Season 1

John Kenneth Galbraith tells the story of the men who laid the foundations of economics, including Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus. What they made of the world of their time profoundly affects our world.

Professor Galbraith looks at the ideas that sustained the rich in the 19th century and how they still affect our attitudes today. Herbert Spencer justified the moneymaking in straight Darwinian terms as 'survival of the fittest'. Thorstein Veblen thought a parallel with Papuans a more appropriate one.

JK Galbraith investigates the impact of Karl Marx on our economic interpretation of society. The life and work of Marx set the pattern for a socialist future, but the revolution he so much wanted did not materialise in his lifetime.

Professor Galbraith traces the colonial adventure, from the Crusades to the present, from the fall of Acre to the fall of Saigon. He looks at the potent myths that sustained colonialism and the real motives behind them.

JK Galbraith examines WWI as an instrument in changing the old social order, and especially Lenin, who spent most of the war exiled in Switzerland urging soldiers to start a world revolution. A revolution did come, but Lenin nearly missed his chance to be part of it.

From the elegant banks of 17th-century Amsterdam to the dark days of the Great Depression, Prof Galbraith traces the history of money - its uses and abuses, the grand successes and the spectacular disasters.

JK Galbraith looks at the influence of John Maynard Keynes, who drew the blueprint for the postwar economic boom, and recalls his own involvement in those momentous years.

JK Galbraith visits the ruins of postwar Berlin, the corridors of power in the Pentagon and 'the world's largest used plane lot' in his assessment of the contemporary roots of war.

JK Galbraith explores the modern large corporation - 'the most relentless force for change in modern economic life'.

In Mexico and the Punjab, on the cotton fields of the old South and the farm where he was born, Prof Galbraith confronts the tragedy of the landless poor and searches for a solution in the world-wide migration to the cities.

'The city is the focus of the problems of modern society - its uncertainty, crisis, hope, despair.' Prof Galbraith looks at the economic and social forces that turned the magnificent conception of the princely city step by step into the modern metropolis, with all its tensions. He analyses the interaction of these tensions and the ways in which the initial sense of order and pride can be recaptured.

Prof JK Galbraith sets out on a physical and figurative journey to recapture his experience of democracy, comparing politics in Switzerland, Britain and the US and emphasising Nehru's influence in India.

Over a relaxed weekend, a distinguished international gathering at John Kenneth Galbraith's Vermont farm offer their views on the themes outlined in the series and on other major anxieties facing the modern world.