Free Thinking

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Free Thinking: Bombing and morals, Flooding and the future

Bombing and morals, Flooding and the future

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Bombing and morals, Flooding and the future

Malcolm Gladwell, Satyajit Ray's film Jalsaghar and Jessie Greengrass. Rana Mitter hosts.

On Earth Day, two artworks that consider the impact of flooding – a film by Satyajit Ray from 1958 and a new novel by Jessie Greengrass. Plus Malcolm Gladwell looks at bombing.

Malcolm Gladwell discusses the thinking behind precision bombing in the Second World War and the moral questions raised by the strategy, New Generation Thinker Sarah Jilani watches Satyajit Ray's Indian Bengali drama Jalsaghar, which depicts a landlord who would prefer to listen to music than deal with his flood ravaged properties. In her new novel, Jessie Greengrass imagines an England coping with rising water. Rana Mitter hosts.

Malcolm Gladwell's The Bomber Mafia: A Story Set in War is out now.

Jessie Greengrass's novel is The High House.  You can hear her discussing a previous book Sight in the Free Thinking discussion on Motherhood.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b3fjvg 

Sarah Jilani researches post-colonial film and literature at the University of Cambridge.  She is a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who use their research to make radio programmes. 

You might also be interested in Tariq Ali discussing the Satyajit Ray film Pather Panchali with Rana Mitter.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b060zmjs 
Ray was born on 2nd May 1921.

Producer Sofie Vilcins

Image: Malcolm Gladwell
Credit: Jerome Favre/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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Free Thinking

Bombing and morals, Flooding and the future

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