Free Thinking - Richard Mabey; Andrea Wulf on Humboldt; Stanley Nelson on The Black Panthers

Matthew Sweet talks to Richard Mabey about his new book The Cabaret of Plants: Botany and the Imagination and hears how so much of our history has been driven by our discovery and exploitation of their properties but it's time to put our own human social preoccupations aside. Joining them, Andrea Wulf presents her findings on the extraordinary scientist Alexander von Humboldt, a seminal figure in human attempts to understand nature. And it was nearly fifty years ago that The Black Panther Party was founded. Stanley Nelson, director of a new documentary history, Vanguard of the Revolution and Mohammed Mubarak, one of the movements official photographers join Matthew to discuss the Black Panthers' role in a political awakening for black Americans and their impact on wider American culture.

Presenter: Matthew Sweet Guest: Richard Mabey author of The Cabaret of Plants: Botany and the Imagination Guest: Mohammed Mubarak Guest: Stanley Nelson, dir The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution Andrea Wulf author of The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt The Lost Hero of Science