A Brief History of Cunning

Seriously...

• Episode: A Brief History of Cunning
• Website: Seriously...
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02pc9qx/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:59:52
• Published: 2018-02-20 16:00

How cunning is Donald Trump? In Queenan on Cunning, the satirist Joe Queenan explores a word rarely associated with the current President of the USA. "From Odysseus to Bismarck, via Brer Rabbit and Machiavelli's The Prince, there's a fine tradition of tricksters and hucksters, but where does the Donald fit in the mix? You need patience, intelligence, forward planning - some of these are Trump-like qualities. Stress on the some. But he's by no means a modern day Odysseus. Not much of a sailor." With contributions from Adam MacQueen, author of The Lies of the Land; Edith Hall, who wrote a cultural history of Homer's Odyssey; and Tibor Fischer, whose forthcoming novel is called How to Rule the World. Plus John Sergeant, Kathy Lette, Richard Nixon, Alistair McAlpine, Laura Barton ... and a campaigning American president cross-faded with a much loved song from The Jungle Book. The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.