Wednesday 16:00-16:30 Laurie Taylor discusses the latest social science research.
19 December 2007 repeat 23 December
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 Homegardens: 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 “peace for our time”. Almost sixty five years later, prior to the Iraq invasion, President George Bush said “Saddam. We’re taking him out.”
But how do politicians make the decision when to go to war? 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. 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.
Additional information:
Professor Roy Ellen Professor of Anthropology and Human Ecology at the University of Kent
Dr Simon Platten Leverhulme Research Fellow at the University of Kent
