Carrie Gracie presents a series exploring what ten great lives from Chinese history reveal about China today. Show more

Professor Barry Cunliffe discusses Vortigern, the king whom history has often held responsible for inviting to the British Isles the first Anglo-Saxon invaders. Show more

Professor Helena Hamerow of Oxford University discusses the peasant farmers who have shaped the English landscape as we know it today. Show more

Departing Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams focuses on St Augustine, the first-ever person to hold the role of Archbishop of Canterbury. Show more

Martin Carver recreates the lives of three powerful pagan women: a privileged pagan girl from the earliest period, a 'cunning woman', and a princess buried in her bed. Show more

Martin Carver recreates the life, death and burial of the inhabitant of the Sutton Hoo ship burial, thought to be King Raedwald. Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss printer William Caxton and the impact of the printing press in England. Show more

The Chinese emperor who inspired Coleridge and Columbus was not Chinese. Carrie Gracie finds a pattern in the way China digests foreigners and their ideas. Show more

Many Chinese look to Confucius for guidance. But Confucius looked to the Duke of Zhou. He handed power to his nephew 3,000 years ago, but his ideas still motivate leaders today.

Carrie Gracie explores the lives of Du Fu and Li Bai, two men whose poetry remains as vivid in the Chinese imagination as Shakespeare is in our own. Show more