In last week’s episode of In Our Time, Melvyn Bragg hosted a discussion on the history of history.

From ancient epics to medieval hagiographies and modern deconstructions, historians have endlessly chronicled, surveyed and analysed the great many things that keep happening, declaring some of them good and some of them bad.

But the writing of history always illuminates two periods—the one history is written about and the one it is written in. And to look at how the writing of history has changed is to examine the way successive ages have understood their world. In short, there is a history to history.

Unfortunately, the panel focuses on the Ancients for too long and gets bogged down in details unrelated to the larger theme.  But then they skip ahead and discuss feminist history.  Although they miss a bunch of stuff in between, what they do end up talking about is really interesting.

Other freely available episodes from the BBC archives, varying on this theme, include: Continue reading BBC’s In Our Time on Historiography →