- Location
- North Alabama
Recently digging through computer files, I came back across episodes I had saved of the long-running BBC Radio 4 series What If? hosted by the historian Christopher Andrew.
Starting out as a panel series in the 1990s, by the time it ended around 2004 it had become more of a speculative documentary series fronted by Andrew. It touched upon the width and breadth of questions from a 1960s UK referendum on capital punishment, John Smith leading Labour into the 1997 general election, the Soviets winning the space race, and what if Enigma hadn’t been cracked to name a few examples.
One of the episodes that I found most intriguing was an episode on what if the 1991 Gulf War had led to Saddam Hussein’s overthrow. For an episode recorded in 1996 with a panel made up of members of the British civilian and military leadership from that conflict, I was amazed to hear them predicting with great accuracy the insurgency situation that occurred in 2003 onwards.
Did anyone else hear the series at the time or perhaps acquired episodes (shall we say?) afterwords? Fascinating stuff, based on what I’ve been hearing both for the first time and on re-listens after a few years. Definitely more academic than flashy fiction, but intriguing all the same.
Starting out as a panel series in the 1990s, by the time it ended around 2004 it had become more of a speculative documentary series fronted by Andrew. It touched upon the width and breadth of questions from a 1960s UK referendum on capital punishment, John Smith leading Labour into the 1997 general election, the Soviets winning the space race, and what if Enigma hadn’t been cracked to name a few examples.
One of the episodes that I found most intriguing was an episode on what if the 1991 Gulf War had led to Saddam Hussein’s overthrow. For an episode recorded in 1996 with a panel made up of members of the British civilian and military leadership from that conflict, I was amazed to hear them predicting with great accuracy the insurgency situation that occurred in 2003 onwards.
Did anyone else hear the series at the time or perhaps acquired episodes (shall we say?) afterwords? Fascinating stuff, based on what I’ve been hearing both for the first time and on re-listens after a few years. Definitely more academic than flashy fiction, but intriguing all the same.