Van de Schoonheid en de Troost — Season 1, Episode 15: Ugly Ears: Simon Schama

Episode synopsis

Interview with Simon Schama, British historian (in a room at The Ritz hotel on Piccadilly in London, overlooking Green Park). Schama talks about the beauty of history that he recognized as a child, his Jewish background, the necessity of history, because it offers a counterbalance to the dangerous limitations of the present and his poetic approach to history instead of finding out historical facts. Schama discusses a passage from his book 'Landscape and Memory' that is about his journey through Poland, from which his family was expelled.

About Van de Schoonheid en de Troost

To his guests – artists, scientists, writers, philosophers and musicians – Wim Kayzer in Of Beauty and Consolation asks the philosophical question: What makes this life worth living?

More episodes from Season 1

• E1Fathers Roses: Wole Soyinka
• E2Homecoming: Roger Scruton
• E3Alone on the mountain: Jane Goodall
• E4The Code of Pasternak: George Steiner
• E5The End of the Thirteenth: Vladimir Ashkenazy
• E6Thor, Newton, Einstein: Steven Weinberg
• E7Guilt: Martha Nussbaum
• E8You Are There and You Are Not: Karel Appel
• E9The Greatest Mystery Is Not the Universe: Edward Witten
• E10Dear Mother: Elizabeth Loftus
• E11When My Father Was Still Big: Rutger Kopland
• E12What's Mary Doing in the Cave: Gary Lynch