Escaping the past
Andrew Marr on the legacies of the past with Susan Neiman, David Howell, Jane Green and Stuart Ward.
Andrew Marr discusses how far nations have managed to confront the past. In Learning from the Germans, the philosopher Susan Neiman contrasts the way in which Germany continues to come to terms with its Nazi past, with the failure of the US to deal with slavery and the legacy of racial violence.
The historian Stuart James Ward is interested in how far the ghosts of Empire have haunted the debate around Brexit. From the simplistic caricature of hankering after the past to a global vision of the future, both sides have summoned their own image of Empire. As an Australian academic who has spent his career in Denmark, Ward believes he is in a unique position to observe the unfolding political drama.
The former MP David Howell argues it鈥檚 time to look ahead and not back in his new book, subtitled 鈥楨scaping the Prism of Past Politics鈥�. Howell has been at the centre of government for four decades and was a member of Margaret Thatcher鈥檚 first cabinet. He believes Britain should be forging new relations and finding a new position in the world.
The political scientist Jane Green looks beyond the present impasse in the Commons over the direction of Brexit to focus on public volatility in voting. Not since 1931 has there been such a fracturing of voter loyalty, but Green asks how much we can learn from the past.
Producer: Katy Hickman
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Susan Neiman
Susan Neiman is a Jewish American philosopher and cultural commentator. She lives in Berlin where she is the director of the Einstein Forum. She was formerly a professor of philosophy at Yale University and Tel Aviv University.
Learning from the Germans: Confronting Race and the Memory of Evil is published by Allen Lane.
David Howell
David Howell, Baron Howell of Guildford,聽is a British Conservative politician, and the only government official to serve on the cabinet of three prime ministers. He is currently President of the Royal Commonwealth Society, chairman of the Windsor Energy Group, and most recently, Chairman of the House of Lords International Relations Committee.
Look Where We鈥檙e Going: Escaping the Prism of Past Politics is published by Unicorn.
Jane Green
Jane Green is Professor of Political Science and British Politics at the University of Oxford. She is a specialist in public opinion and electoral behaviour and co-director of the British Election Study and ITV鈥檚 Elections Analyst.
Electoral Shocks: Understanding the Volatile Voter in a Turbulent World, authored by the BES team (Fieldhouse et al) is published by OUP in December.
Stuart Ward
Stuart Ward聽is Professor and Head of the Saxo Institute of History, Ethnology, Archaeology and Classics at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is the author of聽The Unknown Nation: Australia After Empire聽(2010; co-authored with James Curran).
Embers of Empire in Brexit Britain, edited by Stuart James Ward and Astrid Rasch, is published by Bloomsbury Academic.
Broadcasts
- Mon 16 Sep 2019 09:00麻豆社 Radio 4
- Mon 16 Sep 2019 21:30麻豆社 Radio 4
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