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Leadership: lessons from US presidents and campaigners

Doris Kearns Goodwin on what makes a good president. Plus Georgina Harding on war.

• 44 mins

Plagues, Urban Inequality and Restricted Books

Artist Penny Woolcock, global health researcher Thomas Bollyky and Jane Stevens Crawshaw

• 44 mins

Slavery Stories

A long-lost classic now published and Esi Edugyan's Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel.

• 44 mins

Mike Hodges; Dark Sweden.

The director of Get Carter talks to Matthew Sweet about writing his own crime stories.

• 44 mins

Bessie Head. Rwanda Representation and Reality

Anne McElvoy looks at the career of Botswana's most influential writer.

• 44 mins

Is there a great divide between the arts and science?

Sir Paul Nurse and Tristram Hunt debate with an audience at Queen Mary University London.

• 44 mins

Are we being manipulated?

Who's pulling your strings? Matthew Sweet and guests track down today's hidden persuaders.

• 44 mins

Writing and Frankness

Deborah Levy, Adam Phillips and Amia Srinivasan join Matthew Sweet at the British Library.

• 44 mins

Linton Kwesi Johnson

The reggae poet and recording artist talks politics, religion and writing with Philip Dodd

• 44 mins

Ice

A journey to the frozen ends of the Earth, plus theatrical magic from the 17th century.

• 44 mins

Trees of Knowledge

Peter Wohlleben Emanuele Coccia Marion Sidebottom Luke Turner

• 44 mins

What does game playing teach us?

Bobby Seagull and Irving Finkel join Shahidha Bari to look at competitiveness and games.

• 44 mins

Landmark: Watership Down

An ecological fable about a perfect society? Matthew Sweet reads Richard Adams' classic.

• 44 mins

Landmark: Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box

Matthew Sweet pays tribute to Hollywood's most famous comedy duo, Stan and Ollie.

• 44 mins

Born in 1819: Ruskin, Clough and Bazalgette.

Ruskin, Bazalgette and Clough: Laurence Scott examines three of Victoria's class of 1819.

• 44 mins

Boredom

Shahidha Bari, Josh Cohen and Sam Goodman explore the value of doing nothing.

• 44 mins

Walls

Novelist John Lanchester, historians David Frye, Kylie Murray and journalist Tim Marshall

• 44 mins

Tourism past and present

Must-see sights for post-Napoleonic War tourists, Cold War travellers and hot spots now.

• 44 mins

Icons

Do our heroes and heroines have to be perfect? We look at ikons, film idols & politicians.

• 44 mins

Oscars 2019

Matthew Sweet & guests look at films making waves as the Academy announces its shortlists.

• 44 mins

Slow Looking at Art

Ways of Seeing with Michael Craig Martin, Aura Satz, Kelly Grovier & Daniel Glaser.

• 44 mins

Consent

How we deal with unwanted sexual advances and changing depictions on stage are debated.

• 44 mins

Art and Refugees from Nazi Germany

Writing about the Holocaust and the shock of Modernism in 1930s Britain.

• 44 mins

Sea Goings

Julia Blackburn, Katie Paterson, Charlotte Runcie, the Cutty Sark.

• 44 mins

Street Culture, Protests, Food

Philip Dodd talks to gilet jaune and novelist Edouard Louis about streets and culture.

• 44 mins

Encylopedias and Knowledge: from Diderot to Wikipedia

Jimmy Wales talks Diderot & collecting knowledge + Tariq Godard on Mark Fisher aka k-punk.

• 44 mins

Self Knowledge, Global Catastrophe and Simulated Worlds.

Quassim Cassam and Simon Beard with Matthew, plus RW Fassbinder's 1970s TV sci-fi series.

• 44 mins

Spike Lee

The film-maker talks black power, blackface and Academy Awards with Matthew Sweet.

• 44 mins

Africa, Babel, China

Histories of West Africa, 20th-century China, and the art of translation.

• 44 mins

Love

The science and art of love. Andrew McMillan, Lavinia Greenlaw, Elanor Dymott, Laura Mucha

• 44 mins