The Invention Of... Folgen

In AD 937 a mighty battle, like something from Game of Thrones, took place somewhere on the British Isles. Nobody is exactly sure where. On one side there was the king of the Scottish highlands, the king of Strathclyde, and the king of Dublin as well. On the other, Athelstan, bracelet-bestower, baron of barons, lord among earls. It was England against the rest.In part two of the Invention of Britain, Misha Glenny explores the role of England in the history of these islands - from the battle of Brunanburgh to the conquest of Ireland and Wales. There are location recordings in Anglesey, Caernarfon, Edinburgh and beyond. Contributors include Tom Holland, Suzannah Lipscomb, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Sara Elin Roberts, Dafydd Iwan and Joan Redmond. This episode travels as far as the English Civil War, better known these days as the War of the Three Kingdoms.Presenter Misha Glenny is a Sony award-winning reporter and the author of McMafia. Miles Warde is the series producer of How to Invent a Country which also includes programmes on Germany, Spain, Italy and Brazil.

"Let's start with the monarchy - the Normans or Norsemen who'd settled in northern France; the Tudors, part Welsh; the Stuarts, they were Scots; then there's the Dutch, briefly, and the Hanoverians from 1714. There hasn’t been an English dynasty for almost a thousand years. And yet much of our history is centred on what London decides."This is the story of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, from Offa's Dyke to Hadrian's Wall via Dublin and Derry, Edinburgh too. What has made this Atlantic archipelago come together? Three acts of union, plus an Anglo-Irish agreement in 1921. Our rulers may have come from everywhere, yet for centuries we were at war with ourselves. Episode 1 considers England and Scotland, and the reasons behind the union of 1707.Recorded around the country - on the borders, the battlefields, in the rooms where deals were done - these programmes are told with Invention's trademark clarity.Presenter Misha Glenny is a Sony award winning reporter and the author of McMafia. Miles Warde produces the How to Invent a Country series which has now travelled to Germany, Spain, Brazil, Italy, the Netherlands and the USA.Contributors to the series include Diarmaid MacCulloch, Suzannah Lipscomb, Fiona Watson, Karin Bowie, Roy Foster, Fintan O'Toole, Tom Holland and Rebecca Rideal.

Two hours north east of Paris is a famous battlefield. The defeated French leader was called Napoleon, but the battle was not Waterloo. It was Sedan, and lining up against the French, the Prussians. The defeated French leader was Napoleon's nephew, le petit Napoleon, otherwise known as the emperor Napoleon III. This battle, in 1870, set up the dynamic that led to two world wars.In the final Invention of France, Misha Glenny explores a crucial year for all western Europe. France was invaded, Paris bombarded, and Alsace occupied. January 18th 1871, a humiliating event - the proclamation of a new German empire, announced not in Germany but in the Palace of Versailles. Europe would never be the same.With contributions from Thomas Kielinger, Jonathan Fenby, ambassador Sylvie Bermann, Andrew Hussey, Jeremy Black and Agnew Poirier. Plus contrubutions from Emile Zola's novel, Le Debacle.The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.