Rethinking Civilisations
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 22 March 2018
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the BBC screens its new arts series, Civilisations, one of the presenters, David Olusoga, joins presenter Philip Dodd, anthropologist Kit Davis and the historian Kenan Malik to consider our different notions of world history from the dawn of human civilisation to the present day.
David Olusoga is a historian, writer and broadcaster who has presented several TV documentaries including A House Through Time; The World's War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire and the BAFTA award-winning Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners. His most recent book is Black and British: A Forgotten History.
Dr Kit Davis is a lecturer in social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies who has written about travels across Europe and about Rwanda. She is a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Review.
Kenan Malik’s books include From Fatwa to Jihad and The Quest for a Moral Compass: A Global History of Ethics. Kenan is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster who presented Nightwaves on BBC Radio 3 and has written and presented radio and TV documentaries including Disunited Kingdom, Are Muslims Hated?, Islam, and Mullahs and the Media.
Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.
Producer: Fiona McLean
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 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 | Hello, I'm Philip Dodd and welcome to the Arts and Ideas Discussion Program from BBC Radio 3, |
| 0:38.1 | which brings together leading artists, writers and thinkers. |
| 0:42.2 | If you enjoy what you hear, do subscribe to the Arts and Ideas podcast, |
| 0:47.1 | and wherever you get your podcast from, do rate and reviewers. |
| 0:51.8 | It'll help other people to find us. |
| 0:54.5 | This is the BBC. |
| 1:02.4 | Oscar. Oscar Wilde once quipped. |
| 1:10.7 | America's the only country that went from barbarism to decadence |
| 1:15.5 | without civilization in between. |
| 1:19.3 | It is as usual a witty epigram, at least if the listener's not American. |
| 1:25.2 | But its wit relies on the fact that the admiring audience and Oscar Wilde share |
| 1:31.9 | the same view of what civilization is. That is not our position. What counts as a civilization? |
| 1:40.5 | Who defines it? What is the relationship amongst civilizations? All these are matters of sharp debate in a globalised world where various leaders from presidents Trump and Macron to Prime Minister Modi and President Xi of China want to make their countries great again. At present, the BBC's screening a nine-part series, |
| 2:04.5 | Civilisations, note the plural, |
| 2:07.4 | with three presenters, which is its modest contribution |
| 2:10.7 | to the global debate, |
| 2:13.0 | and which echoes the famous 1969, Kenneth Clark series, |
| 2:17.3 | Civilisation, a Personal View, whose horizon |
| 2:20.3 | was European civilization. To talk about how civilizations have been and are imagined, and how the |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.