About this programme

Economics historian Professor Niall Ferguson speaks at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the first of this year's lectures. He argues that institutions determine the success or failure of nations, using graffiti found in post-Gaddafi Libya as his starting point. He compares the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring who demanded a different life to that of their parents, to their counterparts in the West, who face the daunting task of living with huge national debts created by the previous generation.