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

BBC Radio 3

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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

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: World War I Round the World

The Essay: World War One Round the World: Episode 3: London - Shell Shock and the Shock of Shells

World War I Round the World

Episode 3

Episode 3: London - Shell Shock and the Shock of Shells

World War One Round the World

London - Shell Shock and the Shock of Shells

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, World War One Round the World, London - Shell Shock and the Shock of ShellsClose menu

Joanna Bourke on the emotional, cultural and physical impact of WWI shelling on soldiers.

In a talk from the Imperial War Museum in London, Joanna Bourke considers the emotional, cultural and physical impact of shell shock - and the shells themselves - on soldiers.

One hundred years ago the First World War set the course for the modern world: for the countries that took part nothing would be the same again. In these special editions of The Essay we gain an international perspective on the war as we hear from cultural figures from around the world taking part in an international series of events called The War That Changed The World, made in partnership with the British Council and the BBC World Service.
Joanna Bourke stunned academics and the reading public alike with her extraordinary study 'An Intimate History of Killing', since which she has written studies of Fear, Rape, Pain and Humanity. Shell Shock and the Shock of Shells draws on the letters and diaries of soldiers and their families. In this essay she returns to the First World War to reflect not only on shell shock, but also on the actual shells themselves, presenting her latest research into their physical impact and the language which evolved to describe them. Her essay was recorded with an audience at the Imperial War Museum in London.

The Essay: World War One Round the World

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.

Series of essays giving an international perspective on World War One

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World War One Round the World

Episode 3: London - Shell Shock and the Shock of Shells

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