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Episode details

Radio 4,09 Oct 2013,15 mins

No Future: The Great Anarchist Scare

Terror Through Time

Available for over a year

February 1894, Greenwich Park, London. A young Frenchman, Martial Bourdin is killed by a bomb he's carrying toward the Royal Observatory. The contents of his pockets reveal his connection to the international anarchists who fled the continent for the safe haven of London. Was Britain about to endure a wave of anarchist attacks? In the third part of a new series on the roots of modern terrorism, Fergal Keane plunges into the Soho underworld of Russian nihilists, German socialists and French anarchists. Most were content to enjoy the security of their temporary British home but to the police they were a potentially dangerous menace, plotting revolution and promoting agitation. Were there lone wolves amongst them willing to kill whilst others talked? Historians Orlando Figes, Constance Bantman and Robert Hampson and conceptual artist Rod Dickinson help Fergal piece together the story of the men and women who wanted to remake society, whatever the cost.

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