Programme Details

In this evening's Night Waves the writer and broadcaster Jon Ronson traces the history of a special force of would-be psychics within the U.S. army, who believed they could learn to walk through walls and kill goats by staring at them, and how these Psy-Ops are now being reactivated to fight the war on terror.

On the eve of the fifteenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, how far have the cultural divisions between East and West been healed and can a new unified spirit be found in today's German literature?

The problems of a divided nation also pre-occupied nineteenth century Britain and are depicted forcefully in Elizabeth Gaskell's novel North and South. As BBC1 launches a new dramatisation of Gaskell's famous industrial novel, Night Waves asks how English Literature's portrayal of the North has changed since Mrs Gaskell's time.

Last week saw the coronation of a former ballet dancer as the new king of Cambodia. Night Waves reports on the struggle of Cambodian artists to rebuilt their cultural heritage 25 years on from the end of the Khmer Rouge regime that killed 90% of the country's musicians and dancers.

That's all on Night Waves tonight with Isabel Hilton at 9.30pm.




Presenter: Isabel Hilton
Producer: Philippa Ritchie







Additional Information

The Crazy Rulers of the World presented by Jon Ronson started on Sunday November 7 and continues this Sunday at 8.00pm on Channel 4.The Men Who Stare at Goats is the book accompanying the series and it is published by Picador.

North and South starts on BBC1 this Sunday at 9 pm.

The North of England Home Service by Gordon Burn is published in paperback by Faber and Faber

Easier Fatherland: Germany and the Twenty-First Century by Steve Crawshaw is published by Continuum.