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?

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.

Hello, I'm Shahid Abari.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the Arts and Ideas podcast, which is recorded with an audience before one of the concerts in this year's BBC proms.

This is the BBC.

Hello, it is the BBC. It is the 7th of May 1915 and the RMS Lusitania is on route from New York to Liverpool, with 1,962 people on board. Of the southern coast of Ireland, the Lusitania is torpedoed by a German U-boat and

sinks with the loss of 1,198 lives. For weeks afterwards, the people of County Cork have to deal

with hundreds of bodies washing up on their shows. This event would become instrumental not only in the USA's decision to declare war on Germany in 1917,

but it would also lead to an increase in recruitment as men from Britain and Ireland joined up to avenge the Lusitania.

The actual sinking, however, remains surrounded with ambiguity and controversy, so that separating

historic fact from propagandist myth is still not easy.

I'm an India-Ra-Chaudhry, and my research is concerned with the cultural representation

and collective memory of war and conflict.

Joining me to explore the significance of the sinking and how the story has evolved over

the last hundred years are the historians Laura Rowe and Saul David.

So Laura, let's start with perhaps the most controversial aspect of the story.

Within the rules of engagement at the time, was the Lusitania a legitimate target?

Certainly the German Imperial Navy were firmly of the opinion that the Lusitania was indeed a legitimate

target. Now, the rules of war are actually quite ambiguous in this respect. So the British

had imposed a blockade on Germany. Blockade is a recognized

tactic at the time, but the British chose to add things to the blockade as contraband that

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