Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are?Simply, no. None of these...

Now issued for the first time on audio, this is the first series of Labour MP Tony Benn's behind-the-scenes revelations from the highly acclaimed BBC Radio 4 series. Late each night for over twenty-five years the Labour MP and former Secretary of State Tony Benn sat alone and dictated onto audio his account of the daily events at the heart of gover...

Winston Churchill steered Britain through its darkest hours during World War Two. He was one of the twentieth century's greatest orators, and the speeches that he painstakingly composed, rehearsed and delivered inspired courage in an entire nation. Churchill's output was prolific - his complete speeches alone contain over 5 million words. On this s...

Now issued for the first time on audio, this is the second volume of behind-the-scenes revelations from Labour MP Tony Benn's highly acclaimed BBC Radio 4 series. The Observer called it `Irresistible fly-on-the-wall history as it actually happens.' Late each night for over twenty-five years the Labour MP and former Secretary of State Tony Benn sat...

'We Churchills die at forty,' said Winston in 1908, 'and I want to put something more on the slate before then.' By the time he died in 1965, the slate was full. From his earliest days Churchill was an ambitious character, eager for action.He achieved fame and popularity through his dispatches from the Boer War, and in 1900 was elected MP for Oldha...

Taken from the new book of the same name, these are Tony Benn's diaries from 1991 - 2001, read by Tony Benn. They encompass the Gulf War, the rise of New Labour, and the global consequences of the attack on the World Trade Center in September 2001. These political observations are entwined with a moving personal account of family life to produce a...

Senator Barack Obama reflects on the American ideals that led him into politics. Barack Obama has been hailed by voters of all stripes as a man of uncommon gifts and far-reaching vision. In THE AUDACITY OF HOPE, he draws on his personal experience as a senator and lawyer, professor and father, Christian and skeptic, and finds a shared language abou...

This series explores how prime ministers have used their power and responded to the great challenges of their time and how they made the job what it is today. The prime ministers covered include: Sir Robert Walpole, the first and longest-serving prime minister; Lord North, remembered as the prime minister who lost America; Sir Robert Peel, who put...

The special New Year's Day 2011 edition of BBC Radio 4's Beyond Westminster, in which Andrew Rawnsley considers the lessons of history for Britain's coalition government-and its opponents. Conservative and Liberal Democrat ministers are busily advancing their ambitious political and economic agenda-albeit amid parliamentary revolts and embarrassin...

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's account of his experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War, and a portrait of disillusionment with his early politics. Orwell's experiences include being shot in the neck by a sniper, and being forced into hiding as factions of the Left battled on the streets of Barcelona. Orwell entered Spain intending to g...

From the BBC Radio 4 series presented and written by Nick Robinson that explores how prime ministers have used their power and responded to the great challenges of their time and how they made the job what it is today. This episode features Sir Robert Walpole, the first and longest-serving prime minister.

From the BBC Radio 4 series presented and written by Nick Robinson that explores how prime ministers have used their power and responded to the great challenges of their time and how they made the job what it is today. This episode features Sir Robert Peel, who put national interest before party.

From the BBC Radio 4 series presented and written by Nick Robinson that explores how prime ministers have used their power and responded to the great challenges of their time and how they made the job what it is today. This episode features Lord Palmerston, who cultivated a cavalier image and dominated mid-Victorian politics.

From the BBC Radio 4 series presented and written by Nick Robinson that explores how prime ministers have used their power and responded to the great challenges of their time and how they made the job what it is today. This episode features Benjamin Disraeli, who turned his skills as a novelist to politics and became Britain's first Jewish-born pri...

From the BBC Radio 4 series presented and written by Nick Robinson that explores how prime ministers have used their power and responded to the great challenges of their time and how they made the job what it is today. This episode features David Lloyd George, Welsh radical who set up the early welfare state, became a presidential PM in the First W...

From the BBC Radio 4 series presented and written by Nick Robinson that explores how prime ministers have used their power and responded to the great challenges of their time and how they made the job what it is today. This episode features Stanley Baldwin, the first prime minister to master radio broadcasting, and how his notion of Englishness sha...

From the BBC Radio 4 series presented and written by Nick Robinson that explores how prime ministers have used their power and responded to the great challenges of their time and how they made the job what it is today. This episode features Clement Attlee, who lacked any charisma, but created the modern welfare state and managed the big political b...

The BBC's Nick Robinson continues his fascinating and absorbing Radio 4 series featuring eight famous British Prime Ministers. This series explores how Prime Ministers have used their power and responded to the great challenges of their time. William Pitt the Younger, who became Prime Minister aged only 24 and held the post for almost 19 years in t...

From the BBC Radio 4 series presented and written by Nick Robinson that explores how prime ministers have used their power and responded to the great challenges of their time and how they made the job what it is today. This episode features Lord North, who is remembered as the prime minister who lost America.

What caused the financial mess we're in? And how do we get out of it? Two of the great economic thinkers of the 20th century had sharply contrasting views. John Maynard Keynes believed that government spending could create employment and longer term growth. His contemporary and rival Friedrich Hayek believed that investments have to be based on rea...

At the beginning of 1864, the Civil War was far from won; terrible and bloody Union setbacks and casualties lay ahead. Abraham Lincoln was facing a re-election battle as some northern Democrats were ready to start peace talks that could leave the Confederacy a separate slaveholding American nation and as his secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Cha...