Roundup

Win Scutt's 'This Week in Archaeology' [audio 15min @2:30]

Archaeologist Win Scutt reports on a new genetic study that suggests Orkney islanders have Siberian relatives; a chance discovery in Israel of a cave containing rich prehistoric site; two granaries found by archaeologists digging at the famous Roman fort of Vindolanda in Northumberland; discovery of a lost tower by archaeologists working on Oxford Castle's mound; rock carvings discovered in the Canary Islands which may have been connected with astronomical observations; and an amazing ancient si

Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, Brian Balogh on the history of controversial wars [audio 52min]

Critics of the war in Iraq often compare it – rightly or wrongly – to Vietnam. But there's no disputing that, like Vietnam, the current war has split the nation down the middle. It's enough to make one yearn for earlier times, when the nation united against a common enemy. Or did it? This hour of"BackStory" is about what happens on the home front when America goes to war. Interviewing a former Florida National Guard staff sergeant who served in the Iraq war and then served a prison term for goin

Richard Evans, Rosemary Ashton, Tim Blanning on 'The Riddle of the Sands' - How Britain learned to fear the Germans [audio 43min]

In 1903 an Englishman called Charles Caruthers went sailing in the North Sea and stumbled onto a German military plot. The cunning plan was to invade the British Isles from the Frisian Islands using special barges. The plucky Caruthers foiled the plot and returned to his sailing holiday. This is not history but fiction, an immensely popular book called The Riddle of the Sands. It was a prescient vision of two nations soon to fight the First World War, but it went against the spirit of the

Trofim Lysenko according to Robert Service, Steve Jones, Catherine Merridale [audio 43min]

In 1928, as America heads towards the Wall Street Crash, Joseph Stalin reveals his master plan - nature is to be conquered by science, Russia to be made brutally, glitteringly modern and the world transformed by communist endeavour. Into the heart of this vision stepped Trofim Lysenko, a self-taught geneticist who promised to turn Russian wasteland into a grain-laden Garden of Eden. Today, Lysenko is a byword for fraud but in Stalin’s Russia his ideas became law. They reveal a world of science d

Poppaea: Was Nero's wife as scandalous and scheming a person as her operatic portrayal suggests? [audio 10min]

The Coronation of Poppaea was the choice for the opening evening at England's Glyndebourne Festival Opera this year and is being performed there until July. One of the earliest operas, it was written by Baroque composer Claudio Monteverdi in 1642 and tells the story of how Poppaea Sabina seduces the Roman Emperor Nero to become first his mistress and then his wife. It has been described as"one of the sexiest pieces ever set to music" as well as"shockingly amoral" because Monteverdi portra

Women's medical history: Forceps -- Why a simple lifesaving object was shrouded in mystery for many years [audio 4min]

All prospective mothers want a straight-forward delivery and hope to avoid the use of forceps. However, when babies get stuck in the birth canal during childbirth, forceps have undoubtedly saved the lives of many thousands of women. Their invention was shrouded in secrecy as presenter Claudia Hammond discovered when she joined the medical historian Ornella Moscucci and Dr Lesley Hall, archivist at London's Wellcome Library. They met in the Medicine Man exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in Lo

Siwan, the last Queen of Wales [audio 8min]

When, twenty years ago, Catherine Gibson bought Garth Celyn, an old house on the North Wales coast, she had no idea that it had blue blood. Local folklore claimed that her new home had been the dwelling place of the Welsh Royal family until the 13th century and that it was where the last queen of Wales - Siwan (Joan) - died in 1237. For many years Catherine Gibson fought to establish the truth. Now the house is visited by historians and school trips. Journalist Stuart Robinson has been to Garth

Shakespeare's grave makeover [video 2min]

The grave of William Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon is due to be revamped as the church where he is buried gets restored - despite bearing a curse against those who move his tombstone. The grave is being restored as part of extensive repairs at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-on-Avon. The stone, which renovators say will not be moved, warns: "Blessed be the man that spares these stones/ And cursed be he who moves my bones." Shakespeare, who was baptised and buried at the church, i

What chances of peaceful resolution to Tibet-China political feud? [audio 30min]

Rob Gifford explores the history of Tibet. According to the Chinese, the land has been part of China since the 13th Century. Tibetans, however, claim that the country was independent until the Chinese occupation of the 1950s. Unfortunately, neither side appears to be entirely correct. What are the chances of a peaceful resolution to this long-running political feud? Gifford has been NPR's London Correspondent since 2005, after six years as NPR's correspondent in Beijing.

David Cannadine on James Bond [audio 30min]

As part of the Ian Fleming centenary, Prof David Cannadine sets James Bond and his creator in their historical context. He suggests that Bond was popular not just because he was sexy and suave - he was seen as a consoling fantasy for a country that had lost an Empire but not yet found a role in the world. Cannadine is Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Professor of British History at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.

Helen Rappaport on the deaths of the Romanovs [audio 9min @33:15]

In the early hours of 17 July 1918, the Imperial Family of Russia were gunned down in the cellar of a house in the Siberian city of Ekaterinburg by their Bolshevik guards. In her latest book, historian Helen Rappaport counts down the last days of the Romanov family's lives, drawing on new sources to focus on the dynamic within their closely guarded house. Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs is published by Hutchinson (UK). The interviewer is journalist Andrew Marr, and Rappaport a

Robert Kagan on a new league of democracies, cautious optimism about Iraq war [audio 11min @1:25]

Robert Kagan, currently advisor to presidential candidate Senator John McCain, warns of a division between the world’s democracies and autocracies, with the United States and Europe lining up against countries like China and Russia. Hopes that the fall of Communism marked a final victory for liberal democracy are misguided, he says, and calls on democratic countries to form a new 'league of democracies' to counter the threat from autocracies and Islamist radicalism. He also voices cautious optim

Win Scutt's 'This Week in Archaeology' [audio 15min @2:30]

Archaeologist Win Scutt reports on the discovery of an accurate portrait of Julius Caesar; the claim by German researchers thaty they have found the Palace of the Queen of Sheba and an altar that may once have held the Ark of the Covenant; the discovery in Korea of what archaeologists think may be the foundations of the oldest wooden Buddhist tower in Asia; the repair work just completed on the largest artificial mound in Europe, in Silbury Hill, Wiltshire, England; a Victorian cobbled street th

Central bankers no longer supermen of global financial economy [audio 23min]

For the last six decades, central bankers from the most developed countries have managed the global economy and have rarely broken into a sweat. They have run the international financial system, suppressing inflation when needed and creating the stability necessary for our economies to flourish, with the aid of a powerful set of economic levers handed to them after the Second World War. Last year these levers came off in their hands. The central banking system has suffered a chronic power outage

How conservatism got lost, how it can find its way back [audio 51min]

In Reclaiming Conservatism (Oxford), former Republican congressman Mickey Edwards explains his belief that the conservative movement has abandoned its principles and transformed from the best defender of the Constitution to its most threatening opponent. Edwards is a lecturer at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He was a Republican Congressman from Oklahoma, 1977-1993.

Oral history captures black veterans' experiences [audio 8min]

New York University journalism professor Yvonne Latty wanted to preserve the unique experiences of black veterans. So she captured their life stories in the book, We Were There: Voices of African American Veterans from World War to the War in Iraq. It's an oral history of the unrecognized contributions of African-Americans who valiantly faced war.

Cokie Roberts on 'Ladies of Liberty,' interviewed by Pat Schroeder [video 58min]

Author and ABC News political commentator Cokie Roberts tells the story of some of early America's notable women and their achievements in Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation. In her book, she draws on personal correspondence, private journals and previously unpublished writings to recount the history of former first ladies such as Abigail Adams and Dolley Madison and other women such as Theodosia Burr, Aaron Burr's daughter. Roberts writes a weekly syndicated newspaper col

Travel to Classical sites [audio 1st 15min]

The author and journalist Shirley Conran first went on a mini cruise of the eastern Mediterranean hoping to stay on board for a bit of peace and quiet while her travelling companions went ashore to visit the ruins. But she soon found herself drawn to the remains of great cities of the classical world like Ephesus, Pergamum and Troy. Presenter John McCarthy talks to Shirley Conran about her fascination for the vestiges of the ancient world and the pleasures of sailing round the Turkish coast and

Jefferson's library on display at Library of Congress [audio 55min]

The Book Guys - book appraiser Allan Stypeck and Washington DC radio host Mike Cuthbert - interview Mark Dimunation and Dan DeSimone from the Library of Congress, who discuss the Thomas Jefferson Library, now as complete as it's likely to get, on display at the Library.

News as muse - Newseum opens in DC [audio 11min]

Bob Garfield visits the Newseum, a 250,000-square-foot museum about news that has opened in Washington DC. After expressing a healthy share of cynicism about some Newseum artifacts, he finds some meaning in the 4-D movies, the news history gallery, and even the likeness of James Madison reciting the First Amendment.