Having tried to explain why Britain was the first industrial nation and how an industrialised world began to take shape, in this episode I want to go further into what changed and not just describe what it was like for those who lived through it but show how the miserable lives of the foot soldiers of industrialisation, focusing particularly on agricultural workers, factory workers, coal miners, with a spotlight on children, was a result of the profit motive.

This episode looks a little deeper at the period in which the industrialising world catches up and overtakes Britain.

*Do note that since researching and recording this episode, India has overtaken Japan to become the world's 4th biggest economy. How fast this world of ours is changing!

I’m continuing my look at the industrialising world by focusing on the globalisation of the industrial revolution, well at least its spread to Europe and America!

I’m looking at the first industrial revolution in Britain that did so much to shape the world we live in today and in this second episode I want to highlight the key motivating factor: the profit motive, as well as the importance of the railways.

I’m changing tack completely in this little series to look at some of the truly big events that shaped the world we live in today. And I’m beginning with the industrial revolution in Britain. Hugely significant because not only did the British economy rapidly grow, and eventually the world economy, but it did so because of a technological revolution, simple though that may have been at first, and because of, and through, a social revolution that utterly transformed society.

This week we are going to look at the UN embroiled in a civil war in the Congo at the beginning of the 1960s. A sorry tale that also serves to illustrate just what imperialism had done to Africa.

The way the United Nations is being ignored by the Soviet Union with regard to Ukraine, ignored and attacked by Israel in Gaza (more than 280 UNWRA and other UN Humanitarian personnel killed by the Israeli Defence Force), it seems as if we are witnessing the end of the UNs usefulness. But this isn’t the first time the United Nations has faced huge controversy, has seemed to be finished as an international peace-keeping body, as a force for good. There are two truly massive crises that I’m aware of that I thought would be useful to share with you.

This is my second episode looking at the Kurds, the largest ethnic group in the world without a home to call its own. Having looked at the Kurds in Turkey and in Syria, today we’ll look at the Kurds in Iraq and Iran.