Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps

that it's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream

van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC sounds.

This is a download from the BBC. For more information and our terms of use, go to BBC.com.uk slash radio three.

As we all know, Persia is full of giant ants who dig gold out of the ground.

Well, at least that's true if you believe one of the earliest histories of the world by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus.

In other words, human beings have been rewriting the history of the world for quite a long while now.

But today, at a time when global power seems to be shifting from the North Atlantic to the Pacific,

we need to think about whether our understanding of history has to do the same.

Are we ending a 300-year blip when the cold shores of

Europe ruled the roost when it comes to interpreting the past? Well, to reorient the world's history

on a new axis, I'm joined by three distinguished new Herodotuses, although with perhaps a rather

more rigorous attitude towards evidence than the man from Halle Carnassas.

I'm more used to seeing Andrew Marr when I'm wearing an old t-shirt and shorts,

because his Sunday morning politics show is a required viewing in our house.

But in recent weeks, he's also been dominating Sunday evenings with his show, History of the World,

accompanied by his book of the same title.

Anthony Beaver is one of Britain's biggest thinking and biggest selling historians.

His books on the Spanish Civil War and Stalingrad have won huge acclaim,

but his latest has been his biggest endeavour yet,

an 800-page volume entitled simply The Second World War, with an emphasis on the world.

And Marie Miserra teaches history at Oxford, but has spread her wings wide with an acclaimed history of India, Vishnu's Temple, and a highly praised television series on Indian history.

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