In his new collection of essays, campaigning journalist John Pilger moves from Blair's "new Britain" to
Burma, stripping away the misleading language and images of media coverage to get at the hidden histories of world events.
Hermione Lee talks to him about the pursuit of truth in an age of global communications.
The programme also includes a review of Toni Morrison 's new novel, Paradise. Set in the mid-seventies in one of the last black towns in Oklahoma, it follows the lives of four young women who take refuge in a former convent.
Producer Anthony Denselow