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Why Plato believed that philosopher kings – not democracy – should run the state
Think modern democracy is stagnant, stifled by bureaucracy and undone by a fickle populace? Plato saw it coming from some two-and-a-half millennia away. This short animation from BBC Radio 4 explains why Plato had little love for democracy, and believed that it was the true elite – trained philosophers, of course – who should steer the ship of state.
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Family life
One family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam, told in a poignant metaphor
10 minutes
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Fairness and equality
Visit the small Texas community that lives in the shadow of SpaceX launches
14 minutes
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War and peace
A frontline soldier’s moving account of the fabled ‘Christmas truce’ of 1914
12 minutes
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Bioethics
What a 1970 experiment reveals about the possibility and perils of ‘head transplants’
6 minutes
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History of technology
Replicating Shakespearean-era printing brings its own dramas and comedy
19 minutes
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Animals and humans
The wild tale of a young animal keeper, an angry tiger and a torn circle net
10 minutes
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Technology and the self
Why single Chinese women are freezing their eggs in California
24 minutes
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Beauty and aesthetics
Can you see music in this painting? How synaesthesia fuelled Kandinsky’s art
10 minutes
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The ancient world
Petty squabbles and bloody battles – the life of an ancient Roman soldier
18 minutes