The Essay

Stepping back in time exactly a century, five BBC News correspondents present their personal perspectives on the principal cities of the major European powers that, later in 1914, would fight the Great War.The programmes continue with Hugh Schofield reimagining the chic French capital of Maurice Ravel, the Ballets Russes and Henri Matisse - but which politically suffered continuing angst over its neighbour across the Rhine: Germany.For many, the wounds of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1 had still not healed. And the assassination in Paris of the leading French pacifist and socialist, Jean Jaurès, in late July 1914 convulsed the city and crystallised the diverging views about France's relations with her European neighbours. Hugh Schofield tells the story of why this event provoked such turmoil at the time and why it still resonates powerfully today in the politics and culture of France.Producer Simon Coates.

As part of the Music on the Brink season, each programme in this series of "The Essay" considers the special character of Vienna, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg and London.Stepping back exactly a hundred years, five BBC News correspondents present personal perspectives on the capital cities of the major European powers that, later in 1914, would face each other in the Great War. We start in the capital of the Habsburg Empire and the rich multiculturalism of Mitteleuropa.In this programme, Bethany Bell, the BBC's Vienna Correspondent, evokes both the public face of Austria-Hungary's capital and the simmering tensions which underlay its multi-national empire on the eve of the greatest conflagration the world had yet seen. Taking us on a richly evocative tour of the embodiment of Mitteleuropa, she tells us about a world that was soon to be torn asunder but of which telling - and not always attractive - elements remain.It is all too easy to forget, she reminds us, that within months Vienna was home to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Siegmund Freud and Josef Broz (later Marshal Tito) - all figures who defined the twentieth century. She also discusses the critic and satirist Karl Kraus and the controversial pre-World War One mayor of Vienna Karl Lueger.For the multiple nationalities of 1914 Vienna, the chronic tensions which bedevilled this polyglot empire were painfully familiar. The programme reveals what has survived to this day of the compromised nature of Vienna from the era of Zemlinsky and Schreker and of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg.Producer Simon Coates.

There's never been a better time to go blind. The digital world transforms the way information can be appreciated, doing great things for the the sighted as well as the blind - breaking down barriers to absorbing, manipulating, and transmitting culture. But access can be denied by considerations of politics and trade, rooted in the history of copyright. Visually impaired people sometimes end up as collateral damage in the war on digital piracy. Rupert Goodwins looks into how the future could be brighter for blindness.

Disability isn't limited to the physical fact of what it does to mind and body - the isolation it brings has compounded its cruelty throughout history. As a technology journalist who started off building computers, Rupert Goodwins decided to find out if he could use some of the tools of his trade to change that situation, and make our hyper-connected modern environment solve some very old problems.

The experience of being a patient in modern medicine is little discussed by doctors and often badly handled by the media. Through months of investigation as the medics tried to find the why behind the what, Rupert Goodwins finds much has changed in what it means to be a patient, and old assumptions are not a good guide for what will happen next.

Even perfect eyesight is nothing of the sort- it just looks the part. As the world changed and darkened around him, Rupert Goodwins found that not only did the real nature of sight became clearer, the revelations led to realisations about philosophy and reality that are too easily lost in the dazzle of daylight.

When journalist Rupert Goodwins started losing his sight, he wasn't expecting a journey to the back of his eyeballs that would take him 500 million years through time with stops for the evolution of modern philosophy, the nature of experience and the curious nature of sight itself. The surprise began in the night sky when the stars started going out...

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and over twenty episodes, we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, innovation and philosophy.In the final essay in this first set of ten essays, Professor Peter Adamson reflects on the magnitude of Al-Farabi's contribution to philosophy in the Islamic Golden Age. Al-Farabi studied and taught amongst the Christians of the Baghdad school, and later went to Syria and Egypt, dying in the middle of the 10th century in Damascus. His writings reflect the agenda of the Baghdad school: he wrote commentaries on Aristotle, concentrating on the logical works so prized by the school founder Matta. But Farabi seems to have had a more ambitious aim than his colleagues did. He wanted not just to elucidate Aristotle, or to press philosophical ideas into the service of religion but to integrate all branches of philosophy into a single, systematic theory.Producer: Mohini Patel.

In a major series for Radio 3, we continue our journey through the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and over the twenty episodes, we'll hear about architecture, religious scholarship, medicine, innovation and philosophy. In this evening's essay, Professor Hugh Kennedy explores the life of al-Tabari, the chronicler and historian of the early Islamic World.Producer: Mohini Patel.

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and over twenty episodes, we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, innovation and philosophy.Professor James Montgomery explores the life and work of the Arab philosopher al-Kindi, widely regarded today as one of the greatest scholars of the medieval Islamic world. He was the first significant thinker to argue that philosophy and Islam had much to offer each other and need not be kept apart.Al-Kindi lived in Iraq during the dynamic ninth century, a period when Baghdad was a hive of cultural and intellectual activity easily rivalling the greatness of Athens and Rome. He was hugely influenced by Greek philosophy and supervised the translation of many works by Aristotle and others into Arabic. The author of more than 250 works, he wrote on many different subjects, from optics to mathematics, music and astrology.Producer: Mohini Patel.