Spillover Diseases: Covid-19 & Zoonoses, with Jonna Mazet and Aysha Akhtar
How does animal exploitation increase the emergence of new diseases? With the world fighting a vicious new pandemic, Ian asks a front-line p...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & PodcastsSociety & Culture
The Vegan Option - Vegetarianism: The Story So Far
In 2016-7, Ian McDonald tells one epic tale - the backstory to today's vegetarian and vegan movements. From the Ganges delta to the hills of New England, from the iron age to the present day...
The Vegan Option - Vegetarianism: The Story So Far Podcast Guide
Listen to The Vegan Option - Vegetarianism: The Story So Far, a Society & Culture podcast by Ian McDonald. Stream 40 episodes in English, follow new audio stories, and play episodes online on Radio and Podcast.
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Episodes
20 of 40 episodesVegHist Ep 15: Liberation. Veganism, hippies, and the animal rights movement
How has western vegetarianism risen, within living memory, from fringe to mainstream choice? And how has veganism gone from nowhere to every...
VegHist Ep 14: Diet Reform. Consumerism, Lebensreform, and Gandhi
In the nineteenth century, in America and Germany, new forms of vegetarianism emerge – from the individualistic consumer vegetarianism of Am...
VegHist Ep 13: The Vegetarians. Abolitionism, colonialism, and Victorian reformers; with Julia Twigg and Bhaskar Chakraborty. In London
In the late nineteenth century, the new vegetarian movement is intertwined with other struggles – including Victorian reformers, the Indian...
VegHist Ep 12: Radicals & Romantics. Bible Christians, Grahamites, and Transcendentalists
In the 1800s, overlapping circles of utopians, mystics, and romantics in both Europe and America develop arguments against meat until “veget...
VegHist Ep 11: Enlightenment. Colonial India, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Les Bardus
The philosophers of Paris discuss reports of Indian vegetarianism, question the morality of eating animals, and inspire radicals who preach...
VegHist Ep 10: Revolution. English civil war, diet gurus, and the poetry of Sensibility
When printing lets ordinary people access a world of ideas, including Indian vegetarianism, some European radicals and diet gurus begin to o...
VegHist Ep 9: Renaissance. Descartes, Montaigne, Gassendi, and the “sparing diet”
Ancient philosophers inspire Renaissance thinkers to challenge the old hierarchy of man over beast. Episode 9: Renaissance Old medieval cert...
VegHist Ep 8: Contacts. Indian Sufism, Bhakti, Akbar, Portuguese Christianity, and Gaudiya Vaishnavism
When conquerors who profess Islam or Christianity rule over Indian vegetarians, the conversations about food ethics go both ways. Episode 8:...
VegHist Ep 7: Heresies. On Chinese Buddhists, Cathars, Bogomils, Islam, and Manichaeans
In the Middle Ages, three very different monastic orders spread from the Mediterranean to the South China Sea, surrounding themselves with l...
VegHist Ep 6: Hinduism. On Indian Vegetarianism, Vaishnavism, Satvik, and Mahayana Buddhism
In the first millennium CE, Indian vegetarianism advances from an ascetic fringe to a mainstream high-status lifestyle. Episode 6: Hinduism...
Kerry McCarthy MP on Brexit
As the British public make their biggest decision in a generation, Ian asks Kerry McCarthy MP about the potential impact of Brexit on animal...
VegHist Ep 5: Flesh and Spirit. On Egyptian monasticism, Early Christianity, Plutarch, Neoplatonism, and Manicheansim
In the eastern Roman Empire, several faiths and philosophies agree on one thing; that you need to eschew flesh to live a life of the spirit....
VegHist Ep 4: Ashoka
In the largest ancient Indian empire, at the height of its power, its Buddhist king advocates for animals in his edicts, and tries to change...
VegHist Ep 3: Pythagoreans
In Ancient Greece, vegetarianism belongs to a secretive subculture – amongst the mystery religions of Orpheus and the musical mathemat...
VegHist Ep 2: The Middle Path
Ian travels to the tree where the Buddha is said to have achieved enlightenment, and explores the paradox of his early followers’ atti...
VegHist Episode 1: Ahimsa
In the Ganges plain in Northen India in the middle of the first millennium BCE, the idea of “ahimsa” – non violence – emerges. Episode 1: Ah...
Digital Vegans: Picking up the Tab, with Stephanie Redcross of Vegan Mainstream
Digital Vegans: The Tab As the internet transforms the media landscape, how can vegan organisations and businesses survive and thrive? In th...
Palm Oil: with Catherine Laurence, Eric Lambin, Orangutan rescuer Daniek Hendarto, RSPO SG Darrel Webber
Palm oil is everywhere - from cooking oil to soap to vegan margarine. Equatorial rainforest and peatland are cleared and replaced with serri...
Science Fiction and Animals: from Jonathan Swift and HG Wells to Star Trek and Doctor Who; with Sherryl Vint, Robert McKay, and Tara Lomax
From Jonathan Swift's talking horses to Star Trek's Vulcans, and from HG Wells to Doctor Who, science fiction has tackled the big questions...