Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and poetry of WH Auden (1907-1973) up to his departure from Europe for the USA in 1939. As well as his personal life, he addressed suffering and confusion, and the moral issues that affected the wider public in the 1930s and tried to unpick what was going wrong in society and to understand those times. He witnessed the rise of totalitarianism in the austerity of that decade, travelling through Germany to Berlin, seeing Spain in the Civil War and China during its wars with Japan, often collaborating with Christopher Isherwood. In his lifetime his work attracted high praise and intense criticism, and has found new audiences in the fifty years since his death, sometimes taking literally what he meant ironically. With Mark Ford Poet and Professor of English at University College LondonJanet Montefiore Professor Emerita of 20th Century English Literature at the University of KentAnd Jeremy Noel-Tod Senior Lecturer in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East AngliaProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history and social impact of coffee. From its origins in Ethiopia, coffea arabica spread through the Ottoman Empire before reaching Western Europe where, in the 17th century, coffee houses were becoming established. There, caffeinated customers stayed awake for longer and were more animated, and this helped to spread ideas and influence culture. Coffee became a colonial product, grown by slaves or indentured labour, with coffea robusta replacing arabica where disease had struck, and was traded extensively by the Dutch and French empires; by the 19th century, Brazil had developed into a major coffee producer, meeting demand in the USA that had grown on the waggon trails. With Judith Hawley Professor of 18th Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of LondonMarkman Ellis Professor of 18th Century Studies at Queen Mary University of LondonAndJonathan Morris Professor in Modern History at the University of HertfordshireProducer: Simon Tillotson

T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, was an intelligence officer during World War I. He joined the British army and served the interests of Arab leader Sharif Hussein during the Arab Revolt. Lawrence disrupted secret arrangements to carve up the Middle East, rooting for the Arabs to be players in the post-war settlement. The chapter also explores the portrayal of Lawrence in movies and storytelling, highlighting his significance in the Arab imagination.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of Li Shizhen (1518-1593) whose compendium of natural medicines is celebrated in China as the most complete survey of natural remedies of its time. He trained as a doctor and worked at the Ming court before spending almost 30 years travelling in China, inspecting local plants and animals for their properties, trying them out on himself and then describing his findings in his Compendium of Materia Medica or Bencao Gangmu, in 53 volumes. He's been called the uncrowned king of Chinese naturalists, and became a scientific hero in the 20th century after the revolution.With Craig Clunas Professor Emeritus in the History of Art at the University of OxfordAnne Gerritsen Professor in History at the University of WarwickAnd Roel Sterckx Joseph Needham Professor of Chinese History at the University of CambridgeProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most powerful woman in the Crusader states in the century after the First Crusade. Melisende (1105-61) was born and raised after the mainly Frankish crusaders had taken Jerusalem from the Fatimids, and her father was King of Jerusalem. She was married to Fulk from Anjou, on the understanding they would rule together, and for 30 years she vied with him and then their son as they struggled to consolidate their Frankish state in the Holy Land. The image above is of the coronation of Fulk with Melisende, from Livre d'Eracles, Guillaume de Tyr (1130?-1186) Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France With Natasha Hodgson Senior Lecturer in Medieval History and Director of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Nottingham Trent UniversityKatherine Lewis Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Huddersfieldand Danielle Park Visiting Lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the novel written by Dostoevsky and published in 1866, in which Raskolnikov, a struggling student, justifies his murder of two women, as his future is more valuable than their lives. He thinks himself superior, above the moral laws that apply to others. The police have little evidence against him but trust him to confess, once he cannot bear the mental torture of his crime - a fate he cannot avoid, any more than he can escape from life in St Petersburg and his personal failures.The image above is from a portrait of Dostoevsky by Vasili Perov, 1872.WithSarah Hudspith Associate Professor in Russian at the University of LeedsOliver Ready Lecturer in Russian at the University of Oxford, Research Fellow at St Antony’s College and a translator of this novelAnd Sarah Young Associate Professor in Russian at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1691 peace treaty that ended the Williamite War in Ireland, between supporters of the deposed King James II and the forces of William III and his allies. It followed the battles at Aughrim and the Boyne and sieges at Limerick, and led to the disbanding of the Jacobite army in Ireland, with troops free to follow James to France for his Irish Brigade. The Catholic landed gentry were guaranteed rights on condition of swearing loyalty to William and Mary yet, while some Protestants thought the terms too lenient, it was said the victors broke those terms before the ink was dry.The image above is from British Battles on Land and Sea, Vol. I, by James Grant, 1880, and is meant to show Irish troops leaving Limerick as part of The Flight of the Wild Geese - a term used for soldiers joining continental European armies from C16th-C18th.With Jane Ohlmeyer Chair of the Irish Research Council and Erasmus Smith’s Professor of Modern History at Trinity College DublinDr Clare Jackson Senior Tutor, Trinity Hall, and Faculty of History, University of Cambridgeand Thomas O'Connor Professor of History at Maynooth UniversityProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what happens when parents from different species have offspring, despite their genetic differences. In some cases, such as the zebra/donkey hybrid in the image above, the offspring are usually infertile but in others the genetic change can lead to new species with evolutionary advantages. Hybrids can occur naturally, yet most arise from human manipulation and Darwin's study of plant and animal domestication informed his ideas on natural selection.With Sandra Knapp Tropical Botanist at the Natural History MuseumNicola Nadeau Lecturer in Evolutionary Biology at the University of SheffieldAndSteve Jones Senior Research Fellow in Genetics at University College LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work of the man who, in his lifetime, was called The Caledonian Bard and whose fame and influence was to spread around the world. Burns (1759-1796) was born in Ayrshire and his work as a tenant farmer earned him the label The Ploughman Poet, yet it was the quality of his verse that helped his reputation endure and grow. His work inspired other Romantic poets and his personal story and ideas combined with that, giving his poems a broad strength and appeal - sung by revolutionaries and on Mao's Long March, as well as on New Year's Eve and at Burns Suppers.WithRobert Crawford Professor of Modern Scottish Literature and Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Poetry at the University of St AndrewsFiona Stafford Professor of English at the University of Oxfordand Murray Pittock Bradley Professor of English Literature and Pro Vice Principal at the University of GlasgowProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas explored in HG Wells' novella, published in 1895, in which the Time Traveller moves forward to 802,701 AD. There he finds humanity has evolved into the Eloi and Morlocks, where the Eloi are small but leisured fruitarians and the Morlocks live below ground, carry out the work and have a different diet. Escaping the Morlocks, he travels millions of years into the future, where the environment no longer supports humanity.The image above is from a painting by Anton Brzezinski of a scene from The Time Machine, with the Time Traveller meeting the EloiWith Simon Schaffer Professor of History of Science at Cambridge UniversityAmanda Rees Historian of science at the University of YorkAndSimon James Professor in the Department of English Studies at Durham UniversityProducer: Simon Tillotson