An exploration of the significance of 1848, exactly 150 years after the revolutionary turmoil which affected almost every country in Europe apart from Britain. The new bourgeois flexed their muscles, peasants rose, and countries asserted their national longings. In the era of the Euro, what does the collective upheaval of Europe in 1848 tell us about what it means to be European? What is certain is that the artistic response and involvement in 1848 was immense and fascinating. Poets, painters and composers manned the barricades and helped to make what the French poet Lamartine called "the sublimest of poems". With contributions from Tom Nairn , John Deathridge , George Gomori ,
Christopher Prendergast , Laszlo Peter , Jonathan Sperber and Tim Blanning.
Producer Tim Dee. See also Monday 10.25pm