Free Thinking: The Wolfson Prize
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2017
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rana Mitter is joined by the 6 shortlisted authors and an audience at the British Academy for a discussion about writing history. This is the first year that the Wolfson History Prize has announced a shortlist. The winner will be named on May 15th.
Daniel Beer, THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD: SIBERIAN EXILE UNDER THE TSARS
Chris Given-Wilson, HENRY IV
Christopher de Hamel, MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MANUSCRIPTS
Sasha Handley, SLEEP IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND
Lyndal Roper, MARTIN LUTHER: RENEGADE AND PROPHET
Matthew Strickland, HENRY THE YOUNG KING, 1155-1183
Producer: Jacqueline Smith
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | 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, 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? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.1 | Thank you for downloading this Arts and Ideas podcast from the free thinking team at the BBC. |
| 0:41.0 | Hello. Arts and Ideas podcast from the Free Thinking team at the BBC. Hello, tonight on free thinking, we've got it all. A world long since past, |
| 0:46.9 | full of turbulent priests, Siberian settlements, mutinous monarchs and beds. Lots and lots of old beds. |
| 0:55.5 | The four posters with the mostest. |
| 0:57.6 | Because tonight we're diving deep with six authors shortlisted |
| 1:01.3 | for this country's most lucrative prize for history, |
| 1:04.3 | the Wolfson Prize for the best historical writing of the year. |
| 1:08.6 | Previous winners include the classicist Mary Beard, military historian Anthony |
| 1:12.6 | Beaver and the biographer Antonia Fraser. To find out about this year's equally impressive |
| 1:18.2 | finalists, we're here with an audience at the British Academy, the UK's home for the humanities |
| 1:22.9 | and social sciences. Now these books are notable, not just for their lengths, but also the depth |
| 1:29.0 | of research in multiple languages in many cases. So I'm going to start with each of our authors |
| 1:33.8 | by asking you how much of a labour of love and also of time these books must have been to |
| 1:40.1 | bring to the publishers and then here to the public. Let me start with our first author. |
| 1:45.1 | Lyndall Roper, you've been nominated for the book Martin Luther, Renegade and Profit. |
| 1:50.7 | What led you to this subject? |
| 1:52.5 | I think it's a love-hate relationship that I've had ever since I was a child. |
| 1:57.0 | Anyone who can say that the garment that suits women least is cleverness |
| 2:02.3 | is clearly someone I wanted to get to groups with. |
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