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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: What Is a Nation?

The Essay: What Is a Nation?: Episode 5: Europe

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What Is a Nation?

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Episode 5: Europe

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Focusing on Europe, Michael Goldfarb asks if old ideas of nationhood are still relevant.

Michael Goldfarb explores the definition of the 'nation'. Focusing on Europe, Michael asks if 19th-century definitions of nationhood are relevant today.

What is a nation? Is it the same as a country? Are a people, or a tribe, the same thing as a nation? 

The euro zone crisis has confirmed for British euro sceptics their deepest suspicions: That the EU elites are trying to create a United States of Europe by the back door. In this final essay, Michael Goldfarb looks at the crisis and asks if definitions of nationhood and national sovereignty that arose in the 19th century are fit for purpose in the globalized 21st. And what of the argument that integration is inevitable in a world where capital and those who manipulate it operate with no boundaries and no national loyalty?


In a series of five essays, American writer Michael Goldfarb looks for a definition of the "nation" for the globalised 21st century. Goldfarb who spent most of the last two decades covering conflicts and conflict-resolution draws on his experiences in Bosnia, Iraq, and Northern Ireland to look at the question. These essays contain not just ideas but vivid anecdotes of real people caught up in the frequently violent confrontations sparked by unresolved questions of nationhood.


First broadcast in June 2012.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Michael Goldfarb considers the definition of the 'nation' for the globalised 21st century.

Writer Michael Goldfarb considers the definition of the 'nation' for the globalised 21st century. Is it the same as a country? Are a people or a tribe the same thing as a nation?

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