In Our Time

For 27 years, Melvyn Bragg sat down with three academic experts each week to discuss a single topic in depth — the fall of Carthage, the philosophy of Spinoza, black holes, Emily Dickinson. In early 2026, journalist and historian Misha Glenny took over hosting duties, and the format has remained largely the same: one subject, three specialists, 45 to 60 minutes of rigorous conversation. This is the podcast for people who actually want to understand a subject, not just hear a summary of it. The guests are working academics who know their fields inside and out, and the host pushes them to explain things clearly without dumbing anything down. There is a particular pleasure in hearing scholars disagree with each other respectfully but firmly, which happens more often than you might expect. The range covers history, religion, culture, science, and philosophy, and each episode goes deep enough that you come away feeling like you took a university lecture. The show has over 1,100 episodes in its archive and holds a 4.6 rating from more than 5,000 reviews on Apple Podcasts. It started as a BBC Radio 4 program in 1998, making it one of the longest-running intellectual discussion shows anywhere. No flashy sound design, no gimmicks. Just smart people talking seriously about important ideas. If you want to genuinely expand what you know about the world, this is the show.