Main content

This Old Year

Sarah Dunant delves into the past to help frame moments from an eventful past 12 months, from Donald Trump and fake news to Brexit.

In this final episode of 2017, broadcaster and acclaimed historical novelist Sarah Dunant, delves into the past to help frame moments from the year, as picked by historians, bringing to life worlds that span the centuries.

From the East India Company in the 17th Century to corporate power in the White House of 2017; from the second coming of the Ku Klux Klan and an immigration ban in 1920, via fake news in 17th century France to an Irish history lesson that's become vital in this month's Brexit negotiations.

The programme takes its name from the industrialist Henry Ford who, in 1921, reportedly told the New York Times, "History is Bunk" and asked "What difference does it make how many times the ancient Greeks flew kites?"

Presenter: Sarah Dunant
Producers: Katherine Godfrey and Nathan Gower
Executive Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for ±«Óãtv Radio 4.

Available now

30 minutes

Last on

Sun 31 Dec 2017 13:30
±«Óãtv Radio 4

More episodes

Previous

Speaking Out

Next

Resist

See all episodes from When Greeks Flew Kites

Programme information

Contributors’ Reading

William Dalrymple, Writer and Historian

The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857

Linda Kiernan, Lecturer in French and European History at Trinity College, Dublin

'Absolutely Beautiful? Mme de Pompadour and the Aesthetics of Power' in Christine Adams and Tracy Adams (eds),ÌýFemale Beauty Systems.

Diarmaid Ferriter, Professor of Modern Irish History at University College, Dublin

A Nation and Not a Rabble: The Irish Revolutions, 1913-23

Linda Gordon, Professor of History at New York University

The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition

Ìý

Ìý

Dig Deep with Further Reading and Source Material

The Diary of Johannes Burchard

A History of Bengal – Ghulam Husain Khan

Bibliographie des Mazarinades - Célestin Moreau

Birth of a Nation (film) – D.W. Griffith

Take It Down From The Mast (folk song) – James Ryan

Ìý

Broadcast

  • Sun 31 Dec 2017 13:30
    ±«Óãtv Radio 4

Podcast

  • When Greeks Flew Kites

    Monthly series in which Sarah Dunant finds stories from the past to help frame the present