The Lure Of The East
Monday 2 June 2008 21:45-22:30 (Radio 3)
As a new film about Genghis Khan portrays this most fearsome of historical figures as an enlightened general, Rana Mitter will be asking whether Khan really was a people person or whether the old myths are justified. Plus historian Julian Jackson examines the legacy of Charles de Gaulle.
Frederick Lewis - The Bezestein Bazaar
Frederick Lewis
The Bezestein Bazaar, El Khan Khalil, Cairo (The Carpet Seller) 1860
Courtesy of Tate Britain 
Playlist
Networked Journalism
Until recently, the people who actually made the news we read, watched and heard was limited by methods of production and distribution - that's to say, if you wanted to make news, you needed access to a printing press, or to a news studio. But in our multimedia, googling, blogging, youtubing world, those limits have been removed and now almost anyone can update news of events as they happen through blogs and social networking sites. But what does this mean for the reliability of the news we get? Charlie Beckett, author of Supermedia: Saving Journalism So It Can Save the World and Steve Richards, Chief Political Commentator at The Independent, discuss.
Supermedia: Saving Journalism So It Can Save the World by Charlie Beckett is out now.
The Lure of the East
Tate Britain's new exhibition reflects how painters like Lord Leighton and Richard Dadd responded to the Middle East. Steam travel shortened distances in the 19th Century, making cities like Cairo and Jerusalem accessible to artists in a way they had never been before - but can the paintings really be regarded as reportage, or did artists merely look East for drama, colour and exoticism? Lynda Nead and Jerry Brotton give their verdicts.
The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painters is at Tate Britain until 31st August. Click here for further information.
Mongol
When Mongolia was a satellite state of the USSR, citizens could be imprisoned for mentioning the name of the nation's founding father, Genghis Khan. Now Mongolia is independent, and Genghis Khan has been reinstated as a symbol of pride in the nation. So there's considerable irony in the fact that it's the Russians who have got there first in making a blockbuster about Genghis Khan, a film which aims to overthrow 'the hoary stereotypes' about the man and reveal him in all his complexity. To assess the success of Mongol, the rise to power of Genghis Khan and discuss why the Russians might have been interested in making a film about Genghis, Ian Christie joins Rana Mitter in the Night Waves studio.
Released June 6th across the UK, cert 15.
http://www.mongolmovie.com/
Charles De Gaulle
Historian Julian Jackson examines the legacy of Charles De Gaulle, fifty years after he became president of France.
