Arts & Ideas Folgen

Matthew Sweet asks historian Charles Glass, author of a new book on deserters in World War Two, whether desertion is an act of sanity, and not - as some armed forces have tended to believe - a symptom of mental illness. He also talks to Ben Griffin of the organisation Veterans for Peace, who represents soldiers in current conflicts who seek a way out. Hermione Lee discusses the letters novelist Willa Cather didn't want you to read, and Sandra Hebron and Mary Wild review Pasolini's controversial film Theorem.

Since her death on the 8th April, Baroness Thatcher has been lauded as the greatest peace-time Prime Minister of the 20th century, but also criticised as the most divisive politician of a generation. With such a wide range of views, how can we make sense of the 'Iron Lady'? Samira Ahmed is joined by historians Dominic Sandbrook and Selina Todd, economist Mark Littlewood, writers Peter Hitchens and Will Self, Classicist Edith Hall, and politician and veteran of the Thatcher Government Edwina Currie.

Samira Ahmed talks to American film director Oliver Stone about his documentary miniseries which uses new archive material and little known documents to explore an unconventional account of events that took place during the twentieth century that have shaped America's history. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses her new novel Americanah. As the British Library expands its archiving power by storing every UK Website, plus public tweets and Facebook entries, we ask what lies behind our need to collect everything with AS Byatt and Jane Humphries. And Samira talks to the Estonian composer Eugene Birman about his new cantata Nostra Culpa.