In Our Time: History Folgen

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the canonical figures from the history of political thought. Marsilius of Padua (c1275 to c1343) wrote 'Defensor Pacis' (The Defender of the Peace) around 1324 when the Papacy, the Holy Roman Emperor and the French King were fighting over who had supreme power on Earth. In this work Marsilius argued that the people were the source of all power and they alone could elect a leader to act on their behalf; they could remove their leaders when they chose and, afterwards, could hold them to account for their actions. He appeared to favour an elected Holy Roman Emperor and he was clear that there were no grounds for the Papacy to have secular power, let alone gather taxes and wealth, and that clerics should return to the poverty of the Apostles. Protestants naturally found his work attractive in the 16th Century when breaking with Rome. In the 20th Century Marsilius has been seen as an early advocate for popular sovereignty and republican democracy, to the extent possible in his time.With Annabel Brett Professor of Political Thought and History at the University of CambridgeGeorge Garnett Professor of Medieval History and Fellow and Tutor at St Hugh’s College, University of OxfordAnd Serena Ferente Professor of Medieval History at the University of AmsterdamProducer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Sounds Audio ProductionReading list: Richard Bourke and Quentin Skinner (eds), Popular Sovereignty in Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2016), especially 'Popolo and law in Marsilius and the jurists' by Serena FerenteJ. Canning, Ideas of Power in the Late Middle Ages, 1296-1417 (Cambridge University Press, 2011)H.W.C. Davis (ed.), Essays in Mediaeval History presented to Reginald Lane Poole (Clarendon Press, 1927), especially ‘The authors cited in the Defensor Pacis’ by C.W. Previté-OrtonGeorge Garnett, Marsilius of Padua and ‘The Truth of History’ (Oxford University Press, 2006) J.R. Hale, J.R.L. Highfield and B. Smalley (eds.), Europe in the Late Middle Ages (Faber and Faber, 1965), especially ‘Marsilius of Padua and political thought of his time’ by N. RubinsteinJoel Kaye, 'Equalization in the Body and the Body Politic: From Galen to Marsilius of Padua’ (Mélanges de l'Ecole Française de Rome 125, 2013)Xavier Márquez (ed.), Democratic Moments: Reading Democratic Texts (Bloomsbury, 2018), especially ‘Consent and popular sovereignty in medieval political thought: Marsilius of Padua’s Defensor pacis’ by T. Shogimen Marsiglio of Padua (trans. Cary J. Nederman), Defensor Minor and De Translatione Imperii (Cambridge University Press, 1993)Marsilius of Padua (trans. Annabel Brett), The Defender of the Peace (Cambridge University Press, 2005)Gerson Moreño-Riano (ed.), The World of Marsilius of Padua (Brepols, 2006)Gerson Moreno-Riano and Cary J. Nederman (eds), A Companion to Marsilius of Padua (Brill, 2012)A. Mulieri, S. Masolini and J. Pelletier (eds.), Marsilius of Padua: Between history, Politics, and Philosophy (Brepols, 2023)C. Nederman, Community and Consent: The Secular Political Theory of Marsiglio of Padua’s Defensor Pacis (Rowman and Littlefield, 1995)Vasileios Syros, Marsilius of Padua at the Intersection of Ancient and Medieval Traditions of Political Thought (University of Toronto Press, 2012)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the woman who, for almost fifty years, was the most powerful figure in the Chinese court. Cixi (1835-1908) started out at court as one of the Emperor's many concubines, yet was the only one who gave him a son to succeed him and who also possessed great political skill and ambition. When their son became emperor he was still a young child and Cixi ruled first through him and then, following his death, through another child emperor. This was a time of rapid change in China, when western powers and Japan humiliated the forces of the Qing empire time after time, and Cixi had the chance to push forward the modernising reforms the country needed to thrive. However, when she found those reforms conflicted with her own interests or those of the Qing dynasty, she was arguably obstructive or too slow to act and she has been personally blamed for some of those many humiliations even when the fault lay elsewhere. With Yangwen Zheng Professor of Chinese History at the University of ManchesterRana Mitter The S.T. Lee Professor of US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy SchoolAndRonald Po Associate Professor in the Department of International History at London School of Economics and Visiting Professor at Leiden UniversityProducer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio ProductionReading list: Pearl S. Buck, Imperial Woman: The Story of the Last Empress of China (first published 1956; Open Road Media, 2013) Katharine A. Carl, With the Empress Dowager (first published 1906; General Books LLC, 2009)Jung Chang, Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (Jonathan Cape, 2013)Princess Der Ling, Old Buddha (first published 1929; Kessinger Publishing, 2007) Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (University of California Press, 1987)John K. Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Harvard University Press, 2006)Peter Gue Zarrow and Rebecca Karl (eds.), Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China (Harvard University Press, 2002)Grant Hayter-Menzies, Imperial Masquerade: The Legend of Princess Der Ling (Hong Kong University Press, 2008)Keith Laidler, The Last Empress: The She-Dragon of China (Wiley, 2003)Keith McMahon, Celestial Women: Imperial Wives and Concubines in China from Song to Qing (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020)Anchee Min, The Last Empress (Bloomsbury, 2011)Ying-Chen Peng, Artful Subversion: Empress Dowager Cixi’s Image Making (Yale University Press, 2023).Sarah Pike Conger, Letters from China: with Particular Reference to the Empress Dowager and the Women of China (first published 1910; Forgotten Books, 2024)Stephen Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (Atlantic Books, 2019)Liang Qichao (trans. Peter Zarrow), Thoughts From the Ice-Drinker's Studio: Essays on China and the World (Penguin Classics, 2023)Sterling Seagrave, Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China (Vintage, 1993)Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (first published 1991; W. W. Norton & Company, 2001)X. L. Woo, Empress Dowager Cixi: China's Last Dynasty and the Long Reign of a Formidable Concubine (Algora Publishing, 2003)Zheng Yangwen, Ten Lessons in Modern Chinese History (Manchester University Press, 2018)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Napoleon Bonaparte's temporary return to power in France in 1815, following his escape from exile on Elba . He arrived with fewer than a thousand men, yet three weeks later he had displaced Louis XVIII and taken charge of an army as large as any that the Allied Powers could muster individually. He saw that his best chance was to pick the Allies off one by one, starting with the Prussian and then the British/Allied armies in what is now Belgium. He appeared to be on the point of victory at Waterloo yet somehow it eluded him, and his plans were soon in tatters. His escape to America thwarted, he surrendered on 15th July and was exiled again but this time to Saint Helena. There he wrote his memoirs to help shape his legacy, while back in Europe there were still fears of his return.With Michael Rowe Reader in European History at Kings College LondonKatherine Astbury Professor of French Studies at the University of WarwickAndZack White Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the University of PortsmouthProducer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production.Reading list:Katherine Astbury and Mark Philp (ed.), Napoleon's Hundred Days and the Politics of Legitimacy (Palgrave, 2018)Jeremy Black, The Battle of Waterloo: A New History (Icon Books, 2010)Michael Broers, Napoleon: The Decline and Fall of an Empire: 1811-1821 (Pegasus Books, 2022)Philip Dwyer, Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in power 1799-1815 (Bloomsbury, 2014)Charles J. Esdaile, Napoleon, France and Waterloo: The Eagle Rejected (Pen & Sword Military, 2016)Gareth Glover, Waterloo: Myth and Reality (Pen & Sword Military, 2014)Sudhir Hazareesingh, The Legend of Napoleon (Granta, 2014)John Hussey, Waterloo: The Campaign of 1815, Volume 1, From Elba to Ligny and Quatre Bras (Greenhill Books, 2017)Andrew Roberts, Napoleon the Great (Penguin Books, 2015)Brian Vick, The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon (Harvard University Press, 2014) Zack White (ed.), The Sword and the Spirit: Proceedings of the first ‘War & Peace in the Age of Napoleon’ Conference (Helion and Company, 2021)