BBC Radio 4 is to produce a 90-part history of the US aimed at altering UK perceptions of the country. "The US has become a stranger country to the British sensibility, so to try to do a contemporary version of US history would be a sensible thing to do," Mark Damazer, Radio 4's controller, said yesterday.

The series, timed to mark the centenary of the birth of Alistair Cooke, who broadcast from America for 67 years, will consist of 15-minute programmes delivered by Prof David Reynolds, a Cambridge University historian. The programmes are expected to start in September, running through the November presidential election in the US.