Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

Radio 4,4 mins

What makes a great national anthem?

Today

Available for over a year

Every country has one; sometimes bellicose, sometimes wistful, occasionally jaunty and usually intensely patriotic. But what makes a good national anthem? The journalist Alex Marshall has written a book on the subject, called Republic or Death: Travels in search of National Anthems. He spoke to Nick Higham about some of the world's best-known anthems, some of the more unexpected, and why he dislikes our own quite so intensely.

Programme Website
More episodes