The chef and co-founder of The River Cafe, Ruth Rogers, picks the life of the writer and activist James Baldwin.
A writer, poet, playwright and activist, Baldwin was known as a trailblazing explorer of race, class and sexuality in America and the “literary voice of the Civil Rights movement”.
Joining Ruth and Matthew is Professor Rich Blint from the Eugen ... Show More
Jun 30
Sir Seretse Khama, first president of Botswana
Seretse Khama was born in 1921 in Bechuanaland when it was still a British Protectorate. In 1966 he became Botswana's first president. In between he married a white Londoner, Ruth Williamson, was exiled by the British, and made to renounce his interest in succeeding as head of th ... Show More
27m 43s
Jan 2024
Great American Authors | The Enduring Message of James Baldwin | 7
In 1948, James Baldwin left for France, hoping to find an escape from the racism he experienced in America. But Baldwin returned to the U.S. frequently, to witness and write about the struggle of the Civil Rights movement. Today, Lindsay is joined by Dr. Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Pro ... Show More
38m 10s
Feb 2024
James Baldwin's Shadow (Throwback)
James Baldwin believed that America has been lying to itself since its founding. An insightful commentator on Black identity, American democracy, and racism, he saw something deep and ugly and stubborn in American culture, and never hesitated to call it by its name — to bear witn ... Show More
44m 24s
Aug 2023
History of Ideas: James Baldwin
This week David discusses James Baldwin’s ‘Notes of a Native Son’ (1955), an essay that combines autobiography with a searing indictment of America’s racial politics. At its heart it tells the story of Baldwin’s relationship with his father, but it is also about fear, cruelty, vi ... Show More
54m 4s
Mar 2023
Ruth Wilson Gilmore — “Where life is precious, life is precious.”
To say that Ruth Wilson Gilmore is a geographer, which she is, is not to convey the vast and varied ways in which she is influencing the makings of the future. She's a mentor and teacher to a new generation of social activism and creativity. She's a visionary of “abolition,” and ... Show More
1h 6m
May 2019
Thoreau: the writer who went to the woods
Rajan Datar and guests explore the life and legacy of the American thinker Henry David Thoreau and his famous work 'Walden', which describes the young writer's experiment in living simply at Walden Pond in Massachusetts, for two years, two months and two days in the 1840s.
A land ... Show More
39m 58s
Jul 2021
The English country house party
It’s sixty years since the house party at Cliveden where Christine Keeler encountered Minister of War, John Profumo and the Soviet Naval attaché, Yevgeny Ivanov. The events of that weekend, a heady mix of sex, politics and espionage have filled newspapers, books, films and TV dra ... Show More
44m 50s