Podcast
The History Podcast
Hosted by BBC Radio 4 · EN
Invisible Hands - The American Century. David Dimbleby introduces the story of how America became a superpower through the invisible hands who made it happen.
89episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Half-Life: 7. The City That Forgets
May 14, 202500:28:44Summary readyIn Munich, Joe traces a very different side to his family history, events that were left out of his great-grandfather’s memoir.Written and presented by Joe Dunthorne Produced by Eleanor McDowall Music by Jeremy Warmsley Mixing engineer, Mike Woolley Story consultant, Sarah Geis Executive producer, Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
SummaryHalf-Life: 6. Tranquility
May 14, 202500:28:37Summary readyAfter the war, Joe's great-grandfather attempts to build a new life in the United States where his mental health begins to deteriorate.Written and presented by Joe Dunthorne Produced by Eleanor McDowall Music by Jeremy Warmsley Mixing engineer, Mike Woolley Story consultant, Sarah Geis Executive producer, Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
SummaryHalf-Life: 5. The Road Through the Mountains
May 14, 202500:28:21Summary readyA letter from Joe’s great-grandfather, leads him to the east of Turkey and the story of a massacre, kept silent for many yearsWritten and presented by Joe Dunthorne Produced by Eleanor McDowall Music by Jeremy Warmsley Mixing engineer, Mike Woolley With thanks to Jaclynn Ashly and David McDowall Story consultant, Sarah Geis Executive producer, Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
SummaryHalf-Life: 4. Young Republic
May 7, 202500:29:06Summary readyJoe follows in his great-grandfather's footsteps to Turkey where he was employed, it seems, making gas masks.Written and presented by Joe Dunthorne Produced by Eleanor McDowall Music by Jeremy Warmsley Mixing engineer, Mike Woolley Story consultant, Sarah Geis Executive producer, Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
SummaryHalf-Life: 3. Lost
May 7, 202500:28:37Summary readyJoe's research into his great-grandfather's work takes him to Ammendorf, south of Berlin - one of the key sites of Nazi Germany's chemical weapons production.Written and presented by Joe Dunthorne Produced by Eleanor McDowall Music by Jeremy Warmsley Mixing engineer, Mike Woolley Story consultant, Sarah Geis Executive producer, Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
SummaryHalf-Life: 2. The Quiet Town by the River
May 7, 202500:28:11Summary readyDangers lurk beneath the soil, in the town where Joe's great-grandfather worked.Written and presented by Joe Dunthorne Produced by Eleanor McDowall Music by Jeremy Warmsley Mixing engineer, Mike Woolley Story consultant, Sarah Geis Executive producer, Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
SummaryHalf-Life: 1. Daughter of Radium
May 7, 202500:29:23Summary readyDrawn to a family legend about his German-Jewish family’s dramatic escape from Nazi Germany in 1936, the writer Joe Dunthorne accidentally discovers a far more disturbing history. A conversation with his granny, who spent her childhood brushing her teeth with the radioactive toothpaste her father Siegfried manufactured, leads Joe to finally read his great-grandfather's nearly 2000-page long unpublished memoir. Hidden on page 1692 he finds an unsettling confession.Written and presented by Joe Dunthorne, (based on his book Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance) Produced by Eleanor McDowall Music by Jeremy Warmsley Mixing engineer, Mike Woolley Story consultant, Sarah Geis Executive producer, Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
SummaryHalf-Life: Trailer: Half-Life
May 1, 202500:02:21Summary readyDrawn to a family legend about his German-Jewish family’s dramatic escape from Nazi Germany in 1936, the writer Joe Dunthorne accidentally discovers a far more unsettling history.A confession hidden on page 1692 of his great-grandfather Siegfried’s unpublished memoir leads Joe into a story of radioactive toothpaste, unexploded bombs and erased histories, exploring the many ways the past continues to haunt the present - even when we try to ignore it.A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
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Invisible Hands: 6. There Is No Alternative
Apr 30, 202500:29:04Summary readyIn 2006 an Australian investment bank bought Thames Water – Britain’s biggest water company. Everything went well for a bit. And then people started noticing something strange. Sewage in the water. Leaking pipes. Hosepipe bans. Now in 2025 Thames Water is on the brink of financial collapse and looking for new owners. There is even talk about doing something shocking. Nationalisation.So what went wrong? Why did this water company which makes healthy profits year on year fail so badly. And what can that tell us about how the dream of free market capitalism has turned out, not just here but also in Donald Trump’s America.David Dimbleby traces the history of an idea that charts his lifespan. It started on a chicken farm in Sussex, gained traction in the shadows of post-war London and rose to heights of excess in the new champagne bars of the City.But who are the little-known people behind it? What did they want? And is the free market here to stay? Or are we entering a new era?Presenter: David Dimbleby Producer: Jo Barratt Sound Design: Peregrine Andrews Executive Producers: Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitsina Story Editors: Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitsina Commissioning Editor: Dan ClarkeA Samizdat Audio production for BBC Radio 4
SummaryInvisible Hands: 5. The Lucky Gambler
Apr 23, 202500:29:12Summary readyJames Goldsmith was a billionaire tycoon who thrived in the free-market revolution. He was a corporate raider who conquered both the City of London and Wall Street. He was a playboy – four wives, a host of mistresses and a reputation as outsized as a Bond villain. Then in 1987 he predicted a stock market crash and disappeared from the world stage. A few years later he turned up again, ready to tell the world something shocking. That everything he had believed about the free market was wrong. That a global elite had rigged the system and global capitalism was now stifling the very freedoms it promised to protect. That global free trade had led to a hollowing out of manufacturing towns and communities. That the nation state itself was being undermined.Then in 1997 he saw there was an election coming up in Britain. An election where he could spread his message that globalisation and global free trade had failed. An election that perhaps, more than any other, set the stage for Donald Trump. David Dimbleby traces the history of an idea that charts his lifespan. It started on a chicken farm in Sussex, gained traction in the shadows of post-war London and rose to heights of excess in the new champagne bars of the City. But who are the little-known people behind it? What did they want? And is the free market here to stay? Or are we entering a new era?Presenter: David Dimbleby Producer: Jo Barratt Sound Design: Peregrine Andrews Executive Producers: Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitsina Story Editors: Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitsina Commissioning Editor: Dan ClarkeA Samizdat Audio production for BBC Radio 4
Summary