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In Our Time: Nineteen Eighty-Four

15/09/2022

Nineteen Eighty-Four

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orwell's novel on totalitarianism, truth and surveillance.

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

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