Particularly these days, its easy to feel that our economic destiny is shaped by huge, impersonal forces beyond our control. Nonsense, says Alan Beattie, World Trade Editor of the Financial Times and author of False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of the World. Countries have choices, and these choices have largely determined whether they have succeeded or failed. Beattie joins The Takeaway to look at some examples of fateful economic choices, and what we can learn from them today.