Simon Schama's History of Now

Simon Schama looks back at the dramatic history that has played out in his lifetime. He reveals the stories of artists and writers who have been at the forefront of the fight for truth and democracy, often at great personal cost.

Simon Schama explores the artists at the vanguard of the fight for equality in the decades after the Second World War. He revisits his childhood as a Jewish boy in Southend and his memories of seeing James Baldwin debate William Buckley at the Cambridge Union, explores the story behind Nina Simone's classic civil rights song Mississippi Goddam, and meets Coleman Woodson Junior, who was part of the historic Selma to Montgomery march in 1965.

After the Second World War, there were deep divisions in America about how to move forward. Simon Schama examines how the filmmaker Charlie Chaplin and author Ayn Rand created radically different visions of how this new postwar world should work, and how writers such as Rachel Carson drew attention to the damage being inflicted on the natural world. He talks to author Margaret Atwood about how Carson inspired her own work.