Chinese Vistas: Jonathan Spence delivers a series of lectures about China. Spence reflects on China's most enduring thinker, Confucius

Spence examines China's relations with the United Kingdom through three centuries.

Spence discusses how Chinese ideas of sport and athleticism have slowly evolved.

This book shows that, however much we may think we have evolved from our animal ancestors, our instincts and behaviour are still rooted in our animal past. In this portrait of the human species, Morris takes us right to the centre of human existence and explores all aspects of human life and behaviour

Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores great works of poetry set in the British landscape. Louis MacNeice was one of the big guns of British poetry in the 1930s and 40s but is less well known today. Sheers takes a stroll into one of his finest poems, called simply Woods.

Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores great works of poetry set in the British landscape. What drove Matthew Arnold to write his bleak but tremendous poem Dover Beach.

Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores six great works of poetry set in the British landscape.George Mackay Brown, who died in 1996, was the great poetic voice of the Orkneys and one of the foremost Scottish poets of the 20th century.

Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores six great works of poetry set in the British landscape.Roberts was brought up in a wealthy family in Argentina but married a writer from Carmarthenshire in 1939 at the outbreak of war and spent the next nine years living in poverty in a Welsh-speaking village.

Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores great works of poetry set in the British landscape.Sylvia Plath is one of the most popular and influential poets of recent history but her poetry is often overshadowed by her life.

Just how did the Devil get inside our heads? And who put him there? For Halloween, award-winning comedy writer and performer Andy Hamilton (creator and star of Radio 4's acclaimed infernal comedy Old Harry's Game) explores just who the devil Satan is, where he comes from and what he has been up to all this time.

A programme exploring the work of crime writer James Ellroy, whose credits include LA Confidential, The Black Dahlia and My Dark Places, the latter a harrowing memoir of his own mother\'s murder.

Tony Palmer\'s film, thought lost for almost 40 years, about Leonard Cohen\'s 1972 European tour, has now been pieced together from almost 3,000 fragments and restored to its former glory. A unique record of a major poet and singer/songwriter at the height of his powers.

The unlikely story of how, between 1929 and 1945, a group of tweed-wearing radicals and pin-striped bureaucrats created the most influential movement in the history of British film. They were the British Documentary Movement and they gave Britons a taste for watching films about real life.

David Attenborough asks three key questions: how and why did Darwin come up with his theory of evolution? Why do we think he was right? And why is it more important now than ever before?

Leading British writer Howard Jacobson, a Jew himself, examines the origins and consequences of Christian belief. He argues that although Christianity originated in devout Judaism, for Jews it has been, for the most part, a calamity.

Acclaimed war correspondent Rageh Omaar examines the effect the Crusades have on the world today. In the West, the Crusades are a chapter of Christian history that has little impact on our everyday lives, but in the Middle East many believe that the Crusades are happening again.

There are some who believe that Darwin\'s theory of evolution has weakened religion, fuelled in part by Richard Dawkins\' publishing phenomenon The God Delusion. Conor Cunningham argues that nothing could be further from the truth.

A five-part series in which Stephen Fry explores language, coming to understand how we learn it, write it and sometimes lose it, and why it defines us.

What is it that defines us? Stephen argues that above all, it is the way we speak. Be it a national language, a regional dialect or even class variation - we interpret and define ourselves through our language.

This programme looks at the ways language is used and abused. While not everyone approves of \'bad\' language, Stephen learns that swearing plays an important part in human communication the world over.

In this fascinating series, Nick Crane investigates eight epic and challenging journeys, following in the footsteps of our greatest indigenous explorers.In the 1930s and 40s, HV Morton undertook the first tour of Scotland in a motor car, creating a new type of travel writing.

Series which looks at important thinkers through the TV and radio broadcasts they made for the BBC. Includes rare and never-seen archive of Freud, Jung and Bertrand Russell.

The question of how to run a good society has puzzled intellectuals for centuries. Should we allow governments to secure a better country, or place our trust in the individual?

Culture used to be so easy to define - it was ballet, opera, Shakespeare, Beethoven... But in the 20th century, these easy assumptions were torn apart by intellectuals who turned culture into a political weapon.

Jared Diamond embarks on a world-wide quest to understand the roots of global inequality, tracing humanity\'s meanderings across 13,000 years of history.

The heart is the most symbolic organ of the human body. Throughout history it has been seen as the site of our emotions, the very centre of our being. But modern medicine has come to see the heart as just a pump; a brilliant pump, but nothing more. And we see ourselves as ruled by our heads and not our hearts.

Whether it’s English, Spanish, Chinese, or Urdu, babies and young children are able to pick up their native language with remarkable ease; no one language seems any more difficult than any other. Yet few children who are taught a language in school have anything to show for it when they grow up. Why is learning a second or third language so difficult?

What makes us good or evil? It's a simple but deeply unsettling question. One that scientists are now starting to answer.

You might think that your memory is there to help you remember facts, such as birthdays or shopping lists. If so, you would be very wrong. The ability to travel back in time in your mind is, perhaps, your most remarkable ability, and develops over your lifespan.

The quest to live longer has been one of humanities oldest dreams, but while scientists have been searching, a few isolated communities have stumbled across the answer. On the remote Japanese island of Okinawa, In the Californian town of Loma Linda and in the mountains of Sardinia people live longer than anywhere else on earth. In these unique communities a group of scientists have dedicated their lives to trying to uncover their secrets. Horizon takes a trip around the globe to meet the people who can show us all how to live longer, healthier lives.