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Start the Week

Latest episodes

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May 21, 2012 • 41min

Michael Sandel on Money and Morality

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses the relationship between markets and morals with the political philosopher Michael Sandel. In his latest book, What Money Can't Buy, Sandel questions the dominance of the financial markets in our daily lives, in which everything has a price. But the economist Diane Coyle stands up for her much maligned profession, and points to the many benefits of a market economy. The Russian economist Grigory Yavlinksy argues against viewing the world of money as separate from culture and society: he believes the financial crisis was merely a symptom of a wider moral collapse, and that it is time to examine the way we live.Producer: Katy Hickman.
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May 11, 2012 • 42min

Spain in Crisis

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses Spain's economic crisis, and the legacy of Franco. In the last decade Spain has begun to unearth some of the mass graves of the hundreds of thousands of people who were killed in the 1930s by both sides in the civil war. Paul Preston discusses what he calls the Spanish Holocaust and its impact on Spain today. Maria Delgado argues that the significance of Franco's reign transcends politics, and can be felt strongly in Spain's cultural landscape. The MEP Daniel Hannan sees the country's strong support for Europe as the legacy of repression following the civil war, but believes that its present financial crisis would be eased by rejecting the euro. While the economist Iain Begg discusses Spain's problems within the wider Eurozone and the effect of political changes in France and Greece. Producer: Katy Hickman.
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May 7, 2012 • 41min

The Digital Future

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks into the digital future. Nick Harkaway dismisses fears of a digital dystopia in which distracted people, caught between the real world and the screen world, are under constant surveillance. He believes we need to engage with the computers we have created, and shape our own destiny. Simon Ings is the editor of a new digital magazine, Arc, which uses science fiction to explore and explain what the future might hold for society. While Anab Jain's design company uses scenarios and prototypes to probe emerging technologies and ideas, from headsets to help the blind to see, to everyday objects with their very own internet connection. And Charles Arthur investigates the battle for dominance of the internet with Apple, Google and Microsoft struggling to stay on top, and asks what that means for the rest of us. Producer: Katy Hickman.
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Apr 30, 2012 • 42min

Creativity: Jonah Lehrer

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses creativity with the writer Jonah Lehrer. In his latest book, Imagine, Lehrer unpicks the creative process in both science and art, to ask where inventiveness and imagination spring from, and how they can be harnessed. Experimental sound artist, Scanner, talks about creating unique musical compositions and his latest collaboration with the Heritage Orchestra at the Brighton Festival; and the novelist Joanna Kavenna considers the importance of nourishing creative ideas in writing fiction. She argues that everyone is born creative, although as we get older this innate imaginative ability is often suppressed or side-lined. Finally, the chemist, Rachel O'Reilly, explains the importance of the creative process in scientific research and how blue-sky thinking aids developments in nano-materials and technology.Producer: Katy Hickman.
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Apr 20, 2012 • 42min

Iain Banks and David Hare

On St George's Day Andrew Marr discusses national identity and belonging. The playwright David Hare has written a companion piece to a Terrence Rattigan play, set in an English public school. George Benjamin is celebrated as one of England's leading composers, but how far is his work shaped by the French musical tradition? The Scottish writer Iain Banks discusses his novel, Stonemouth, set in a town north of Aberdeen and vividly evoking a sense of place and identity. And Rachel Seiffert examines what happens when an Ulster girl marries a Glaswegian boy, in her latest short story, Hands Across the Water.Producer: Katy Hickman.
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Apr 16, 2012 • 42min

China

Andrew Marr discusses the state of China with the authors Jonathan Fenby and Martin Jacques. Fenby attempts to draw together the whole of the China story to explore its global significance, but also its inner complexity and complexes. Martin Jacques has updated his bestseller, When China Rules the World, to argue that the country's impact will be as much political and cultural, as economic. But while China's finances make all the headlines, what of its literature? Ou Ning edits China's version of Granta magazine, showcasing the work of contemporary Chinese authors, but must tread a careful path to keep the right side of the censors. And the academic and translator Julia Lovell argues that to understand the new spirit of China, it's vital to read its often contrarian short fiction. Producer: Katy Hickman.
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Apr 9, 2012 • 42min

Peter Carey on Start the Week

Andrew Marr talks to the prize-winning novelist, Peter Carey about his latest work, The Chemistry of Tears. At its heart is a small clockwork puzzle and Carey muses on how the industrial revolution has changed what it means to be human. The science writer Philip Ball goes back another century to the world of Galileo and Newton, to study the changes in thinking and knowledge embodied by the scientifically curious. And the historian Rebecca Stott rediscovers the first evolutionists, and the collective daring of Darwin's scientific forebears who had the imagination to speculate on the natural world. Producer: Katy Hickman.
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Apr 2, 2012 • 42min

The 'death of socialism'?

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks back at the political and cultural landscape of the last 20 years with the author Alwyn Turner. In 1992 Margaret Thatcher proclaimed 'the death of socialism' after the Conservative election victory, and Turner argues this moment led to a generation turning away from politics, putting their energy into culture. But Janet Daley believes that it wasn't John Major's victory but the fall of communism that demoralised and destabilised the left, and the lessons of 1989 are still to be learnt. In its defence, the Labour MP Tristram Hunt points to the long history of socialism and believes its death has been much exaggerated. And the political cartoonist Martin Rowson lampoons both left and right. In his latest book he updates Swift's Gulliver's Travels to the late 1990s, targeting the government of Tony Blair, media moguls and Europe.Producer: Katy Hickman.
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Mar 26, 2012 • 42min

Werner Herzog on Start the Week

On Start the Week Anne McElvoy talks to the filmmaker Werner Herzog about his latest documentary which gazes "into the abyss of the human soul", in its exploration of death row. Liz Mermin delves into the world of particle physics for her latest film venture, spending a year at CERN. While work there continues to try and understand the fundamental laws of nature, Mermin attempts to understand the people behind the experiments. The writer Geoff Dyer obsesses about Tarkovsky's film, Stalker, as a means to look at his own life, and to understand how we discover our deepest wishes. While in his new collection of poetry, Paul Farley, explores 'the art of seeing': weaving the past and the present to highlight those moments glimpsed out of the corner of your eye, and what's hidden in plain sight. Producer: Katy Hickman.
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Mar 19, 2012 • 42min

Nobel Prize winning author, Nadine Gordimer

Andrew Marr talks to the Nobel Prize winning author Nadine Gordimer. In her latest book she explores the tensions at the heart of a nation struggling to define itself post-apartheid, through the lives of an interracial couple in suburban South Africa. The past and present also collide in the poet Jack Mapanje's attempt to understand why he was arrested by the Malawian secret police, and imprisoned without charge. Richard Dowden looks to the future of Africa to ask whether Chinese investment, an explosion in mobile technology and a growing middle class, means this will be Africa's decade. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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