Welcoming Misha Glenny

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30It all starts with a subscription to BBC.com. Find out more at BBC.com slash unlimited. Simon, welcome. Well, no, you welcome. Tell everybody who you are. So, my name is Misha Glennie and I am the new presenter of In Our Time. I have to say, 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 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 programme hitherto.

1:15I'm very grateful to Melvin's support, by the way. 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 very grateful to him. OK, I'm going to 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 Big History of the Modern Balkans.

2:03I 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 I may have, I can only presume. It sounds like you're very busy already. So why do you want this role? I'm dropping things in order to take this role on because there is nothing better. Look, every week I come into the studio and it'll be a different subject. It could be plate tectonics.

2:47It could be the rise of Adolf Hitler. It could be dragons. It could be anything under the sun, really. And over the space of a week, I do a deep dive into that subject. And then I am privileged to quiz three great experts, academics, who always really know their stuff on this. so that the key points of a subject are highlighted but put together in a form which makes them comprehensible because one thing we never want to do on In Our Time is dumb down. At the end of the programme after 48 or 50 minutes whatever it is I am much the wiser and I hope that I will be able to bring the listeners along with me so they too will be much the wiser because I see myself as being the voice of the listener in the studio, surrounded by this extraordinary body of knowledge.

3:46I've got my own answer to this, but I wonder why does it matter to win our time that it's not simply you talking, doing your research, but you've got three really great people in the room with you? Well, because there's not much I can learn in a week compared to a lifetime of the three guests around me. And what's interesting for me is when those guests who are all steeped in a subject actually disagree about something. And with that, we can have a creative, civilized conversation, dispute, argument, so that we come out all the wiser. And in fact, interestingly, that relates to the first topic that I'll be dealing with in our time, on liberty by John Stuart Mill, because John Stuart Mill argues early on that there is no monopoly on truth, and you always get closer to the truth if you listen to different opinions.

4:45So we'll be listening to different opinions, but ones which are expressed in a civilised and constructive fashion, I hope. What else is coming up after that? Well, after John Stuart Mill, we've got the Mariana Trench, which is, of course, the deepest point of the ocean, two kilometers deeper than Mount Everest is high. Then, of course, we've got the Roman arena, which is great fun because it's all about lions and gladiators and Russell Crowe. Well, actually, we don't mention Russell Crowe. But it's really fascinating to hear actually what Hollywood got right and what Hollywood got wrong about the Roman arena.

5:25But But the thing that really struck me about that subject is these games lasted for over 500 years. That's half of a millennium of people beating the hell out of each other and being devoured by lions or killing leopards and baboons. So when can people listen? So, people can start listening to the new series of In Our Time, first on BBC Sounds, with our first episode available on Thursday the 15th of January. Please join me then. Very good. Do you want a tea or coffee? It'll be a tea for me, thank you, Simon. Just put your headphones on and immerse yourself in a gripping thriller. A guy you've never seen before offers you ten grand to look after an envelope and you take it.

6:16Are you crazy? A chilling mystery. Young lady! There! Can't you see her? A heart-stopping adventure. I'm going to kiss you now. I'm Kim Cattrall, and you can hear me in Limelight from BBC Radio 4, where drama serials take centre stage. I know that it wasn't an accident. They were murdered, weren't they? Search for Limelight on BBC Sounds. Are you scared? True crime meets history with a twist in a new series of Lady Killers. Join me as we travel back in time to investigate the most astonishing lady killers of the 19th and 20th centuries. We visit the scene of the crime and we delve deep into their lives to ask, how did they do it?

7:02Why did they do it? What drove them to it? Watch Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley on BBC.com. It all starts with a subscription to BBC.com. Find out more at bbc.com slash unlimited.