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The British Love of Gardening - Finance and World Events

Laurie Taylor explores the history of British gardening. Historian Niall Ferguson discusses the vastly underestimated influence of financial markets on the course of world events.

THE BRITISH LOVE OF GARDENING
Professor Roy Ellen, along with Research Fellow Dr Simon Platten, has recently been awarded a grant by the Leverhulme Trust to carry out a three year project entitled The Ethnobotany of British ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔgardens: diversity, knowledge and exchange. They discuss the important place that gardening occupies in British life and explain why such an essential and widespread activity has been so overlooked by social scientists.

FINANCE AND WORLD EVENTS
In the 1930s, Neville Chamberlain pursued a policy of appeasement towards Hitler, proclaiming optimistically in hindsight, to have β€œpeace for our time”.Β  Almost sixty five years later, prior to the Iraq invasion, President George Bush said β€œSaddam. We’re taking him out.” But how do politicians make the decision when to go to war?Β  Professor Niall Ferguson tells Laurie Taylor why the lessons of the marketplace and the language of financial risk management should be imported into political affairs.Β  He wonders, in times of potential warfare and conflict, if there is a better way and debates the secret influence of stocks and shares on strategy and diplomacy.

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30 minutes

Last on

Christmas Eve 2007 00:15

Broadcasts

  • Wed 19 Dec 2007 16:00
  • Christmas Eve 2007 00:15

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