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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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Free Thinking

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

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Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

Matthew Sweet

Andrew Lownie

Michael Redley

Kate Macdonald

Elleke Boehmer

Terence Ranger

Laura Thomas

Free Thinking: Landmark: The Thirty-Nine Steps and World War I

The Thirty-Nine Steps and World War I

24/06/2014

Landmark: The Thirty-Nine Steps and World War I

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Landmark: The Thirty-Nine Steps and World War I

Matthew Sweet discusses WWI, empire and adventure in John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps.

Matthew Sweet explores representations of World War I, empire and adventure in John Buchan's novel The Thirty-Nine Steps.

The Thirty-Nine Steps first appeared in Blackwoods Magazine in August and September 1915 and depicts Europe on the edge of war in May and June 1914. It quickly became popular reading in the trenches and on the home front, and nearly a hundred years and three film adaptations later, its popularity is enduring.

In a special edition of Free Thinking, Matthew Sweet talks to Buchan's biographer Andrew Lownie and Buchan scholars Dr Michael Redley and Dr Kate Macdonald about the connections between Buchan's own war experience and The Thirty-Nine Steps, and to Professors Elleke Boehmer and Terence Ranger about how ideas about empire and adventure play out in the novel.

First broadcast 24/06/2014

You can download this programme by searching in the Arts and Ideas podcasts for the broadcast date.

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