Leave it to the BBC to take the long view. Similar to our Long View chiefly in name, The Long View is a radio program hosted by
“Jonathan Freedland [who] looks for the past behind the present, and explores a moment in history which illuminates a contemporary debate.”
Here’s a list of some of the programs in their archives:
Was Drake a terrorist?
The Victorian supermodel
A brutal sentencing experiment
Smallpox innoculation
Stock market crash in 1720
The Irish Famine
Charles Darwin and religious education
The English Civil War
The Palatine refugees
Thomas Beckett and Church and State
Byron and the cult of celebrity
19th century workers’ strike
A royal marriage scandal
A crusade to the Middle East
Jude the Obscure and student reforms
Sidney St. siege in 1911
A medieval crimal gang
18th century garden designer
Pupils strike of 1911
Diary of an epedemic
Hereward the Wake
The Vassall Inquiry in 1963
An 18th century diet plan
Drugs and sport in the 1890s
The repeal of income tax
War and walls
I have not heard it. Sadlly, there is no podcast version that I can find. However a similar long view history program on the BBC called In Our Time, hosted by Melvyn Bragg is podcasted and it is superlative. I listen to it every week.
