The Forum

The Art of War is one of the most important military strategy texts ever written, and it has become just as influential, perhaps even more so, in the worlds of business, sport, and politics. Bridget Kendall learns what the 2,000-year-old treatise has to say about deception, spying, and ruthlessness, and asks why it has come to be viewed as a guide to success in life in general. But has it been misunderstood? We discuss whether it’s better viewed as a guide to avoiding war and conflict, rather than a manual for how to fight. Plus, we try to get to the bottom of who really wrote it and learn about the blood-soaked period of Chinese history in which it’s believed to have been created.Producer: Simon TulettCredit: Excerpts from the text were based on translations from Michael Nylan's book (see below), published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2020. Contributors:Michael Nylan, professor of early Chinese history at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States, and author of 'The Art of War: A New Translation by Michael Nylan'; Derek Yuen, a scholar of strategy and international relations from Hong Kong, and author of ‘Deciphering Sun Tzu: How to Read the Art of War’; Peter Lorge, associate professor of pre-modern Chinese and military history at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, in the United States, and author of ‘Sun Tzu in the West’.(Picture: Terracotta warriors - sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China who unified the country after the Warring States period. Credit: Getty Images)

Mohandas K Gandhi’s decades-long campaign against British rule was the driving force behind Indian independence in August 1947.The way he did it - through ‘satyagraha’, or non-violent resistance - made him one of the most famous and revered thinkers of the 20th century, and has inspired protest movements around the world.Rajan Datar explores the experiences, ideas and people that turned Gandhi from a timid schoolboy and failed lawyer into a man bold enough to take on the might of the British Empire.Plus, we ask whether he achieved the kind of Indian independence he really wanted, and find out why his legacy is the subject of intense debate in India to this day.Producer: Simon TulettContributors:Tridip Suhrud, a professor at CEPT university, in Ahmedabad, India, and a Gandhi scholar who has translated many of his works into English, including the first critical edition of Gandhi’s autobiography, ‘My Experiments with Truth’; Karuna Mantena, a professor of political science at Columbia University in the US, currently working on a book about Gandhi’s political thought; Anil Nauriya, a writer on freedom struggles in India and Africa and a lawyer based at the Supreme Court in New Delhi.(Picture: A photo of Gandhi taken around 1940. Credit: Dinodia Photos/Getty Images)

Throughout history, fragrance has been used to scent both the body and our surroundings. With just one drop, perfume has the potential to stir memories, awaken the senses and even influence how we feel about ourselves. But what’s the story behind this liquid luxury in a bottle, now found on the shelves of bathrooms and department stores worldwide?In this programme, Bridget Kendall and guests explore the modern history of perfume, including its flowering in France and the explosive chemical discoveries that helped to make fine fragrance what it is today. They also explore perfume’s ancient roots and ask: what’s in a name?Bridget is joined by scientist and critic Luca Turin, writer and curator Lizzie Ostrom and the perfumer Thomas Fontaine. Also featuring William Tullett and James McHugh.(Photo: Perfume bottle and flowers. Credit: Brian Hagiwara/Getty Images)

Eleonora Duse was an actress ahead of her time. As a performer in the late 19th century when elaborate gestures, exotic costumes and lavish decors were the norm, Eleonora Duse stunned audiences with her truthfulness and intense absorption in the characters she played. She wore no make-up, you could see her blush or turn pale, she was a master of subtle body language and vocal modulation, and her aim was to eliminate the self and become her characters. Today she is often credited with having inspired modern acting, and the Russian theatre director Stanislavsky saw her as the perfect actress, and was greatly influenced by her when he created his acting method. Born in 1858 in what is now northern Italy, Eleonora Duse started acting at the age of four years old with her family’s touring theatre troupe. By her twenties, working as both a theatre manager and a performer, she began to achieve worldwide popularity, travelling all over the world, from South America to Russia to Egypt. She was soon acknowledged as one of the greatest actresses of her generation and her independent lifestyle turned her into an early feminist icon. So what was the secret of her genius and why is she largely forgotten today? And with no recordings of her voice, how do we know she was such a great performer?Joining Bridget Kendall is Dr Anna Sica, Professor of Theatre at the University of Palermo in Italy, author of The Murray Edwards Duse Collection, and D’Amore e D’Arte, the letters written to Duse from her Russian lover Alexander Wolkoff, soon to be published in English. Professor Paul Fryer, the co-editor of an essay collection on Eleonora Duse and Cenere (Cenere is the Italian word for Ashes, the title of the silent film Duse made in 1916, and the only record of Duse actually performing). Paul Fryer also directs the Stanislavsky research centre at the University of Leeds. And Dr Enza de Francisci, lecturer in Translation studies at the University of Glasgow, who specialises in the critical reception of Duse’s plays, and is the author of A 'New' Woman in Verga and Pirandello: From Page to Stage.The reader is Cecilia Gragnani.Produced by Anne Khazam for the BBC World Service.(Photo: Eleonora Duse in “Lady of the Camelias” by Alexandre Dumas Fils. Credit: ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

In Mexico the name La Malinche has become synonymous with treachery and betrayal - it even forms one of the country’s most vicious insults. Some have described its owner, an indigenous slave who became the interpreter and mistress of conquistador Hernán Cortés, as the most hated woman in Mexico’s history.But by helping the Spanish topple the Aztecs in the early sixteenth century was she really guilty of selling out her own people, or simply doing everything she could to survive? Might we credit her with limiting the lives lost in the bloody conflict – one she knew her people could not hope to win?Bridget Kendall explores the little-known life, and hotly-contested legacy of one of the most controversial figures in Latin American history, and the role she played in the meeting of the Old World and the New.We hear how La Malinche’s story, and motives, have been re-interpreted over the last 500 years, and learn why she remains important in discussions of national identity, gender, culture and politics in Mexico to this day.Producer: Simon TulettContributors: Camilla Townsend, distinguished professor of history at Rutgers University, USA, and author of ‘Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico’; Dr Fernando Cervantes, a historian of early modern Spain and Spanish America at the University of Bristol, UK, and author of ‘Conquistadores: A New History’; Sandra Messinger Cypess, professor emerita of Latin American literature at the University of Maryland, USA, and author of ‘La Malinche in Mexican Literature: From History to Myth’.(Picture: La Malinche – a Mexican engraving, 1885, from the library of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain. Credit: Prisma/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

There are hundreds of monuments to the poet and painter Taras Shevchenko not just in Ukraine but all over the world. It is hard to overstate the importance of Shevchenko for most Ukrainians. For them he is not just the national poet who breathed new life into the Ukrainian language but a symbol of their country’s independence. His words kept the national spirit alive during the decades of forced Russification in the 19th Century and they found renewed resonance during the 2014 Maidan uprising. But Shevchenko's work is less well known beyond eastern Europe. To remedy this Bridget Kendall is joined by Ukrainian writers and literary scholars Olha Poliukhovych from the National University of Kyiv - Mohyla Academy and Mykhailo Nazarenko from Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University, and by professor of Slavonic studies at Vienna University Michael Moser. The reader is Ivantiy Novak.(Photo: A monument to Taras Shevchenko by Igor Grechanyk in Kyiv, Ukraine. Credit: Sergii Kharchenko/NurPhoto/Corbis/Getty Images)

Oranges have long represented love, wealth and status - since they originated in South East Asia, around the 8th Century BCE. The orange tree's ability to carry fruit and blossom at the same time made it a symbol of fertility and purity in religious art and painting, and the intoxicating fragrance of the blossom, the perfect sphere of the mature fruit and its sensuously refreshing taste inspired writers and artists, as well as growers to produce ever more spectacular creations. With the advent of artificial refrigeration in the 19th Century, oranges then became big business and widely available to all. By the mid 1880’s it’s said more than 2.5 million cases of Italian citrus fruit arrived in New York every year. Today, while oranges are enjoyed by many, their production also has a bitter side – the sad plight of many of the orange pickers, and the impact of the orange juice industry affecting the diversity of orange trees and profit margins of the growers.Joining Bridget Kendall is Cristina Mazzoni, professor of Romance Languages and Cultures at the University of Vermont, and the author of Golden Fruit: A Cultural History of Oranges in Italy; the food and travel writer Clarissa Hyman, who has written Oranges: A Global History; and Dr Alissa Hamilton, the author of Squeezed: What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice.Producer: Anne Khazam(Photo: Orange cross section on top of a pile of oranges. Credit: Alexander Spatari/Getty Images)

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose was a polymath: a physicist, biologist and early writer of science fiction. He pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics. He made significant contributions to plant science, designing ingenious devices to measure plant growth and responsiveness. He founded one of India’s oldest and most distinguished research institutes. During his life he was honoured at home and in Britain he was knighted for his achievements and made a Fellow of the Royal Society. So why, outside India and his native Bangladesh, is J C Bose not better known?Bridget Kendall asks four historians of science: Bose's biographer Subrata Dasgupta from Lafayette in the United States where he is emeritus professor at the University of Louisiana; Christin Hoene who is assistant professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands where one of her research interests is the cultural history of radio in colonial India; author, film-maker and historian of science Jahnavi Phalkey who is the Founding Director of Science Gallery in Bangalore, India; and James Poskett who is associate professor at the University of Warwick and author of Horizons: A Global History of Science. The reader is Madhav Vasantha.[Photo: Sir JC Bose, c.1920. Credit: Science & Society Picture Library/Getty Images]

The reality behind the stereotypical image of Japan’s fearsome elite warriors is more nuanced than we are led to believe. It is thought the samurai developed as a social class in medieval Japan, when the term could encompass lowly foot soldiers or mercenaries, and often untrustworthy ones at that. A far cry from the skilled fighters who supposedly pledged undying loyalty to their lord, and followed a code of honour.In fact, it was during peacetime that the image of the samurai came to be defined when their role as warriors was no longer necessary. During Japan’s aggressive imperial expansion in the early 20th Century, the samurai ideal was once again manipulated for nationalistic purposes.Rajan Datar’s guests include Michael Wert, who has published several books on Japan’s warrior class, including Samurai: A Concise History. He is associate professor of East Asian History at Marquette University in Milwaukee; Marcia Yonemoto, professor and hair of the Department of History at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is the author of The Problem of Women in Early Modern Japan, which examines the role of women in Japan’s military-bureaucratic state; and Polina Serebriakova, whose doctoral thesis at the University of Cambridge in the UK focuses on warrior leaders in medieval Japan.Producer: Fiona Clampin(Image: Illustration portrait of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Credit: Photo 12/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

There are almost as many ice cream origin stories as there are flavours, but where did the frozen treat really come from, and who invented it? Rajan Datar explores the dessert’s murky history, from the harvesting and flavouring of snow in China and the Middle East thousands of years ago, to the experimental kitchens of the European aristocracy. Ice cream’s evolution has, of course, closely followed that of refrigeration – we learn why salt was crucial for keeping early versions cold, and hear about the daring entrepreneur who began the global ice trade. Plus, who really invented the ice cream cone? Producer: Simon TulettContributors: Robin Weir, author of ‘Ice Creams, Sorbets and Gelati: The Definitive Guide’; Najmieh Batmanglij, Iranian-American chef and cookbook author; Dr Melissa Calaresu, Cambridge University; Farid Rostami, co-founder of Silk Road ice cream.(Picture: A woman licking an ice cream. Credit: Getty images)To find out how to make ice cream yourself visit www.bbc.co.uk/food/ice_cream