Linda Colley
School Professor of History at the London School of Economics
5 episodes
Covers topics in categories such as:
The East India Company
Melvyn Bragg discusses the powerful private trading company that redrew the map of India, built an empire and reinvented the fashions and the foodstuffs of Britain.
26 June 2003
Also featuring: Huw Bowen, Maria Misra
Slavery and Empire
Melvyn Bragg examines the history of British imperialism and its captives, both slaves and Britons, and examines whether slavery is an inevitable part of empire and how Britain finally shook it off.
17 October 2002
Also featuring: Catherine Hall, Felipe Fernández-Armesto
Cultural Imperialism
Melvyn Bragg discusses the idea that a dominating power such as ancient Greece, Persia, Rome, Islam, Britain and now America can exert a cultural and imitative influence.
27 June 2002
Also featuring: Phillip Dodd, Mary Beard
The Enlightenment in Britain
Melvyn Bragg examines the part British thinkers played in the Enlightenment in the 18th century, and examines whether the shifts of thought in those years provided the platform for the modern world.
18 January 2001
Also featuring: Roy Porter, Jeremy Black
The British Empire's Legacy
Melvyn Bragg discusses whether there is a need in Britain to re-examine its colonial past and examines the impact that imperial past has had on Britain’s current multicultural identity.
31 December 1998
Also featuring: Catherine Hall