Start the Week

Tom Sutcliffe talks to the journalist Patrick Cockburn about the rise of the Islamic State and the failure of the West's foreign policy in the Middle East. The academic Katherine Brown looks at the long-term strategy of IS by focusing on how it has persuaded Muslim women in the West to join its cause. While Leena Hoffman turns to the workings of another Islamist group - Boko Haram in Northern Nige...

Tom Sutcliffe is joined in the studio by Daniel Levitin, author of New York Times bestseller 'The Organized Mind'. Levitin dismisses the idea of multi-tasking and explores how we can counter information overload. But the poet Frances Leviston with her latest collection, Disinformation, believes her best work is conceived in disorganisation. The cognitive scientist Maggie Boden puts forward the ide...

Tom Sutcliffe's joined in the studio by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Paul Muldoon, Oxford professor of Russian Catriona Kelly, Philip Schofield who is a professor at UCL and director of The Bentham Project and by Canadian blogger and science fiction writer Cory Doctorow. How do we respond, creatively, when people or algorithms put our physical and virtual worlds under surveillance? Producer: Simon...

Tom Sutcliffe discusses the connection between the Tudors and modern times with author Lady Antonia Fraser, composer Claire van Kampen, director Peter Kosminsky and historian Dan Jones. Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Andrew Marr discusses why we react so strongly to some places, look for meaning in them and build up stories about them over time. Joining him in the studio are author and travel writer Philip Marsden who has been exploring Cornwall with Sense of Place in mind; Scottish artist Victoria Crowe who's been returning to paint the Pentland Hills for thirty years; singer Ian Bostridge who's performing an...

Tom Sutcliffe discusses hedonism, from the ultra-hedonists in ancient Greece to the seasonal impulse to indulge. Tom's joined by RSC artistic director Greg Doran who's looking at hedonism in Shakespeare, from Toby Belch to Falstaff; by Prof Julia Twigg who assesses hedonism and asceticism in the contemporary world; by writer Zoe Cormier who's explored the science of hedonism and the hedonism of sc...

Tom Sutcliffe discusses invention and reinvention in science. He is joined in the studio by Danielle George of the University of Manchester, where she is Professor in the Microwave and Communications Systems research group; by John Barrow, Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge; by Professor Armand Marie Leroi of Imperial College London; and by Misbah Arif from UCL Institute of Education....

Anne McElvoy's joined by Egyptian novelist Alaa Al Aswany, author of The Yacoubian Building, to discuss writing in the contemporary Arabic world and the continuing influence of stories from 1000 years ago. Joining him are Rose Issa, a Lebanese/Iranian curator of Arabic art and film and two British experts on The Arabian Nights: Robert Irwin, who introduces a new, English translation of a medieval...

Tom Sutcliffe discusses evolution and extinction with Jules Pretty, who's been travelling to meet "enduring people in vanishing lands" and is concerned about their future; with Andreas Wagner on solving what he calls evolution's greatest puzzle - how can random mutations over a mere 3.8 billion years solely be responsible for eyeballs; poet Ruth Padel on what we can learn from animals and Chris St...

Tom Sutcliffe explores our relationship with computer technology and the interplay of alien and familiar in science fiction. Tom's joined in the studio by writer William Gibson, novelist Michel Faber, LSE Professor Judy Wajcman and historian Dominic Sandbrook. How have computer technologies transformed our sense of outer space, cyber space and our own inner space? Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Self-portraits rarely fail to compel, but to what extent are they a true form of self-examination? James Hall maps the history of self-portraiture, from the earliest myths of Narcissus to the prolific self-image-making of contemporary artists. Rembrandt's self-portraits are the highlight of a major exhibition of the artist's work at The National Gallery. Its curator Betsy Wieseman discusses what t...

Do we value longevity more than quality of life, towards our final years? That's the discussion Andrew Marr's having with surgeon Atul Gawande, who's giving this year's Reith Lectures. Joining them in the studio are the legendary editor, novelist and memoirist Diana Athill, who has recently written about her attitude to death and the process of dying; Professor Deborah Bowman who advises on the et...

'Money talks' in a special edition of Start the Week recorded in front of an audience at Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. Anne McElvoy explores the language and morality of money, from the super-rich to zombie debt, with the writers John Lanchester and Naomi Alderman, plus the journalists Martin Wolf and John Kampfner. Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Russell Brand's calling for revolution now, to overthrow the system that he says supports extreme inequality. David Babbs, executive director of 38 Degrees, wants popular campaigns to bring about change and strengthen democracy. Juliet Barker re-examines the Great Revolt of 1381 and finds not a peasants' revolt but one by a new middle class in the shires, dissatisfied with a London elite. Philosop...

What was Napoleon's impact during his lifetime, in France and across Europe and how much of this can we see today? With Tom Sutcliffe, Andrew Roberts examines the man in his new biography, Jenny Uglow explores living in Britain through Napoleon's Wars, 1793-1815, Sudhir Hazareesingh looks at his legend, while musicologist Gavin Plumley focuses on Schubert in Vienna in the aftermath of Napoleon. Pr...

Why do we seek explanations for most mysterious events but prefer some when they're unresolved? That's the discussion with Anne McElvoy today, including Val McDermid who uncovers the secrets of forensic science, Susan Hill exploring suspense and atmosphere in ghost stories, Alex Werner from the Museum of London's new Sherlock Holmes exhibition and Dr David Clarke, who reveals the official accounts...

Naomi Klein argues that the greatest contributor to global warming is not carbon and climate change, but capitalism. She tells Anne McElvoy that the market's addiction to growth and profit is killing the planet. But the economist Dieter Helm questions whether capitalism is really at war with the environment and looks to the world's innovators to invent our way out of crisis. Climate change is a gl...

Karen Armstrong argues against the notion that religion is the major cause of war. The former nun tells Tom Sutcliffe that faith is as likely to produce pacifists and peace-builders as medieval crusaders and modern-day jihadists. But Justin Marozzi charts the violent history of Baghdad and asks what role religion had to play there. The philosopher Christopher Coker explores how warfare dominates o...

Hilary Mantel takes a break from her award-winning series of novels charting the rise and fall of the Tudor fixer, Thomas Cromwell, to discuss her new collection of short stories. She talks to Tom Sutcliffe about why her latest work eschews the historical to focus on contemporary Britain. The Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor tells the story of Germany from its Roman past to the prese...

Tom Sutcliffe talks to Michael Holroyd about why he put his own family in the spotlight in his late 50s novel A Dog's Life, only published in the UK after the death of his parents. Family secrets and a doctor's revenge are at the heart of Herman Koch's darkly comic novel, while Hugo Blick's new television series, An Honourable Woman, explores how the sins of the father resonate in the present. The...

Andrew Marr discusses how far the brain can change and adapt with the neuroscientist Heidi Johansen-Berg. Decades ago it was thought that the adult brain was immutable but later research has shown that even brains damaged by stroke have the capacity to adapt. The writer Ben Shephard looks back to the turn of the 20th century and the birth of modern neuroscience, while the novelist Charles Fernyhou...

Tom Sutcliffe talks to the director Erica Whyman about a series of plays by the RSC which focus on the idea that 'well behaved women rarely make history'. The historian Helen Castor looks back at the Middle Ages to some of the earliest roaring girls, while the soprano Joyce DiDonato brings alive Mary, Queen of Scots, the tragic hero of Donizetti's opera. The political activist Julie Bindel has bee...

Tom Sutcliffe discusses the history of pain with the historian Joanna Bourke, who explores how our attitude to suffering has changed through the centuries. The former Conservative MP, Norman Fowler, looks back at the public health campaign that revolutionised the fight against HIV and Aids in Britain in the 1980s, and how discrimination and political expediency are hampering prevention and treatme...

Tom Sutcliffe discusses whether Western states have anything to learn from countries like China and Singapore. Adrian Wooldridge argues that many governments have become bloated and there's a global race to reinvent the state. In the past Britain was at the forefront of exporting ideas on how to run a country, as the Labour MP Tristram Hunt explains in his book on the legacy of empire. Charu Lata...

Tom Sutcliffe talks to the commentator Rod Liddle about his assertion that modern Western society has become politically and socially stagnant. In his polemic, Selfish Whining Monkeys, Liddle argues that his generation are self-obsessed, deluded and spoilt. Neil Jameson from Citizens UK dismisses this description of society and says his growing number of members are organised, socially active and...