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In Our Time

Welcoming Misha Glenny to the In Our Time studio

6 min episode · 2 min read
·
Misha Glenny

Episode

6 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Productivity, Software Development, Product & Tech Trends

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • Cross-disciplinary expertise: Glenny brings humanities training in drama, decades of BBC foreign correspondence covering Eastern Europe and Yugoslavia's collapse, plus recent focus on technology and hacking. This breadth allows him to navigate diverse weekly topics from plate tectonics to Adolf Hitler to dragons with equal facility and informed curiosity.
  • Listener proxy approach: The presenter positions himself as the audience's voice in the studio, conducting week-long deep dives into each subject before questioning three expert academics. He emphasizes learning alongside listeners rather than lecturing, making complex material comprehensible without simplification or reducing intellectual rigor throughout the forty-eight minute format.
  • Productive disagreement framework: The format's strength emerges when expert guests disagree on interpretations, creating civilized debate that reveals truth through multiple perspectives. This approach directly connects to the first episode's subject, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, which argues no single person holds monopoly on truth and competing viewpoints advance understanding.
  • Programming diversity: Upcoming episodes span John Stuart Mill's philosophy, the Mariana Trench (two kilometers deeper than Mount Everest's height), and Roman Arena games that persisted for over five hundred years. This range demonstrates the program's commitment to covering science, history, and philosophy with equal depth each week on BBC Sounds.

What It Covers

Misha Glenny introduces himself as the new presenter of BBC's In Our Time, replacing Melvin Bragg after over 1,000 episodes. He discusses his background as a BBC foreign correspondent and author, his approach to the role, and previews upcoming episodes.

Key Questions Answered

  • Cross-disciplinary expertise: Glenny brings humanities training in drama, decades of BBC foreign correspondence covering Eastern Europe and Yugoslavia's collapse, plus recent focus on technology and hacking. This breadth allows him to navigate diverse weekly topics from plate tectonics to Adolf Hitler to dragons with equal facility and informed curiosity.
  • Listener proxy approach: The presenter positions himself as the audience's voice in the studio, conducting week-long deep dives into each subject before questioning three expert academics. He emphasizes learning alongside listeners rather than lecturing, making complex material comprehensible without simplification or reducing intellectual rigor throughout the forty-eight minute format.
  • Productive disagreement framework: The format's strength emerges when expert guests disagree on interpretations, creating civilized debate that reveals truth through multiple perspectives. This approach directly connects to the first episode's subject, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, which argues no single person holds monopoly on truth and competing viewpoints advance understanding.
  • Programming diversity: Upcoming episodes span John Stuart Mill's philosophy, the Mariana Trench (two kilometers deeper than Mount Everest's height), and Roman Arena games that persisted for over five hundred years. This range demonstrates the program's commitment to covering science, history, and philosophy with equal depth each week on BBC Sounds.

Notable Moment

Glenny reveals the Roman Arena episode examines which Hollywood depictions proved accurate versus fabricated, while highlighting the staggering reality that gladiatorial games and animal combat continued for half a millennium across the Roman Empire.

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Episode Transcript

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside The UK. The best b to b marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1,000,000,000 professionals, including 130,000,000 decision makers, and that's where it stands apart from other ad buys. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company, roles, seniority, skills, company revenue, so you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. It's why LinkedIn ads generates the highest b to b return on ad spend of major ad networks. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get $250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com/broadcast. That's linkedin.com/broadcast. Terms and conditions apply. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merryman. And in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The history bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Simon, welcome. Well, no. You're welcome. Tell tell everybody who you are. So my name is Misha Glenny, and I am the new presenter of In Our Time. I have to say, I I have to pinch myself sometimes when I tell people that I'm the new presenter of In Our Time because, certainly, from my perspective, this is the best job in radio. There's there's nothing to compare with it. And you know where you're sitting, don't you? I do. I'm sitting in the studio where Melvin Bragg himself broadcast almost all of the over 1,000 episodes of this program, hitherto. I'm very grateful to Melvin's support, by the way. I've I've talked to him since, I was appointed. He was incredibly supportive, and he gave me his blessing when it was announced that I was taking on this job. So I'm I'm very grateful to him. Okay. I'm gonna ask, why do you think you're the right person for this role? Well, you'll have to ask other people for that, but, it may be to do with my background. I have a humanities degree in drama. I was a BBC foreign correspondent for many years covering the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and then the fall of, Yugoslavia. And after that, I wrote a variety of books including a a big history of the modern Balkans. I wrote a book about the favelas of Brazil. And more recently, I've been looking a lot at technology and science. I wrote a book on hacking. So I've been following scientific innovation developments in technology in particular very closely. So I think it might have to do with that cross disciplinary interest and ability that …

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Books

  • by John Stuart Mill

    This approach directly connects to the first episode's subject, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, which argues no single person holds monopoly on truth and competing viewpoints advance understanding.

podcast

  • by BBC

    Misha Glenny introduces himself as the new presenter of BBC's In Our Time, replacing Melvin Bragg after over 1,000 episodes.

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