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The CBC Massey Lectures, Canada's preeminent public lecture series, are for many of us a highly anticipated annual feast of ideas. However, some of the finest lectures, by some of the greatest minds of modern times, have been lost for many years -- unavailable to the public in any form. Important thinkers whose Massey Lectures are lamentably out of print include the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr., John Kenneth Galbraith, Jane Jacobs, Paul Goodman, and Eric Kierans. Each of these lecturers spoke on a subject at the heart of their intellectual and spiritual concerns -- King on race and prejudice, Galbraith on economics and poverty, Jacobs on Canadian cities and Quebec separatism, Goodman on the moral ambiguity of America, Kierans on globalism and the nation-state -- and their words are not only of considerable historical significance but remain hugely relevant to the problems we face today. At last, a selection of these lost lectures is available to a world so hungry for, and yet in such short supply of, innovative ideas. The Lost Massey Lectures includes an introduction by Bernie Lucht, who has been the executive producer of CBC Radio's Ideas and the Massey Lectures since 1984.… (more)
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From the bastions of higher learning in Canada and the CBC, this collection of "Lost" Massey Lectures from the 60s to the 80s is as relevant today as it was to the individual scholars in their time.
The lectures that stand above the others are those from Martin Luther King Jr., if
That is not to say that John Kenneth Galbraith or Paul Goodman, both from the US as well, fall short on their lectures. Both are incredibly insightful in their own right. Galbraith's analysis of the "Underdeveloped Country" is still relevant today if not more considering the exaggerated consequences of globalization. Goodman, the self-described anarchist, provides one of the most nuanced arguments that I have read on the topic of American liberalism and its relevance amidst the tumult of the 60s protest movements.
Last but not least are a couple of great lectures on the identity of Canada. In the "Tale of Two Cities", Jane Jacobs compares and contrasts the rise of Toronto and Montreal post-WWII and juxtaposes it with the overall theme of centralization versus rising nationalisms especially in French Quebec. Meanwhile, Eric W. Kierans contextualizes integration between Canada and the US through an analysis of the consequences of the Williamsburg summit of '83.
In this "ahistorical age" as Bernie Lucht states, knowledge of the past is easily forgotten, lost in the clutter of our complicated lives. These great lectures remind us what it means to be a citizen in this global community, where the challenges ahead should not appear so difficult in light of what has come before us. Somewhere in the higher learning institutions of this great land, this book should be required reading.
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