Free Thinking
Free Thinking
BBC Radio 4
Weapons, Real and Symbolic
56 minutes Posted May 1, 2026 at 9:33 pm.
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Show notes

How do weapons exert real and symbolic power, both now and in history?

Joining Matthew Sweet for Radio 4's roundtable discussion programme about ideas are:

The former soldier and politician Tobias Ellwood

The sculptor Hew Locke, whose artworks exploring colonial power have featured weaponry

The Renaissance historian Catherine Fletcher, whose latest book is The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires

The historian and broadcaster Mark Urban, whose books include Tank and Rifles

and

Hailey Austin, Lecturer in Visual Media and Culture at Abertay University who researches comics and videogames.

Producer: Eliane Glaser