United 93
Monday 22 May 2006 21:30-22:15 (Radio 3)
As obesity, alcohol abuse, debt and addiction become the scourge of the modern age Night Waves examines the new idea offered as a remedy - soft paternalism.
UNITED 93
© 2006 Universal Pictures International
BECKY LONDON and TOM O'ROURKE as Jean and Donald Peterson comfort one another aboard United Airlines Flight 93 in the drama United 93 from writer/director/producer Paul Greengrass.
Playlist
Niall Ferguson
The twentieth century was the bloodiest in all human history. The present century has started badly. These facts have startled Niall Ferguson, one of Britain 's most important historians, into writing The War of the World, an examination into the causes of violence in an age of hatred.
How profoundly can we say that we made progress in the 20th Century? What were the forces that led to such bloodshed, from the ravages of the First World War to the killing fields of Cambodia? Niall Ferguson talks to Philip Dodd about The War of the World, live on tonight's Night Waves.
The War of the World is published on 1 June by Penguin Allen Lane
Niall Ferguson's web page
United 93
Director Paul Greengrass has made a string of high profile drama documentaries - Bloody Sunday, Omagh and The Murder of Stephen Lawrence.
His latest film, United 93 is a provocative and suitably terrifying account of the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93 on 9/11 and the 90 minutes of horror endured by its passengers.
What can we learn from such a recreation? What is the boundary between the search for documentary fact and voyeurism? The critic Don Gutenplan and Brian Cathcart of the New Statesman discuss the film on tonight's Night Waves.
United 93, certificate 15, is released nationwide on 2 June.
IMDB entry on United 93
Joe Boyd
Also on the programme, the Sixties revisited with record producer Joe Boyd. In his new book, White Bicycles, Boyd describes his early days in the music scene in America and his enduring love affair with Britain and its emerging folk rock scene. Boyd 's record credits include Pink Floyd, The Incredible String Band, Nick Drake and Fairport Convention.
Joe Boyd's articles on the Open Democracy website.
