums while still a young man. In his thirties he experienced a religious conversion, after which he devoted most of his attention to philosophy and theology. Although he died in his late thirties, Pascal left a formidable legacy as a scientist and pioneer of probability theory, and as one of seventeenth century Europe's greatest writers. With:David Wootton Anniversary Professor of History at the University of YorkMichael Moriarty Drapers Professor of French at the University of CambridgeMichela Massimi Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy of Science at the University of Edinburgh.Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the invention of radio. In the early 1860s the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell derived four equations which together describe the behaviour of electricity and magnetism. They predicted the existence of a previously unknown phenomenon: electromagnetic waves. These waves were first observed in the early 1880s, and over the next two decades a succession of scientists and engineers built increasingly elaborate devices to produce and detect them. Eventually this gave birth to a new technology: radio. The Italian Guglielmo Marconi is commonly described as the father of radio - but many other figures were involved in its development, and it was not him but a Canadian, Reginald Fessenden, who first succeeded in transmitting speech over the airwaves.With:Simon Schaffer Professor of the History of Science at the University of CambridgeElizabeth Bruton Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of LeedsJohn Liffen Curator of Communications at the Science Museum, LondonProducer: Thomas Morris.