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Minds at War: How Great Artists and Their Work Were Shaped by the First World War
The complete BBC Radio 3 series exploring how great creative minds responded to the First World War in individual works of art and scholarship.
World War I saw an unprecedented loss of life in Western Europe, and destruction on a scale no one alive had ever seen. All those who experienced it were irrevocably changed, including many writers and artists upon whose oeuvre it left an indelible mark.
This captivating series examines the impact of the war on artists and thinkers through the prism of their great works. In each episode, a leading figure from the worlds of science, culture and the arts reflects on a single iconic piece, and discusses how the events of 1914-18 shaped its creation.
The 29 artworks in this collection comprise paintings, plays, books, films, sculptures and cartoons. Ian Christie appraises Eisenstein's seminal Soviet drama Battleship Potemkin; Dame Gillian Beer considers Virginia Woolf's masterpiece Mrs Dalloway; Fintan O'Toole decodes James Joyce's epic modernist novel, Ulysses and Dr Heather Jones looks at the controversy and war connections around Marcel Duchamp's notorious 'Fountain'.
Key texts such as Sigmund Freud's twin essays Thoughts for the Time on War and Death; Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel Lectures and Siegfried Sassoon's celebrated 1917 protest letter to The Times are analysed by Dr Michael Shapira, Santanu Das and Joanna Bourke and a panoply of other pieces, among them Kathe Kollwitz's 'The Grieving Parents', Sean O'Casey's The Silver Tassie and Rudyard Kipling's Epitaphs are discussed by experts including Ruth Padel, Elizabeth Kuti and Janet Montefiore.
Powerful, moving, thought-provoking and often shocking, these landmark works are all, in their very different ways, a response to the horrors of World War I and its aftermath—one that vividly demonstrates the transformative effects the conflict had on the collective artistic psyche.
Production
Presented by Allan Little, Sara LeFanu, Martin Rowson, Prof David Edgerton, Michal Shapira, Dr Heather Jones, Ian Christie, Lyse Doucet, Santanu Das, Ruth Padel, Arthur Smith, Prof Gillian Beer, Richard Cork, Sasha Dugdale, Fintan O'Toole, Gerald Dawe, John D McHugh, Elizabeth Kuti, Tarek Osman, Joanna Bourke, Elif Shafak, Dr Imaobong Umoren, Janet Montefiore, Jane Potter and Alex Walton.
Produced by Beaty Rubens, Benedict Warren, Emma Kingsley, Simon Elmes and Sarah Bowen.
Episode
1. Paths of Glory
2. Non-Combatants and Others
3. Der Krieg
4. The Memorandum on the Neglect of Science
5. Thoughts for the Times on War and Death
6. Le Feu
7. Battleship Potemkin
8. Fighting France, from Dunkerque to Belfort
9. The Broken Wing
10. The Grieving Parents
11. Tagore's Nobel Lectures
12. Tzara's Dada Manifests
13. Woolf's Mrs Dalloway
14. Parade
15. Akhmatova's July 1914
16. James Joyce's Ulysses
17. Elizabeth Bowen's The Last September
18. Francis Ledwidge's poem O'Connell Street
19. Father Browne's Photograph of a Wounded Soldier
20. Sean O'Casey's The Silver Tassie
21. Marcel Duchamp
22. Gertrude Bell
23. Siegfried Sassoon's Letter to The Times
24. Mata Hari's Final Performance
25. Isaac Rosenberg's Dead Man's Dump
26. WEB Dubois' Returning Soldiers
27. Rudyard Kipling's Epitaphs
28. Mary Borden's The Forbidden Zone
29. Isobel Rae
World War I saw an unprecedented loss of life in Western Europe, and destruction on a scale no one alive had ever seen. All those who experienced it were irrevocably changed, including many writers and artists upon whose oeuvre it left an indelible mark.
This captivating series examines the impact of the war on artists and thinkers through the prism of their great works. In each episode, a leading figure from the worlds of science, culture and the arts reflects on a single iconic piece, and discusses how the events of 1914-18 shaped its creation.
The 29 artworks in this collection comprise paintings, plays, books, films, sculptures and cartoons. Ian Christie appraises Eisenstein's seminal Soviet drama Battleship Potemkin; Dame Gillian Beer considers Virginia Woolf's masterpiece Mrs Dalloway; Fintan O'Toole decodes James Joyce's epic modernist novel, Ulysses and Dr Heather Jones looks at the controversy and war connections around Marcel Duchamp's notorious 'Fountain'.
Key texts such as Sigmund Freud's twin essays Thoughts for the Time on War and Death; Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel Lectures and Siegfried Sassoon's celebrated 1917 protest letter to The Times are analysed by Dr Michael Shapira, Santanu Das and Joanna Bourke and a panoply of other pieces, among them Kathe Kollwitz's 'The Grieving Parents', Sean O'Casey's The Silver Tassie and Rudyard Kipling's Epitaphs are discussed by experts including Ruth Padel, Elizabeth Kuti and Janet Montefiore.
Powerful, moving, thought-provoking and often shocking, these landmark works are all, in their very different ways, a response to the horrors of World War I and its aftermath—one that vividly demonstrates the transformative effects the conflict had on the collective artistic psyche.
Production
Presented by Allan Little, Sara LeFanu, Martin Rowson, Prof David Edgerton, Michal Shapira, Dr Heather Jones, Ian Christie, Lyse Doucet, Santanu Das, Ruth Padel, Arthur Smith, Prof Gillian Beer, Richard Cork, Sasha Dugdale, Fintan O'Toole, Gerald Dawe, John D McHugh, Elizabeth Kuti, Tarek Osman, Joanna Bourke, Elif Shafak, Dr Imaobong Umoren, Janet Montefiore, Jane Potter and Alex Walton.
Produced by Beaty Rubens, Benedict Warren, Emma Kingsley, Simon Elmes and Sarah Bowen.
Episode
1. Paths of Glory
2. Non-Combatants and Others
3. Der Krieg
4. The Memorandum on the Neglect of Science
5. Thoughts for the Times on War and Death
6. Le Feu
7. Battleship Potemkin
8. Fighting France, from Dunkerque to Belfort
9. The Broken Wing
10. The Grieving Parents
11. Tagore's Nobel Lectures
12. Tzara's Dada Manifests
13. Woolf's Mrs Dalloway
14. Parade
15. Akhmatova's July 1914
16. James Joyce's Ulysses
17. Elizabeth Bowen's The Last September
18. Francis Ledwidge's poem O'Connell Street
19. Father Browne's Photograph of a Wounded Soldier
20. Sean O'Casey's The Silver Tassie
21. Marcel Duchamp
22. Gertrude Bell
23. Siegfried Sassoon's Letter to The Times
24. Mata Hari's Final Performance
25. Isaac Rosenberg's Dead Man's Dump
26. WEB Dubois' Returning Soldiers
27. Rudyard Kipling's Epitaphs
28. Mary Borden's The Forbidden Zone
29. Isobel Rae
Audible Audio
Published November 3, 2022
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About the author
Fintan O'Toole
58 books366 followersFintan O'Toole is a columnist, assistant editor and drama critic for The Irish Times. O'Toole was born in Dublin and was partly educated at University College Dublin. He has written for the Irish Times since 1988 and was drama critic for the New York Daily News from 1997 to 2001. He is a literary critic, historical writer and political commentator, with generally left-wing views. He was and continues to be a strong critic of corruption in Irish politics, in both the Haughey era and continuing to the present.
O'Toole has criticised what he sees as negative attitudes towards immigration in Ireland, the state of Ireland's public services, growing inequality during Ireland's economic boom, the Iraq War and the American military's use of Shannon Airport, among many other issues. In 2006, he spent six months in China reporting for The Irish Times. In his weekly columns in The Irish Times, O'Toole opposed the IRA's campaign during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fintan_O...
O'Toole has criticised what he sees as negative attitudes towards immigration in Ireland, the state of Ireland's public services, growing inequality during Ireland's economic boom, the Iraq War and the American military's use of Shannon Airport, among many other issues. In 2006, he spent six months in China reporting for The Irish Times. In his weekly columns in The Irish Times, O'Toole opposed the IRA's campaign during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fintan_O...
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 18, 2026
This is a collection of first rate essays on writers and artists whose work and lives were affected by the first World War, produced for BBC and read aloud.
Unfortunately, the audiobook I borrowed had no information about its contents and the recording went straight from reading to reading with no introduction to tell you who had written or was reading what.
Here's the Goodreads blurb which does give you some of that information.
The complete BBC Radio 3 series exploring how great creative minds responded to the First World War in individual works of art and scholarship.
World War I saw an unprecedented loss of life in Western Europe, and destruction on a scale no one alive had ever seen. All those who experienced it were irrevocably changed, including many writers and artists upon whose oeuvre it left an indelible mark.
This captivating series examines the impact of the war on artists and thinkers through the prism of their great works. In each episode, a leading figure from the worlds of science, culture and the arts reflects on a single iconic piece, and discusses how the events of 1914-18 shaped its creation.
The 29 artworks in this collection comprise paintings, plays, books, films, sculptures and cartoons. Ian Christie appraises Eisenstein's seminal Soviet drama Battleship Potemkin; Dame Gillian Beer considers Virginia Woolf's masterpiece Mrs Dalloway; Fintan O'Toole decodes James Joyce's epic modernist novel, Ulysses and Dr Heather Jones looks at the controversy and war connections around Marcel Duchamp's notorious 'Fountain'.
Key texts such as Sigmund Freud's twin essays Thoughts for the Time on War and Death; Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel Lectures and Siegfried Sassoon's celebrated 1917 protest letter to The Times are analysed by Dr Michael Shapira, Santanu Das and Joanna Bourke and a panoply of other pieces, among them Kathe Kollwitz's 'The Grieving Parents', Sean O'Casey's The Silver Tassie and Rudyard Kipling's Epitaphs are discussed by experts including Ruth Padel, Elizabeth Kuti and Janet Montefiore.
Powerful, moving, thought-provoking and often shocking, these landmark works are all, in their very different ways, a response to the horrors of World War I and its aftermath—one that vividly demonstrates the transformative effects the conflict had on the collective artistic psyche.
Unfortunately, the audiobook I borrowed had no information about its contents and the recording went straight from reading to reading with no introduction to tell you who had written or was reading what.
Here's the Goodreads blurb which does give you some of that information.
The complete BBC Radio 3 series exploring how great creative minds responded to the First World War in individual works of art and scholarship.
World War I saw an unprecedented loss of life in Western Europe, and destruction on a scale no one alive had ever seen. All those who experienced it were irrevocably changed, including many writers and artists upon whose oeuvre it left an indelible mark.
This captivating series examines the impact of the war on artists and thinkers through the prism of their great works. In each episode, a leading figure from the worlds of science, culture and the arts reflects on a single iconic piece, and discusses how the events of 1914-18 shaped its creation.
The 29 artworks in this collection comprise paintings, plays, books, films, sculptures and cartoons. Ian Christie appraises Eisenstein's seminal Soviet drama Battleship Potemkin; Dame Gillian Beer considers Virginia Woolf's masterpiece Mrs Dalloway; Fintan O'Toole decodes James Joyce's epic modernist novel, Ulysses and Dr Heather Jones looks at the controversy and war connections around Marcel Duchamp's notorious 'Fountain'.
Key texts such as Sigmund Freud's twin essays Thoughts for the Time on War and Death; Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel Lectures and Siegfried Sassoon's celebrated 1917 protest letter to The Times are analysed by Dr Michael Shapira, Santanu Das and Joanna Bourke and a panoply of other pieces, among them Kathe Kollwitz's 'The Grieving Parents', Sean O'Casey's The Silver Tassie and Rudyard Kipling's Epitaphs are discussed by experts including Ruth Padel, Elizabeth Kuti and Janet Montefiore.
Powerful, moving, thought-provoking and often shocking, these landmark works are all, in their very different ways, a response to the horrors of World War I and its aftermath—one that vividly demonstrates the transformative effects the conflict had on the collective artistic psyche.
March 24, 2026
This should be a five star experience . The breath and width of the contributions are massive. Exploring several subjects in detail. It is a stellar cast of contributors. But here lies the problem, as mentioned in other reviews. There is no list on the Internet or with this audio or part of the audio detailing who is talking about which subject. Even googling takes a bit of effort to find some of the contributors . Such a pity for a fine work.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews