Programme Details

Night Waves Undercurrents: How does man respond in the face on natural catastrophe?

As the horror of the Asian Tsunami continues to unfold, Night Waves: Undercurrents examines the history of man's reaction to natural disaster. How have earthquakes, tidal waves, and erupting volcanoes shaped the past and the way we frame the world today?

In 1755 the founder of Methodism, John Wesley reacted to the devastation of the Lisbon earthquake by attributing the disaster to human sin. In today's globalised society our reaction is to donate on an unprecedented scale, and league tables are drawn up of which government gives the most.

But how has our understanding of natural catastrophe evolved in the last 250 years?
Has modernity helped us come to terms with nature's overwhelming power...or blinded us to the inevitable force of the elements?

And how do these events inflect faith today? As the Archbishop of Canterbury has admitted they inevitably lead us to question how we can believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale. Daniel Defoe and Voltaire both wrote about natural disasters in their lifetimes. Can literature help us to understand better our relationship with nature?

Philip Dodd and guests including psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, historian Richard Hamblyn, writer Maggie Gee and philosopher John Haldane discuss these questions and more on Night Waves: Undercurrents, at 9.30pm here on BBC Radio 3.


Presenter: Philip Dodd
Producer: Kirsty Pope




Additional Information
The Storm by Daniel Defoe, edited by Richard Hamblyn is published by Penguin Classics (2004).
The Flood by Maggie Gee is published by Saqi Books (2004).