Mark Ronan

The long and complicated history of why there are 360 degrees in a circle.

A Danish-German survey sought to unearth the roots of the Hebrew Bible in Arabia. It became the first to comprehend a new Islamic ideology, which now threatens the West.

Before its untimely end this once great city was the centre of a vast and powerful civilisation.

Richard Strauss trod carefully through a century of turbulence, trauma and transformation.

The recently opened Sam Wanamaker Theatre marks an intriguing step forward in the revival of baroque opera, says Mark Ronan. 

The history of the Bayreuth Festival, the annual celebration of the music of Richard Wagner, is mired in controversy and scandal, as Mark Ronan reports.

Mark Ronan describes new efforts  at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, to decode the world’s oldest undeciphered language.

As the Eurozone countries wrestle with the fate of the single currency, Mark Ronan discovers parallels in Wagner’s Ring cycle.