Nineteen Eighty-Four
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orwell's dystopian novel where the state rewrites history, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength - and Big Brother is watching you
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Orwell's (1903-1950) final novel, published in 1949, set in a dystopian London which is now found in Airstrip One, part of the totalitarian superstate of Oceania which is always at war and where the protagonist, Winston Smith, works at the Ministry of Truth as a rewriter of history: 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' The influence of Orwell's novel is immeasurable, highlighting threats to personal freedom with concepts he named such as doublespeak, thoughtcrime, Room 101, Big Brother, memory hole and thought police.
With
David Dwan
Professor of English Literature and Intellectual History at the University of Oxford
Lisa Mullen
Teaching Associate in Modern Contemporary Literature at the University of Cambridge
And
John Bowen
Professor of English Literature at the University of York
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Last on
LINKS AND FURTHER READING
READING LIST
Kristin Bluemel, George Orwell and the Radical Eccentrics (Palgrave, 2004)
Gordon Bowker, George Orwell (Abacus, 2004)
Michael G. Brennan, George Orwell and Religion (Bloomsbury, 2016)
Gregory Claeys, Dystopia: A Natural History (Oxford University Press, 2018)
Stefan Collini, Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain (Oxford University Press, 2006)
Robert Colls, George Orwell: English Rebel (Oxford University Press, 2013)
Bernard Crick, George Orwell: A Life (Secker & Warburg, 1980)
Paul Delany,鈥極rwell on Jura: Locating Nineteen Eighty-Four鈥� (University of Toronto Quarterly, 30.1, 2011)
David Dwan, Liberty, Equality and Humbug: Orwell鈥檚 Political Ideals (Oxford University Press, 2018)
Abbott Gleason, Jack Goldsmith and Martha C. Nussbaum (eds.), On Nineteen Eighty-Four: Orwell and Our Future (Princeton University Press, 2005)
Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters (Basic, 2002)
Dorian Lynskey, The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell鈥檚 1984 (Picador, 2019)
George Orwell (introduction by John Bowen), Nineteen Eighty-Four (Oxford World鈥檚 Classics, 2021)
George Orwell (ed. Peter Davison), A Life in Letters (Penguin, 2011)
John Newsinger, Orwell鈥檚 Politics (Macmillan, 1999)
Paul Roazen, 鈥極rwell, Freud, and 1984鈥� (Virginia Quarterly Review, 54, 1978)
John Rodden, Orwell: The Politics of Literary Reputation: The Making and Claiming of 鈥楽t. George鈥� Orwell (Oxford University Press, 1989)
John Ross, Orwell鈥檚 Cough (One World, 2012)
D. J. Taylor, Orwell: The Life (Chatto & Windus, 2003)
D. J. Taylor, On Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Biography (Abrams Press, 2019)
Nathan Waddell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Nineteen Eighty-Four (Cambridge University Press, 2020)
Stephen Wadhams (ed.), Remembering Orwell (Penguin, 1984)
Raymond Williams, Orwell (Fontana, 1971)
Alex Woloch, Or Orwell: Writing and Democratic Socialism (Harvard University Press, 2016)
Alex Zwerdling, Orwell and the Left (Yale University Press, 1974)
RELATED LINKS
Broadcasts
- Thu 15 Sep 2022 09:00麻豆官网首页入口 Radio 4
- Thu 15 Sep 2022 21:30麻豆官网首页入口 Radio 4
Featured in...
![]()
20th Century—In Our Time
Browse the 20th Century era within the In Our Time archive.
![]()
Culture—In Our Time
Popular culture, poetry, music and visual arts and the roles they play in our society.
In Our Time podcasts
Download programmes from the huge In Our Time archive.
The In Our Time Listeners' Top 10
If you鈥檙e new to In Our Time, this is a good place to start.
Arts and Ideas podcast
Download the best of Radio 3's Free Thinking programme.
Podcast
-
![]()
In Our Time
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.
