2004 MASSEY LECTURER RONALD WRIGHT ARRIVES IN TORONTO
NOV. 19 TO DELIVER
CONCLUDING LECTURE IN SERIES:
A SHORT HISTORY OF PROGESS
Novelist,
historian and essayist Ronald Wright argues in his 2004 CBC Massey
Lectures, A Short History of Progress, that “only by
understanding humanity’s patterns of triumph and disaster since the
Stone Age can we recognize their inherent dangers. With luck and
wisdom,” states the English-born, British Columbia-based writer, “we
can then shape civilization’s outcome.” Wright concludes his five-city
Massey Lecture tour in Toronto on Friday, Nov. 19 at 8 p.m., at the
MacMillan Theatre, 80 Queen’s Park, when he lectures on The
Rebellion of the Tools.
Over
the course of the series, Wright examines the rise and fall of significant
societies, including Sumer, Rome, the Maya, Easter Island and others.
After a period of time, each of these civilizations “wore out their
welcome from nature and collapsed… Yet despite the wreckage of past
civilizations littering the earth, the overall experiment of civilization
has continued to spread and grow.” Wright argues that—armed with what
we now know—we must move from “recklessness and excess to moderation
and the precautionary principle”—for this is our last chance to get it
right.
Inaugurated in 1961, the Massey Lectures were created to honour Vincent Massey, a former governor general and an energetic advocate of public discourse in Canada. Following the success of the second annual Massey Lectures Tour last year, the 2004 Massey Lectures will be recorded live at five public events across Canada, including Carleton University in Ottawa; University of Alberta in Edmonton, University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, University of King’s College in Halifax and finally, Massey College at the University of Toronto. The lectures will air nationally, from Nov. 22 to 26, on CBC Radio One’s Ideas at 9:05 p.m. (9:35 NT) (Heard on 99.1 FM in Toronto.)
A Short History of Progress is published by House of Anansi Press and will be available for purchase at the lecture. The Massey Lectures are co-sponsored by CBC, Massey College at the University of Toronto and House of Anansi Press.
Tickets for the Nov. 19 Massey Lecture are $10 and can be purchased in person at Pages Bookstore, 256 Queen St. W., University of Toronto Bookstore, 214 College St., and online at www.uoftbookstore.com. Further information about the 2004 Massey Lectures is available on the Ideas
