A Point of View

Howard Jacobson reflects on the radio essay, after almost two decades of A Point of View. With nods to Clive James, body-pierced baritones and with a plentiful supply of svelte notebooks, Howard explains why he believes the radio essay is 'more than words on paper'...why it captures the 'frolicsome spirit of truth'. And, Howard writes, 'at a time when we no longer have the concentration to read en...

The celebrated American theorist, Francis Fukuyama, in his book 'The End of History and the Last Man' argued that US-style liberalism was the ultimate destination for all mankind, 'the final form of human government'. John Gray explains why he believes his prophecy has been turned on its head. 'As in the past, many human beings will live under tyrannies, theocracies, and empires of various kinds,'...

After Donald Trump proposed that Canada could be consumed as America's 51st State, Adam Gopnik reflects on his homeland's history with the United States and Canada's new-found patriotic toughness - and how it differs from nationalism. 'It’s is only a little startling, though very Canadian, to find the new motto 'elbows up' radiating everywhere in Canada,' Adam writes, referring to a defensive posi...

Zoe Strimpel explains why she's decided to lean in to social media, and not worry about how much time she spends scrolling. Despite ongoing concerns about its impact on our brains, Zoe says she's personally found the algorithm benign, offering her endless information about food and cooking. "I have come to the conclusion that for a grown woman with many cares, it's mostly beneficial, interesting,...

As farmers prepare for another march at Whitehall in protest at the government's inheritance tax plans, Michael Morpurgo discusses the growing divide between city and countryside. 'The family farm, still at the heart of rural England,' writes Michael, 'is under threat, more than ever'. Michael reflects on how, during World War Two, we needed to produce all the food we could in order to survive. He...

Tom Shakespeare explores the pitfalls of dramatised history and its influence on real life - but confesses to his own minor role in rewriting the past. "We turn to stories when the reality we desire fails us," he writes, "but if the legend is not based in fact, then history is in deep trouble, and so are we all." Producer: Sheila Cook Sound: Peter Bosher Production Co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman Edito...

From sacks of correspondence belonging to a well known author to archives from the Battle of Waterloo (and the odd wooden leg), Sara Wheeler reflects on the joys of Britain's personal archives. 'I have loved almost every day I have ever spent in an archive,' Sara writes, 'and not just because dead people are so easy to get along with.' But she fears that idiosyncratic borough and country archives...

Walking along the muddy tracks of the River Ouse near her home a few days ago, Rebecca Stott reflects on migration. She contemplates the lives of the Canada geese that frequently fly over her home, as well as Aristotle's own studies of bird migration - and his extraordinary life as a migrant - while considering the historic links between the migration of people and human progress. Producer: Adele...

The 'overwhelm' - noun, not verb - has been around 'since at least 1596', AL Kennedy discovers. She looks at the reasons why the word is making a comeback - and she has some advice for those who also feel lost in 'the overwhelm.' Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Remember the days, Howard Jacobson implores us, when we got on fine with 'very'? Today, Howard argues, 'very’ is not ‘very’ enough for the times we live in.' In its place, 'incredible' and other supersized words, spreading 'verbal chaos.' Howard reflects on the dangers of over-inflated language, 'where words prance about without their clothes, shouting obscenities.' Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound...

As Donald Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, Mark Damazer reflects on America's leadership in the world. Eavesdropping on a focus group recently, Mark tells us that the country's leadership was seen as 'a burden and a luxury - and a luxury they wanted to do without.' 'There was a time when large chunks of the world were grateful for American involvement...but gratitude is now more thinly...

In deepest, darkest January, Adam Gopnik muses on light and dark. Adam reminds us that - from the natural world of the ghost moth to the politics of today's America - although we live in a 'gloomy moment' we can 'adjust our eyes to the gloom.' 'Every little bit of light we make,' writes Adam, 'in every decent thing we do and every indecency we refuse to accept, illuminates some small corner of our...

Sara Wheeler explains why every week for several decades - despite knowing nothing about art - she has called in to London’s National Gallery to look at the same two paintings. 'This habit of mine,' writes Sara, 'started by accident when I moved to London forty years ago' when she first set eyes on Botticelli's 'Portrait of a Young Man' and van Eyck's 'Portrait of a Man.' 'I have come to realise,'...

Megan Nolan rediscovers a childhood diary with her first New Year's Resolutions. She was fascinated and appalled, she says, by what she read:. The final resolution, underlined, read simply 'be a better person!' These days, Megan looks on self-improvement in a rather different way - less an attempt at perfection and more 'an attempt to courageously embrace living in all its chaos.' Producer: Adele...

Mary Beards reflects on what really lies behind our attachment to Christmas ritual and tradition. In a special edition of A Point of View, recorded in Mary's kitchen as she prepares her Christmas puddings, she ponders 'why those of us who aren't particularly wedded to the idea of tradition for the rest of the year, fall hook, line and sinker for it at this time.' 'My hunch,' Mary says, 'is that ou...

With water companies reeling from criticism over sewage discharge and rising bills, Stephen Smith squelches through London's watery underworld. 'Descending into London's Victorian sewers', Stephen says, 'is like spelunking through the layers of the city's history, and reminds you that problems over water and sanitation have been the norm rather than an aberration' for centuries. Producer: Adele Ar...

Zoe Strimpel on the joys of seeing the world through the eyes of her 9 month old daughter. 'Where previously I would barely have noticed them,' Zoe writes, 'I now size up trees from below in terms of buds, leaves, colour, height - and how all of these may look to my little lady viewed from her pram or carrier in which her neck swivels constantly like a periscope, or an owl.' Producer: Adele Armstr...

Rebecca Stott ponders the task of clearing her Mum's house, and the enormous difficulty of dismantling the things her mother loved and that Rebecca remembers her buying from bric-a-brac and antique shops. 'The beauty of the objects in my mother's house exists in her artistry,' writes Rebecca, 'the way she had placed some of them so that the evening light falls on them, the way that the kooky littl...

John Gray believes the British state is broken, and that we urgently need a new centre ground in British politics. 'Outside the echo chamber of metropolitan opinion', John writes, 'there is a restive electorate perplexed and discomforted by the country the UK has become'. He says our politicians seem bent on continuing the status quo, seemingly unable to comprehend a surge in support for populist...

From the escape of Cholmondley the chimp from London Zoo in 1848, to Chichi from the Kharkiv Zoo in 2022, to a group of 43 macaque monkeys from a research facility in South Carolina last week, Megan Nolan reflects on the great annals of animal escapes and why they hold an almost mystical appeal to humans. She believes the reason they are so potent is that they contain the 'dazzling knowledge that...

Sara Wheeler reflects on the valuable perspective offered by out-of-date guide books. They shed light on the life of the early traveler - advised to pack an iron bedstead and a portable bath tub - and reveal how destinations may have evolved or be frozen in time. 'The chief question I ask the old guides is whether the spirit of a place - the genius loci - can survive the upheaval of the years. Is...

In the last of his essays reflecting on America's search for meaning, James Naughtie recalls a meeting a year ago with General Michael Hayden - the former head of the CIA - who, without fanfare, expressed concern for the future of US Democracy. 'I don’t know that we’ll come through this,’ he said. ‘Right now I think it’s about 50-50.’ James reflects on past presidents, such as Jimmy Carter, and hi...

James Naughtie argues that a common American identity will be achieved - one day - despite the heightened political rhetoric around immigration, that is making it one of the most contentious issues in this year's presidential election. He recalls Ronald Reagan's 'homely evocation of an American character'. For Reagan, James says, the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, 'give me your tired, your...

From the description of Alexander Hamilton as 'the bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar', to Lyndon Johnson's depiction of Gerald Ford as a man who 'couldn't fart and chew gum at the same time', James Naughtie argues that American political language has long been teeming with insult. He recalls as a student in 1974, queuing at the back door of the White House one evening and coming away with transcript...

James Naughtie presents the first of four personal essays exploring America's 'wild search for meaning' in the run-up to November's presidential election. From the freezing waters of Nantucket Sound in Moby Dick, via sunken levees of the Mississippi and the railroad blues of New Orleans, to the ‘raucous expeditions into an underworld of…richly wounded humanity’ in contemporary crime novels, James...