The Age of Uncertainty

Available for over a year

Magnum Opus, that’s what the BBC called their vastly expensive 1970s BBC2 series. The best of the best. Statement television. In 1973, producer Adrian Malone, fresh from the acclaim around The Ascent of Man, decided he would tell the history of economic thought in an epic series called The Age of Uncertainty. Who better to present it than the urbane, erudite J.K. Galbraith, a man who had met Keynes, worked for JFK, had been ambassador to India and wrote books on economics that people actually read. But by the time the series was ready to air in 1977 Britain itself was in crisis, the old certainties of Keynesian economics were dying and opposition Conservatives like Sir Keith Joseph had the series and Galbraith firmly in their sights. What followed was the siren song of Milton Friedman and the new gods of monetarism and privatisation. Neither the BBC nor Britain would ever be the same. Writer Phil Tinline chronicles the beginning of the beginning of the end. With the voices of Angus Burgin, Jennifer Burns, David Malone, Tom Mills, Eric Rauchway, Jean Seaton, David Willetts and Eben Wilson. Producer: Mark Burman A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 4