Hospitality

Available for over a year

Bettany Hughes samples changing ideas of hospitality by gazing into outer space and by inviting poet and author Ben Okri 'round to her house for supper. The Ideas That Make Us is a Radio 4 series which reveals the history of the most influential ideas in the story of civilisation, ideas which continue to affect us all today. In this 'archaeology of philosophy', the award-winning historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes begins each programme with the first, extant evidence of a single word-idea in Ancient Greek culture and travels both forwards and backwards in time, investigating how these ideas have been moulded by history and shaped the human experience. In the third programme of this series, Bettany samples changing ideas of hospitality with astronomer Professor Didier Queloz, classicist Professor Paul Cartledge, poet and author Ben Okri and former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. Other ideas examined in The Ideas that Make Us are idea, desire, agony, fame, justice, wisdom, comedy, liberty and peace. Producer: Dixi Stewart.