Desert Island Discs: Archive: 2016-201826 Nov 2017

Naomi Klein

The writer and activist Naomi Klein reached an international audience with her first book, the best-selling No Logo, a rallying cry against the power of corporate brands and the replacement of traditional manufacturing jobs with sweatshop labour.

Since then, she's turned her intellectual ire on to even bigger terrain - the political and economic systems underpinning capitalism and climate change. The way to save the planet, she says, requires a radical rethink which will address what she calls the "unresolved tensions" between big business and over-consumption.

It's no surprise then that her fierce broadsides against the free market ideology have attracted plaudits and opprobrium in equal measure. But, coming from a family steeped in political activism, such polarized reactions come with the territory. Her grandparents were fervent Marxists and she was born in Canada to American activist parents who fled the US in protest against the Vietnam War. Her mother is a feminist filmmaker while her doctor father was heavily involved with the natural birth movement.

Growing up in the 1980s, she was a committed shopper and self-confessed "teeny bopper." But at 19 she experienced a dramatic political awakening - after that, she says, "you had to call yourself a feminist."

Presenter Kirsty Young Producer Paula McGinley.

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Avsnitt(126)

Joyce DiDonato

Kirsty Young's castaway is the mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. Winner of two Grammy Awards, she is best known for her interpretations of Handel, Mozart and Rossini operas. Born into a Catholic family in...

25 Sep 201637min

Nadiya Hussain

Kirsty Young's castaway is the baker and winner of The Great British Bake Off in 2015, Nadiya Hussain. One of six children born to Bangladeshi parents in Luton, it was her father - a restaurateur - wh...

14 Aug 201634min

Michael Heath

Kirsty Young's castaway is the cartoonist Michael Heath.He's been working for newspapers and magazines for sixty years and sold his first drawing to the Melody Maker in the 1950s. For the past twenty ...

7 Aug 201636min

Jilly Cooper

Kirsty Young’s castaway is the writer Jilly Cooper.Her long writing career spans newspaper columns for the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday, non-fiction books on class, marriage and animals in war ...

31 Juli 201636min

Professor Dame Ann Dowling

Kirsty Young's castaway is the engineer and international expert on aircraft noise reduction, Professor Dame Ann Dowling. The first female president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, one of her pas...

24 Juli 201636min

Levi Roots

Kirsty Young's castaway is the entrepreneur, Levi Roots.His business success began following an appearance on BBC Two's Dragon's Den in 2007. With guitar in hand, he sang about his 'Reggae reggae sauc...

17 Juli 201634min

Nicole Farhi

Kirsty Young's castaway is the designer and sculptor Nicole Farhi.Born into a Turkish family in France, Nicole's interest in fashion was present from an early age. As a child, she used to design cloth...

10 Juli 201636min

Matthew Barzun

Kirsty Young's castaway is the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Matthew Barzun.Born in New York City as the second of four children to Roger Barzun, a lawyer, and his wife Serita Winthrop, he was ...

3 Juli 201635min