The Reith Lectures

Supporting Content

• BBC Reith Lectures 2025 – Moral Revolution

  This year's Reith lecturer is historian and author Rutger Bregman.

  

• Gwen Adshead - Four Questions about Violence

  Forensic psychiatrist Dr Gwen Adshead addresses questions about violent behaviour.

  

• Five things I've learned from working with violent perpetrators

  Dr Gwen Adshead believes listening to perpetrators can help us better understand violence.

  

• BBC Reith Lectures 2023 – Our Democratic Future

  Prof Ben Ansell asks how we can make politics work for all of us in the 21st century.

  

• Is free speech under attack?

  Eight key points from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s BBC Reith Lecture.

  

• BBC Reith Lectures 2022 – The Four Freedoms

  This year four lecturers take up the themes of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms".

  

• 2021: Living With Artificial Intelligence

  Stuart Russell explores the future of AI and asks: how can we get it right?

  

• 2020: How We Get What We Value

  Listen to all four of Mark Carney's BBC Reith Lectures.

  

• 2019: Jonathan Sumption

  Jonathan Sumption argues that the law is taking over the space once occupied by politics.

  

• Nine Things You Should Know About AI

  Reith lecturer Stuart Russell says we need to stop AI gaining control over our future.

  

• Ten of the best Reith Lectures

  Series producer Jim Frank picks his personal favourites.

  

• Six Reith Lectures to make you smarter

  A helpful steer from the series producer.

  

• New to the Reith Lectures? Here’s where to start

  Four lectures recommended by the series producer.

  

• Reith Lectures Archive

  Download talks on subjects such as: the limits of contemporary art or what freedom means.

  

• "I want to make a case for moral courage."

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says the biggest threat to freedom of speech today is social.

  Duration: 1:25

• Are women as warlike as men?

  Historian Margaret Macmillan says women have often been cheerleaders for war.

  Duration: 0:57

• How worried should you be about nuclear war?

  Prof Margaret Macmillan says we should be concerned about nuclear proliferation.

  Duration: 0:56

• History does not repeat itself

  Hilary Mantel says history is never repeated. But, it can be lived again through art.

  Duration: 1:56
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• Grayson Perry: Playing to the Gallery

• The Reith Lectures in pictures