Start The Week

How do we think about war? How do we imagine it, picture it and explain it? Adam Rutherford hosts Radio 4's discussion programme which starts the week, asking what we can learn about ourselves from our varied intellectual and cultural responses to conflict.Sir Lawrence Freedman is one of the world's leading scholars of warfare. In his new collection of essays, On Strategists and Strategy, he considers some of the key strategic thinkers of the last century and thoughts about the significance of political calculation, military tactics, organisational behaviour, character and psychology.A new exhibition opens in March at the Imperial War Museum, London titled Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art. The curator Rebecca Newell explains what we learn from the ways in which artists recorded changes to the city during the Second World War in paintings, drawings and film.The Hôtel Lutetia, the grand hotel on Paris's Left Bank, has over the years drawn bohemians and great artists, including Matisse and Picasso.

When society, financial systems and human beings fall short, how can we repair the damage? Tom Sutcliffe hosts Radio 4's discussion programme which starts the week, exploring the social, moral and political contradictions of the world we face today, with US novelist George Saunders, Turkish writer Ece Temulkuran and investigative journalist Oliver Bullough, The Booker Prize winning novelist, George Saunders new book Vigil deals with the moral ambivalence of a greedy oil executive; the death bed reckoning of a man who resists facing his life and legacy. The Turkish writer, Ece Temulkuran's new book Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding a Home in the 21st Century explores the rising global displacement of people who will need to forge stronger connections amid political and social upheaval. In an investigation of money laundering, Oliver Bullough's Everybody Loves Our Dollars sets out the scale of the problem and why we are failing to tackle the global systems that allow illicit money to move freely usi

Games are supposed to be fun — so what happens when the logic of games, points and competition escapes the playground and starts reshaping everyday life? The novelist and games-writer Naomi Alderman and her guests explore how the joy of play collides with the pressures of a gamified society.Philosopher C Thi Nguyen introduces The Score, his examination of how ranking systems and numerical targets can both sharpen and warp our values, revealing how life becomes less playful when everything is reduced to points.Journalist and critic Keza MacDonald discusses Super Nintendo, her cultural history of the iconic console, tracing how its games, aesthetics and innovations transformed the medium and helped define what play means for generations of players.The Financial Times' commentator Stephen Bush examines the growing role of games and game like incentives in public life, exploring how the techniques of play — from reward structures to competitive framing — are reshaping political behaviour and communication.Produce

A lawyer, artist and curator discuss different examples of censorship and self censorship in Radio 4's weekly discussion of ideas to kick off the week. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are: Ai Weiwei: a major name in contemporary art and for decades a leading voice for freedom of expression in his native China – and the wider world. In 2011 he was detained for eighty-one days in a secret location, unable to communicate with the outside world. His new book, On Censorship moves from authoritarian regimes to the pervasive influence of corporate power, social media and dominant interest groups in democracies. Baroness Helena Kennedy has written the introduction to collected writings of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist who was murdered outside her home in Moscow twenty years ago. With continued attacks in Russia on press freedom, the way she spoke truth to power remains inspirational for Baroness Kennedy. The figure of the Samurai is often associated with ideas about discipline, sacrifice and war but a new exhibi

Adam Rutherford and guests discuss intelligence, genetics and the nature of reality. How are scientific advances in AI, cognitive science and genetics changing our understanding of the material world and what it means to be human? Adrian Woolfson argues that we must transform biology into programmable engineering material. To do this, we must decode the generative grammar of DNA, the language of life itself, so we might create or change genomes – possibly including our own. In his book, 'On the Future of Species Authoring Life by Means of Artificial Biological Intelligence' he imagines a future where - we grow houses rather than build them; smartphones are living; clothing has opinions; all human knowledge fits into a speck of DNA; disease is a thing of the past; and the human lifespan is dramatically extended.What can we learn by combining cognitive science and artificial intelligence? In The Emergent Mind, a new book co-authored by Gaurav Suri, looks at how a data-driven neural network can create thoughts,

If trust in politicians is broken and the political system isn't delivering, then how might we go about fixing things? Can we revive faith in democratic government by doing things differently? The political scientist Hélène Landemore argues that electoral politics is broken and that the answer lies in doing away with career politicians. She imagines dismantling a system that is biased in favour of the special interests of big money, propelled by the constant quest for re-election and the jaded proffering empty promises. In her new book, Politics without Politicians she posits that, among other solutions, we need Athenian style participation through mechanisms such as civic lotteries. More people need to be involved first hand in decision making if everyone is to feel heard. Author and broadcaster Phil Tinline explains why he thinks politicians need to start thinking and talking about power again if they are to stand a chance of delivering on their promises. He argues that if nothing ever changes, then we

What is the purpose of the Arts? Can music, literature and visual art change our lives physically and socially, as well as personally? Adam Rutherford explores the power of the arts and how it might be defined and explained.Engaging with the arts is one of our most powerful tools for unlocking health and happiness argues Daisy Fancourt. She is is Professor of Psychobiology and Epidemiology at University College London and Director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre on Arts and Health. In her new book, Art Cure, she shows how songs support the development of children's brains; how dance can build neural pathways; how theatre and exhibitions can decrease pain, stress and depression and how the arts can improve the functioning of every major organ system in the body. Drawing on the latest research research in a range of scientific fields, she traces a connection between the arts and human flourishing. Earliest Stories: Stories, Novellas, Humoresques, 1880-1882 is a collection of the Russian wr

What do animals mean to us? Naomi Alderman explores how animals shape human understanding, from ancient burial rites to modern science.The psychologist Justin Gregg specialises in dolphin social cognition. He introduces his new book, Humanish, a witty and provocative look at anthropomorphism — our habit of seeing human traits in animals, objects and machines — and how it helps us make sense of the world and increases empathy.Peter Fretwell is a leading scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, and author of The Penguin Book of Penguins. He celebrates the charm and complexity of penguins, from their evolutionary quirks to their cultural symbolism, alongside the threats they face today.Marianne Hem Eriksen is Professor of Viking Studies at the National Museum of Denmark and part of the BBC / Arts and Humanities Research Council scheme of New Generation Thinkers. She draws on archaeological evidence to show how Viking societies had a complex relationship with animals, seeing them not just as pets or food, but a

How much can we truly know about the inner lives of others? Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Miles Leeson and Karen Leeder to reflect on the challenge of interpreting the minds and motivations of poets, both past and present. Editor Miles Leeson presents Poems from an Attic, a newly published collection of Iris Murdoch’s previously unseen poetry. Found in a box long after her death, these intimate verses offer fresh insight into the desires of a writer better known for her novels and philosophy.Professor Karen Leeder has spent much of her career studying the poetry of East Germany. Her recent translation of Durs Grünbein, Psyche Running: Selected Poems 2005-2022 won this year's Griffin Poetry Prize 2025. Grünbein has written about the wartime bombing of his birth city Dresden and as a translator of classical authors, including Aeschylus and Seneca, his work features reflections on the relevance of the past and of antiquity in the present. Nick Makoha's latest volume of poetry The New Carthaginians draws on an eclec

Three visions of darkness as the days draw in. Adam Rutherford's guests for Radio 4's Monday discussion programme are a poet, a photographer of night-time and a National Gallery curator. Night Vision is the latest book from the award-winning poet and writer Jean Sprackland exploring our complex relationship with the dark: what we fear and what we wish to banish. In the dark she finds a place of possibility and she asks what might we discover in the dark if we free our imagination. The photographer Jasper Goodall has been taking photographs in the dark for many years, mainly in forests and woodlands. In 2025 in exhibitions on show at Nottingham, Brighton, Cornwall and the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition he has displayed works which draw on classical myth, European folklore and animistic belief systems. Christine Riding, Director of Collections and Research, talks about the images of scientific experiment and industrialisation in England on show in the National Gallery's exhibition showcasing the candlelight pa

Three prize-winning authors in today's discussion programme hosted by Tom Sutcliffe:The German Peasants’ War of 1524–1525 was the greatest popular uprising in Western Europe before the French Revolution. Tens of thousands of peasants rose up to demand a new, more egalitarian order—only to be crushed in a brutal counterattack that left up to 100,000 dead. The historian Lyndal Roper argues that this rebellion was far from chaotic: it was a coherent mass movement inspired by the radical ideals of the Protestant Reformation. Her book Summer of Fire and Blood is the winner of the 2025 Cundill History Prize. The neurologist Masud Husain explores the human mind through the stories of seven patients. In asking what it is that makes us who we are, he explores how our identity can shift when we lose just a single cognitive ability. He examines the stories a man who ran out of words, a woman who stopped caring what others thought, and another who, losing her memory, believed she was having an affair with her own husban

What can the cosmos tell us about our past and future? Tom Sutcliffe and guests look skyward and deep into the quantum world to ask how much we can really know about the universe - and about ourselves. Space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock, presenter of this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, shares her passion for inspiring the next generation to think big, as she explores the wonders of our solar system and the questions that still puzzle astronomers. Physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies introduces his new book Quantum 2.0, charting the strange and revolutionary principles of quantum mechanics and how they are reshaping technology, science, and our understanding of reality itself. From the Natural History Museum, Caroline Smith brings insights from meteorites — fragments of ancient worlds — and explains how these cosmic messengers help scientists search for life beyond Earth and piece together the story of our solar system’s origins. Together, in Radio 4's weekly ideas discussion programme Start

What can genetics and palmistry tell us about how we understand identity, character and health? Adam Rutherford is joined by Professor of Zoology Matthew Cobb; the historian Professor Alison Bashford and the geneticist Charlotte Houldcroft.Matthew Cobb discusses his biography Crick: A Mind in Motion. From the discovery of DNA’s structure to Francis Crick’s later work on consciousness, Cobb reveals a restless thinker whose collaborations — with scientists, artists and poets — shaped some of the most profound ideas of the 20th century.Alison Bashford turns to palm reading in her new book Decoding the Hand, a history of palmistry and its surprising entanglement with science, medicine and magic.The geneticist Charlotte Houldcroft's research uses ancient DNA to work out how DNA viruses - such as smallpox and herpes - change over time and the consequences of this evolution for our immune systems.Producer: Natalia Fernandez

How can we reclaim the internet? Tom Sutcliffe and guests discuss the digital age - its supporters and discontents. Tech critic Cory Doctorow introduces his new book Enshittification, a blistering diagnosis of how online platforms have decayed — from innovation to exploitation — and what we can do to make it better for ordinary users. Novelist and broadcaster Naomi Alderman draws on history in Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today, arguing that we’ve lived through information crises before, and that lessons from the invention of writing and the printing press can help us navigate today’s digital turbulence. Journalist Oliver Moody, the author of Baltic: The Future of Europe, discusses Estonia’s radical embrace of digital governance, and what it reveals about the possibilities — and limits — of a truly connected state.Producer: Katy Hickman Assistant Producer: Natalia Fernandez

Threats to the natural world are the focus of today’s conversation. Adam Rutherford talks to wildlife biologist Jonathan Slaght, novelist Juhea Kim and criminal psychologist Julia Shaw.Jonathan Slaght discusses Tigers Between Empires, his account of the international effort to save the Siberian tiger from extinction in the wake of the Cold War. Juhea Kim’s short story collection A Love Story from the End of the World imagines lives lived in precarious balance with nature, from biodomes in Seoul to landfill islands in the Pacific. Dr Julia Shaw’s Green Crime investigates the psychology behind environmental destruction, profiling the perpetrators of ecological harm and the people fighting to stop them.Producer: Katy Hickman Assistant Producer: Natalia Fernandez

In her latest novel, One Aladdin Two Lamps, the writer Jeanette Winterson takes inspiration from the legendary story of Shahrazad in One Thousand and One Nights. But she calls on the reader to look again at stories we think we know, unpick how fiction works, and have the courage to challenge and change the narrative.The saxophonist and presenter Soweto Kinch will perform his new album, Soundtrack to the Apocalypse, with the London Symphony Orchestra (at the Barbican, London, on Friday 14th November), combining British jazz, hip-hop and orchestral music. This is the finale of his acclaimed trilogy of politically charged, genre-defying works that tell different stories of the past, present and future. The former MP Rory Stewart spent nearly a decade in Britain’s most rural constituency, Penrith and Borders, and wrote a column for a local newspaper. In Middleland: Dispatches from the Borders he’s collected together these fragmentary moments from rural life and local politics to capture a wide-ranging portrait of

The internationally renowned choreographer Sir Wayne McGregor swaps stage for gallery in a landmark exhibition exploring his multifaceted career at Somerset House (from 30 Oct 2025–22 Feb 2026). ‘Infinite Bodies’ investigates how Wayne McGregor has combined body, movement and cutting-edge digital technologies to redefine perceptions of physical intelligence. Throughout the gallery space he draws together designers, musicians, engineers and dancers to bring the artworks to life.The Booker prize winning novelist Anne Enright is in the studio to talk about her latest work, ‘Attention, Writing on Life, Art and the World’. Unlike her fiction, in these essays, Enright speaks directly to the reader, elucidating her thoughts on everything from family history to Irish politics and the control of women, to new perspectives on literary legends. There’s a screen idol at the heart of Tanika Gupta’s new play, Hedda (at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, until 22nd November). Inspired by the life of Anglo-Indian film star M

The Library of Lost Maps by James Cheshire, Professor of Geographic Information and Cartography, tells the story of the discovery of a treasure-trove at the heart of University College London. In a long-forgotten room James found thousands of maps and atlases. This abandoned archive reveals how maps have traced the contours of the world, inspiring some of the greatest scientific discoveries, as well as leading to terrible atrocities and power grabs. But maps have not always been used to navigate or reveal the world, according to a new exhibition at the British Library on Secret Maps (from 24 October 2025 to 18 January 2026). Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary University of London, and author of Four Points of the Compass, explains how mysterious maps throughout history have been used to hide, shape and control knowledge. The biographer Jenny Uglow celebrates a different kind of mapping in her new book, A Year with Gilbert White: The First Great Nature Writer. In 1781 the country cur

Of the 7,000 languages estimated to exist, half will have disappeared by the end of this century. That’s the stark warning from the Director of the Endangered Languages Archive, Mandana Seyfeddinipur. The evolution of languages, and their rise and fall, is part of human history, but the speed at which this is happening today is unprecedented. Mandana will be appearing at the inaugural Voiced: The Festival for Endangered Languages at the Barbican in October. A sense of loss also runs through Sverker Sörlin’s love letter to snow. The professor of Environmental History in Stockholm writes about the infinite variety of water formulations, frozen in air, in ‘Snö: A History’ (translated by Elizabeth DeNoma), and his fears about the vanishing white landscapes of his youth.In the Arctic the transformation from frozen desert into an international waterway is gathering pace. Klaus Dodds is Professor of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London and with co-author Mia Bennett sets out the fight and the future o

The economist Yanis Varoufakis found himself in the eye of the storm as Greece’s Minister of Finance in 2015, at the height of the country’s debt crisis. Now he reflects on his political awakenings and the women who influenced him in Raise Your Soul. It’s a family story that starts in Egypt in the 1920s and traces Greece’s tumultuous century through Nazi occupation, civil war, dictatorship, socialism and economic crisis. The historian Professor Mary Vincent focuses on the Spanish Civil War and has written about fascism, political violence and its impact on the people. She sees both similarities and stark differences between the Greek and Spanish Civil Wars and ponders the question of how global politics influence what happens in nation states.As a new translation of Thucydides’s The History of the Peloponnesian War (by Robin Waterfield) is published, the classicist Professor Paul Cartledge explains why this ancient text has remained essential reading for military leaders and politicians for centuries. Thucyd