BBC Radio 4’s The History podcast will see David Dimbleby and Joe Dunthorne fronting two new commissions for the series.
Invisible Hands is a six-part narrative podcast in which David Dimbleby tells the story of the 20th century’s free market revolution.
Dimbleby, who saw this unfold during his time as a BBC political reporter and presenter, goes through the twists and turns of its evolution.
David Dimbleby says: “Looking back on a lifetime interviewing politicians and debating their ideas I think that none was more radical than the theory of free market capitalism.
“In the mid-1970s no one knew what it really meant or where the idea came from. This is the story of how this revolutionary idea took hold, challenging old assumptions and redefining British society.
“It begins with a fighter pilot shot down in the Battle of Britain, an ambitious chicken farmer and a politician nick-named the mad monk who embraced the idea with such enthusiasm that he persuaded the government to abandon the old way of running Britain for a new and as yet untried theory.
“I was seven when the Second World War ended, and in this series, I trace the history of the revolutionary idea that spans my own lifespan and now defines every part of our lives in Britain.”
The History Podcast: Invisible Hands will launch on 26th March on BBC Radio 4 and Sounds.
This will be followed by The History Podcast: Half-Life, where poet, novelist and journalist Joe Dunthorne goes on a personal investigation into his own family history.
Joe was going in search of the details of his family’s escape from Nazi Germany in 1936 in this eight-part series, but found a far more disturbing history, a confession from his great-grandfather hidden on page 1,692, which takes Joe from Berlin to Ankara to North Carolina and back to Swansea.
Joe Dunthorne says: “Half-Life is about the stories we tell ourselves, who we are and where we come from – and how these stories often hide a more complex truth.
“As I explored the messy inheritance left to me by my great-grandfather, I learned first-hand the many ways history continues to haunt our present. It lives on inside us, even when we try to ignore it.”
Daniel Clarke, Factual Commissioning Editor at Radio 4, says: “We are delighted to add not one but two new history series to our popular history strand, The History Podcast.
“These new commissions follow the success of The Lucan Obsession, which reignited the nation’s fascination with one of the most enduring mysteries of the 20th century, and The Brighton Bomb, which featured fresh testimony on the 1984 IRA plot to assassinate Margaret Thatcher.
“Such engaging and high-quality titles saw The History Podcast ranked as the fourth most-listened to podcast on BBC Sounds in the last quarter of 2024.”
The History Podcast: Half-Life begins on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds on Wednesday 7th May.
In addition to this, beginning on Wednesday 2nd April, BBC Radio 4 will air a new weekly five-minute feature called This Week in History.
Each episode will be read by Radio 4 announcers, who will spotlight a selection of the most fascinating and significant events that occurred this same week in the past. The feature will air on Wednesdays, with repeats on Fridays.
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