Newton • Bellini • MacArthur & Hirohito • Edward III [45min]

"Start the Week" sets the cultural agenda every Monday. Guests are drawn from the top movers and shakers in politics, history, science and the arts. This week award-winning journalist Andrew Marr is joined by Peter Ackroyd, Caroline Campbell, Robert Harvey and Ian Mortimer. 1) In the latest in his series of Brief Lives, Peter Ackroyd explores the life of Sir Isaac Newton, who is revealed as a proud, obsessive and secretive man, an alchemist who believed in a heretical faith, but whose genius changed the world. Newton is published by Chatto & Windus. 2) In recent times Gentile Bellini has often been overshadowed by his more famous brother, Giovanni. But the National Gallery plans to put that right in their new exhibition,"Bellini and The East", curated by Caroline Campbell. The exhibition highlights the significant role the celebrated Gentile Bellini played in East West relations by going to work for Sultan Mehmed II of Constantinople."Bellini and The East" is at the National Gallery until 25 June. 3) America's attempts today to govern Iraq come 60 years after it took control of Japan following that country's defeat in the Second World War. General Douglas MacArthur was virtually a one-man dictator for 6 years, wielding more power over a subject people than any American in history. The most powerful man in the land to which America was trying to export democracy and freedom had, until then, been Emperor Hirohito, whose people worshipped him as divine. The historian Robert Harvey has written American Shogun, a dual biography of two men who could not have been more different. American Shogun: MacArthur, Hirohito and the American Duel with Japan is published by John Murray. 4) Edward III, who ruled this country for 50 years in the fourteenth century, is a monarch we hear very little about, but the historian Ian Mortimer thinks he is perhaps the most under-rated ruler in history, a man who was close to being the perfect king. The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation is published by Jonathan Cape.