Four Thought

Clare Lockhart, co-founder and director of the Institute for State Effectiveness, talks about the need for a new model of engagement for the developing world to reduce dependence and build economic growth. Four Thought is a series of talks which combine thought provoking ideas and engaging storytelling. Recorded live in front of an audience at the RSA in London, speakers take to the stage to air their latest thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect our culture and society.Producer: Sheila Cook.

Leadership coach Hilary Cottam, co-founder of Participle, unfolds her vision for re-designing the welfare state with participation, not passivity, at its core. She tells the story of families whose lives have been transformed though their own involvement in making decisions about the help being provided for them.Four Thought is a series of talks which combine thought provoking ideas and engaging storytelling. Recorded live in front of an audience at the RSA in London, speakers take to the stage to air their latest thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect our culture and society.Producer: Sheila Cook.

Matthew Engel charts the growth of Americanisms in the English language and explains why, as a former Washington correspondent, he thinks this is now a serious problem. Four Thought is a series of talks which combine thought provoking ideas and engaging storytelling. Recorded live in front of an audience at the RSA in London, speakers take to the stage to air their latest thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect our culture and society.Producer: Sheila Cook.

Writer and cabaret artist Penny Pepper gives her perspective on human identity from her personal experience as a disabled person and wheelchair user. Four Thought is a series of talks which combine thought provoking ideas and engaging storytelling. Recorded live in front of an audience at the RSA in London, speakers take to the stage to air their latest thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect our culture and society. Producer: Sheila Cook.

Danny Kruger is the founder of Only Connect - a charitable arts company working with prisoners, ex- offenders and young people at risk of crime.He calls for a re-evaluation of the purpose of punishment, treating retribution and rehabilitation as two separate objectives whose current confusion serves neither the criminal, nor the victim nor the wider interests of justice.Four Thought is a series of talks which combine thought provoking ideas and engaging storytelling. Recorded live in front of an audience at the RSA in London, speakers take to the stage to air their latest thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect our culture and society. Producer: Sheila Cook.

Former England cricketer Ed Smith argues that too much professionalism in sport and in other areas of life spoils rather than promotes the chance of success.Four Thought is a series of talks which combine thought provoking ideas and engaging storytelling. Recorded live in front of an audience at the RSA in London, speakers take to the stage to air their latest thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect our culture and society.Producer: Sheila Cook.

Biologist Professor Steve Jones reflects on the legacy of the father of eugenics, Francis Galton, and warns against the danger of overstatement by geneticists.Four Thought is a series of taks which combine thought provoking ideas and engaging storytelling. Recorded live in front of an audience at the RSA in London, speakers take to the stage to air their latest thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect our culture and society.Producer: Sheila Cook.

Anne Applebaum, the author of "Gulag", asks how governments can best compensate victims of former repressive regimes and turn secret police records into meaningful archives. Four Thought is a series of talks which combine thought provoking ideas and engaging storytelling. Recorded live in front of an audience at the RSA in London, speakers take to the stage to air their latest thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect our culture and society.Producer: Sheila Cook.

Professor Felipe Fernandez-Armesto explodes what he sees as the newly revived myth of the Protestant work ethic and debunks cultural explanations for economic progress or decline in different parts of the world.Four Thought is a series of talks which combine thought provoking ideas and engaging storytelling. Recorded live in front of an audience at the RSA in London, speakers take to the stage to air their latest thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect our culture and society.Producer: Sheila Cook.

Philip Cowley examines how politicians have changed and using letters from leading politicians he argues politicians today compare favourably to those of the 1950s. Plus, he has a small confession to make...Recorded live at the RSA in London, Four Thought is unscripted, thought-provoking and entertaining, with a personal dimension.Producer: Giles Edwards.

Writer Jake Wallis Simons describes how an ancient row within Tibetan Buddhism is causing a modern schism - and why it led him to give up Buddhism for good.Recorded live at the RSA in London, Four Thought is unscripted, thought-provoking and entertaining, with a personal dimension.Producer: Giles Edwards.

Writer Johann Hari argues that our demand for gadgets has helped to drive the war in the Congo. He says it is a resource war, being fought for minerals like coltan, which finds its way into everything from mobile phones to games consoles. He asks why our governments have not taken forceful action to stop the trade.Producer: Giles Edwards.

Judge and historian Jonathan Sumption discusses modern apologies for historical events. Starting with Tony Blair's apology for the Irish potato famine and Pope John Paul II's 94 such apologies, he argues that the trend is turning into a tide. He argues that such apologies rely on a concept of inherited guilt, and asks whether the benefits ever outweigh the serious moral and philosophical objections.Producer: Giles Edwards.

Columnist Christina Patterson discusses her own experiences of terrible nursing care. She asks why we keep making excuses for bad nursing when good care is so important - and maintains that whatever the pressures on them, nurses always have a choice about how they behave.Producer: Giles Edwards.

Tom Gill, a professor of social anthropology, recalls some memorable and unsettling incidents he witnessed during his fieldwork with homeless people in Japan and explores the implications of the experience.Recorded live at the RSA in London, Four Thought is unscripted, thought-provoking and entertaining, with a personal dimension. Producer: Giles Edwards.

Psychotherapist and journalist Naomi Shragai discusses what she learned from marrying out, and what we all could.She describes how her mother's stories about returning from the concentration camps became embedded in her mind, and how years living in a Jewish neighbourhood in Los Angeles left her beliefs unchallenged. It was only after years of mixing in and marrying out that they were. Eventually, Naomi says, she had to admit she may be wrong.Recorded live at the RSA in London, Four Thought is unscripted, thought-provoking and entertaining, with a personal dimension. Producer: Giles Edwards.

Egyptian author Ahdaf Soueif describes how the anti-Mubarak protests have allowed Egyptians to reconnect with thousands of years of history and regain their sense of self.She describes a civilised and sophisticated protest which has shown Egyptians that they can rise above the divisions ascribed to them over the past 30 years. And she says whatever the outcome of the current political instability, this cultural change is permanent.Producer: Giles Edwards.

David Goldblatt argues that current models of urban redevelopment are broken, and need replacing. He draws a contrast between developments: the multi-million pound apartments of One Hyde Park in London, and Stoke's Croft in Bristol, with its 'don't develop Stoke's Croft, let Stoke's Croft develop' ethos.He says that big developers are more interested in making life comfortable for the already comfortable and that a development like Stoke's Croft, with individuals taking the initiative when landowners and government have failed to act, is a far more positive model.

Historian Peter Hennessy discusses joining what he has spent a lifetime writing about: the British constitution.At a time of constitutional upheaval, what does the second house still provide? He argues that expertise, in rare supply elsewhere in the political system, is abundant in the Lords, and offers a great deal to a system currently held in low esteem.Four Thought combines big ideas and evocative storytelling in a series of personal viewpoints - speakers take to the stage ready to air their latest thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect our culture and society.Producer: Giles Edwards.

Baroness Susan Greenfield gives the first of a new series of talks on Radio 4. She discusses her work and fulfilling a life's ambition, exploring how stories develop our brains.Producer: Giles Edwards.