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BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

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Start the Week

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday

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Start the Week: Populations and contested lands

Populations and contested lands

BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, Populations and contested lands

Amol Rajan with Paul Morland, Julia Blackburn and Diarmaid Ferriter.

Amol Rajan with the demographer Paul Morland, writer Julia Blackburn and historian Diarmaid Ferriter.

Amol Rajan explores how geology and demography have shaped the modern world. Paul Morland argues that we have underestimated the crucial impact of population changes on global events. He looks at how demography has had a major influence, from world wars to China’s rise; and from the Arab Spring to Brexit.

In the distant past people could walk all the way from continental Europe to England through the ancient region of Doggerland. Julia Blackburn scours the Suffolk coastline for this lost land which was submerged by rising sea levels around 5000 BC.

As the debate around the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland continues to dominate discussions on Brexit, the historian Diarmaid Ferriter explains how this line became a political battleground. The meandering boundary which cuts through fields and crosses rivers was once dotted with watchtowers and military checkpoints to stop movements of people and goods. 

Producer: Katy Hickman

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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Populations and contested lands

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