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 at 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.co.uk slash radio three.

History has never been so popular or so much argued about.

For many, it's a playground of fantasies, guilty pleasures for all of us couch potatoes

who like a bit of bodice and swashbuckle.

Philippa Gregory's breathless tales of Tudor and Plantagenet scheming

dominate the ratings and the bestseller lists.

Back in real life, Michael Gove and his adversaries do battle over what history

the nation's children should be taught at school

and whether our island's story or a broader sweep of global history is the place to start.

So how do we see Britain's historical place in the world? And how does that influence the way

we think about our choices now, from military intervention to the European Union? Today, we'll be

asking how the British have used history to shape a sense of national identity

and whether such an ephemeral thing can be rooted in the way we consider and deploy the past.

And where better to be asking such questions than here at the Daily Mail Chalk Valley History Festival,

where my guests are the historians Helen Castor, Michael Wood and Tom Holland,

and the writer and politician

Quasi Quattang. Please welcome them all.

Michael, for our modern imaginations, history has become something of an imaginative playground,

hasn't it?

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