Melvyn Bragg meets Misha Glenny

America is changing and so is the world.

“But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval.”

It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington DC. I'm Tristan Redman in London and this is the global story. Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, it's Melvin Brake here. On Christmas Eve, I'd the pleasure of being guests editor on the Today program on BBC Radio for and for this, I spoke to my successor on in our time, Misha Glenney. We thought you might like to hear this, so here it is. Our discussion was later by the Today presenter Justin Webb.

Melvin, let's begin with the the Eternal Appeal. I mean, it's kind of obvious place to begin, but it is an important place to begin.

It's why is it that this incredible thing, this cultural event and this hugely important event

“in so many people's lives, not just in Britain around the world?”

Why? What is it that took off? I think what took off is curiosity. I think one of the most striking characteristics that we have is curiosity. That's one thing people want to know stuff. And when you listen to in pubs and that people are talking about what they know to each other.

And secondly, I think that a lot of us, me included, had a very patchy education. And one thing has come up about, and almost anything to do with science, I'm more interested than anything else, because I didn't teach it at my school. There's Kim through, you know, so it's those two things. And then, because of the way we are about to be constructed, because of the way we put together,

it was interesting to go from one thing to another to another to another. And then when you started, that was one of the principles we would go from talking about, China, ancient China, to talking about my favourite opening by any scientists,

which is a billion, billion light years away.

And then you followed that, there's that. And the other thing is that we hit on something that I wanted to do in when I was doing science the week, but we didn't do enough, which is we only basically only talked to academics. And it became their programme, and they listened to it, each other listened to it, and it became their programme, and the next thing is, is that they have to be teaching academics.

So they used to talking to people like me who doesn't know anything. And that is not almost 100% kept, that they teach their finish in this studio, and they go back to their universities, their colleges, and they teach. And those four things came together. Also, there's a vacuum. People were bouncing on academics once or twice, but we were consistently talking to academics

about stuff that they knew more than anybody else, to somebody who knew nothing at all. Misha, what would you add to that? I would add to that. There's anything to be added to it. There is something to be added, and that's Melvin himself. Because Melvin, if you think about it, I mean, the format is really quite straightforward.

It's not, you know, there aren't too many bells and whistles to it. It's three academics talking about stuff that they know about. Why does it work? Well, that's where you came in, because you create in every episode, and I've listened to a lot of them now, a really comprehensible arc, a story whereby you come into a subject that you know nothing about, and 45 minutes later, or whatever it is, you go away thinking,

I've always wondered what that is about, and now at least I understand the basics of it.

An example of that for you? Plate tectonics.

“And I can remember when I was listening to it, it was about sort of 10, 15 years ago,”

so I was rushing, I was making breakfast, and I had to get out. And I was listening to this stuff about plate tectonics, and I just dropped everything and sat down. I'm doing the plate, including the plates, sat down and listened to it, and when at the end, because it starts off with, you know, huge sort of rock sliding underneath each other and everything, but by the end, there is this revelatory explanation that without plate tectonics,

there is no life, and that it's at the very, it's the most fundamental level, and you nothing about it, and I have never forgotten it. Now, would you, does it differ when you're doing

when you don't, you're starting really from scratch. How does it affect you, has it affected you, when you've been doing your research? Well, I try harder, and I don't know anything, but I also enjoy it more, and also the people who are in that realm are extremely good talkers, and they're very used to doing things concisely and helping you to move on. They're quite generous to each other as well, really. That's interesting, more generous than in the art.

“Yes, on the whole. Yeah, I think they're very generous, but I do notice, Mel, I mean, again,”

I'm listening very closely to these programs now, that, that when somebody is

rabiting on a bit too long, you always find the right moment to come in and say,

absolutely fascinating, but let's move on. Go ahead. But it's really, but it's really important, because otherwise there'd just be rabiting on for 40 minutes. What's the skill of doing that then? Well, everybody who's coming on the program, the academic student, we're talking about very, very bright people. They generally know each other. They don't want to steal time from each other, and they've got the hang of this, and you can tell, really, my waving a finger,

it's your turn now, and they go that way. It's very, very valid that anybody wants to fill a busted. They see it as what it is on conversation. It's more than a conversation, an investigation, between three people who really know what they're talking about, and don't be grudge other people talking as well. They often say, "He knows a bit more about that than I do," and so it's

always a shared investigation. I think that's what people like. Also, there's no plugging at all.

I said, "We have no plugging, and we have no plugging." And I think that's a big thing. You also don't tell me as the listener how I should think differently about my previous thoughts, prejudices, etc. In other words, there's no sort of, you go to a museum now, and there'll be some set of contacts written for you that you should think of decolonizing or whatever the thing is that you're meant to be thinking about. You don't do that. Do you never do it? No. Why not? I just want

to stick to the subject, and that's quite enough to do. And when you have surrounded by people who know as much as these people do, so they want to pass this information on. And it's curiosity,

“we're all curious, but it's a teaching thing I think that was the key to it. So, Misha, how does it”

change now? Well, first of all, I want to say, try stepping into these boots. This is going to be

really difficult. Melvin isn't the program. The program is Melvin. There's no getting away from that. I am hugely honoured to be taking this role on, but I don't want to go in and smash up the China, as it were. I want to do what Melvin has been doing very well. I mean, brilliantly for so many years, and I need to get my feet under the table. Now, it may be that there's certain areas. I'm thinking particularly of some aspects of European literature, South American history,

possibly, where I've done work in the past that I would like to bring up. I mean, I'm going through all of the episodes to see what you've done, and what you've been doing. What is missed? Exactly.

“That would be a difficult task. It is a difficult task, because there are so many. But I think”

there'll be a slightly more European focus, but I don't want to forget the rest of the world either, but I love the science programs. I find the science present, for exactly the same reason as you did. I now confess, I got an unclassified in my old-level physics, and I've been struggling to overcome that crash. This is very useful. Lord Carrington used to say, when asked about scientific matters, former foreign secretary, of course, in early thacha government used to say, I went to school before

science was invented, which I was thought was a rather good thing to say. Now, tell us more, the first time I met you, Misha, we were in a hotel in Bosnia, under mortifier, and you were broadcasting in German. So you're a man and many talents. Tell us about the way in which you've gone from there to here. Well, I was at the BBC as the central Europe correspondent, which is when you met me based in Vienna, but I'd been obsessed by Eastern Europe in particular in the

Communist world, ever since my teens. So to be the BBC central Europe correspondent in 1989, when you have the biggest foreign story since the Second World War, was a dream. I mean,

or so. So when they were forming the new governments, I knew who was in the government before they'd even thought of it. It was fantastic, but after that came the wars in Yugoslavia. And one of the things I picked up on during the wars in Yugoslavia was the fact that organized crime

played an absolutely critical role in the atrocities in that war. And it was that study of organized

crime, which made me realize there's a lot more going on in the world than just the Balkans. I'd spent too much time in the Balkans by then. And so I embarked on going around the world, studying organized crime by talking to a lot of bad people and one or two good people as well. And that is really was my in our time experience of going to places and doing things that are never come across before. And it just expanded my whole understanding of how the world works.

And that's the kind of thing that I get from listening to the program. There's always something that you either never quite understood or never even knew about. What's your advice to him, Melvin, as he starts? I think Paul, are you really want to do? This is so much information out there. And so many people are good at reciting it. And so many people who send in contributions,

“we have hundreds of lists saying, "You should do this, you should do that, you should do this."”

And one of the things about bombing it to people on the heater, whatever it is, "You haven't done this, you haven't done that." And he's taking their advice. Sometimes, it seems to have taken it taken off in its own way from the beginning and we wanted it, I wanted it to be eclectic. And so Melvin, why do you think it's so popular with younger audiences? Because in terms of BBC programs, it's one of the top for the under-35s.

I have to come back to what I said to start really. The people who are talking about it, are teachers, and they come in here, these small studios, and they know they've got to get a move on, they know they've got to cut it short, they know they can't wander on forever. And so they have to cut their cloth. And I think they all think it's a, like I do, it's absolutely

delight. And the archive that we have now is phenomenal. Incredible. It is a phenomenal archive.

It's probably the greatest archive in the world, cultural archive. It's an interesting point you make about the appeal to young people. Because one of the things we sort of try sometimes to convince ourselves, it seems to me, is that everything intellectually is going down the tubes, basically, that we are not the people we once were, that we've lost our ability to cope with things that challenge us, that we don't read lengthy things anymore,

“we don't do this, we don't do that. And actually in a sense, this is, this is the opposite, isn't it?”

And it's, and it's telling us a very different story about ourselves, and particularly the young. It is just, and for the last three and a half years, I've been running an institute in Vienna, called the Institute for Human Sciences, which is an advanced research center. And we get younger fellows, fellows in their twenties who are either doing their doctorates or have just finished their doctorates. And their scholarship is phenomenal. I mean, way ahead of anything,

I ever managed to achieve academically or intellectually, absolutely terrific. And we get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of applications to come and study in that institute. And so I see this on the ground that there is still an intellectual ferment, even though we know that all of our brains are being turned to mush by social media. And so on, we are still learning and we are still curious. I'm holding steady. I mean, there is, around the pleasure of the moment,

an epidemic of incompetence. But on this program, if we be doing a program which you will happily take over, there's not an allowed because the other people on the program just shake their heads like you can't say that. That doesn't work. You can't do that. It's not, and it is down to them, and down to the fact that I go back to the beginning of what we were all talking about.

“I think that we are the curious species. They want to know what's around the corner,”

what's on the moon. Why is this happening? Why is this happening? I think that's the biggest drive. I think. I mean, maybe wrong. But Melbourne, you also, you, of course, point out,

legendarily, that you are never knowingly relevant in this program. And yet, when I listen to

these programs, you're right on the surface, it's not knowingly relevant at all. But underneath

relates to your own experience or something that's going on at the moment. So it's never knowingly

“relevant, but it often is relevant. Yes, that's the way I'm knowledge works. A very good moment”

at which to finish, Misha, Melbourne. Thank you, babe. It's been a great privilege to present

in our time for so many years, and I'm delighted that Misha will be taking on the role. His first

“program will be available in a radio for and on BBC sounds on the 15th of January. I was”

Misha, the program, and you are listeners around the world, every success. Hi, Cindy here. I'm very excited to bring you the return of child. So we've been on the journey

“of an embryo all the way to a baby's first birthday. And now we are going to enter the explosive life”

of the toddler because this is the perfect place to unpick the very complicated world of emotions, the emotions that affect us all. So come with us as over eight episodes we fall through the abundant and dizzying world of happiness, descend into the depths of fear and the gendered and dangerous world of anger, and then crawl wobble and bounce our way through or love anxiety and surprise.

From BBC Radio 4, this is Child with me, Indiraqueson. Listen first on BBC sounds.

America is changing and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington DC. I'm Tristan Redman in London and this is the global story. Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.