Start the Week Folgen

Europeans and Africans have been encountering one another since as early as the 3rd century, according to the historian Olivette Otele. In her new book, African Europeans: An Untold History, she traces those meetings through the lives of individuals, both ordinary and extraordinary. She tells Tom Sutcliffe that exploring a past long overlooked raises prescient questions about racism, identity, citizenship and power. Toussaint Louverture – the subject of Sudhir Hazareesingh’s biography, Black Spartacus – was no ordinary figure. A former slave, he became the leader of a revolution in the 1790s that transformed Haiti, the former French Caribbean colony. With access to archival material often overlooked, Hazareesingh draws a portrait of an extraordinary man who combined Enlightenment ideals and Machiavellian politics with Caribbean mysticism and African traditions.As Professor of Public Engagement with History at the University of Reading, Kate Williams has thought hard about how to tell history. Her books, TV and radio programmes have covered topics from England's queens to the funeral of Baroness Thatcher, often turning upside-down preconceived images of Britain's most powerful women. She discusses the new debates raging in history, including how we should approach the legacies of colonialism and misogyny.Producer: Katy Hickman

The prize-winning writer Marilynne Robinson and the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams discuss belief, community and self-knowledge with Andrew Marr. The life and family of a Presbyterian minister in small-town Iowa is the focus in Marilynne Robinson’s quartet of Gilead novels. The latest, Jack, tells the story of the minister’s prodigal son and his romance with the daughter of a black preacher. Robinson’s work interrogates the complexities and paradoxes of American life, while exploring the power of our emotions and the wonders of a sacred world. Rowan Williams was Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 to 2012. Since stepping down he has written widely on poetry and literature, from Auden to Dostoevsky. Earlier this year he wrote about the importance and influence of the rules of monastic life. In The Way of St Benedict, Williams explores the appeal and relevance of Benedict’s sixth-century Rule to present-day Christians and non-believers.Producer: Katy Hickman

Claudia Rankine, one of America’s leading literary figures, and the double-Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood look at the world afresh, challenging conventions – with Kirsty Wark.In her latest book, Just Us: An American Conversation, Claudia Rankine reflects on what it means to experience, and question, everyday racism. Her poems draw on a series of encounters with friends and strangers, as well as historical record. Her work moves beyond the silence, guilt and violence that often surround discussions about whiteness, and dares all of us to confront the world in which we live.Margaret Atwood recently won the Booker Prize for a second time with The Testaments, her sequel to the 1985 prize-winner The Handmaid’s Tale. Her story of the fictional Gilead’s dark misogyny has retained its relevance after more than three decades. The world of Gilead was originally sparked by an earlier poem, Spelling, and Atwood explores the importance of poetry in firing the imagination.Producer: Katy Hickman Photographer: John Lucas