The Moral Ambiguity of America
is the text of the sixth annual series of Massey Lectures, broadcast on
CBC
Radio during the fall of 1966. The series was arranged by Robert McCormack and produced by Del MacKenzie of the
CBC
Department of Public Affairs.
Paul Goodman (1911â1972) was an American writer, teacher, and social critic. Born in New York, his formal education was in philosophy and literature. He taught English, sociology, and city planning at the University of Chicago (where he obtained his Ph.D.), New York University, and the University of Wisconsin; at Sarah Lawrence College, in Bronxville,
NY
; at the experimental college of Black Mountain; and at the “free university” organized
by students of San Francisco State College. He was an editor of
Liberation
magazine, an associate of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., a co-founder of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, and a fellow of the Institute for Gestalt Therapy in Cleveland. The author of books on social themes (including
People or Personnel
,
Compulsory Mis-Education
,
Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals
,
The Society I Live in Is Mine
,
The Politics of Being Queer
, and
Growing Up Absurd
), he was also co-author (with Frederick Perls) of
Gestalt Therapy
and (with his brother Percival) of
Communitas
, a work on community planning. He also wrote literary criticism (
The Structure of Literature
,
Kafka's Prayer
), novels (including
Empire City
and
Making Do
), numerous short stories, plays, and several books of poetry.
Conscience for Change
is the text of the seventh annual series of Massey Lectures, broadcast on
CBC
Radio during the fall of 1967. The series was arranged by the Ideas unit of the
CBC
Department of Public Affairs, with Janet Somerville as program organizer and production by Del MacKenzie.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929â1968) was a Baptist minister and a key leader in the American civil-rights movement. He was copastor, with his father, of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta,
GA
, and president and one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. An eloquent advocate of achieving civil rights through non-violent means, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He was selected by
Time
magazine as one of the ten outstanding personalities of 1957 and was named its “Man of the Year” for 1963. Born in Atlanta, he obtained a B.A. degree at Morehouse College in 1948, a B.D. degree from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester,
PA
, in 1951, and a Ph.D. degree in Systematic Theology from Boston University in 1955. He was
awarded more than twenty honorary degrees by colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. He lectured extensively at academic institutions and authored a number of books, including
Stride Toward Freedom
,
Strength to Love
,
Why We Can't Wait
, and
Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community
. Assassinated in Memphis,
TN
, on April 4, 1968, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. Martin Luther King Day was established as a U.S. holiday in 1986.
Canadian Cities and Sovereignty-Association
is based on the eighteenth annual series of Massey Lectures, broadcast on
CBC
Radio during the fall of 1979. The series was produced by Max Allen.
Jane Jacobs (1916â2006) was an urban activist and writer. Born Jane Butzner in Scranton,
PA
, she moved to New York City and became a freelance writer, later working for the Office of War Information and marrying the architect Robert Hyde Jacobs. She attended Columbia University's extension school, where she studied subjects as diverse as zoology, economics, and law. In 1962 she chaired the Joint Committee to Stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway, helping prevent the expressway from being built. She helped block the Lower Manhattan Expressway again in 1968, and was arrested during a demonstration. In part due to her antiâVietnam War stance, that same year Jacobs moved to Toronto, where she would remain. There she helped stop the Spadina Expressway, and influenced the successful regeneration of the St. Lawrence neighbourhood. She also advocated for the city of Toronto to become its own Canadian province. Her books include
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
,
The Economy of Cities
,
Cities and the Wealth of Nations
,
Systems of Survival
,
The Nature of Economies
, and
Dark Age Ahead
. A Canadian citizen from 1974, she was named an officer of the
Order of Canada in 1996. The Rockefeller Foundation created a Jane Jacobs Medal in her honour in 2007.
Globalism and the Nation-State
is based on the twenty-first annual series of Massey Lectures, broadcast on
CBC
Radio during the fall of 1983. The executive producer was Robert Prowse.
Eric W. Kierans (1914â2004) was a Canadian economist, business leader, politician, and writer. Born in Montreal and educated at Loyola College and McGill University, his career included that of president of the Montreal and Canadian stock exchanges, extensive business experience, director of the McGill School of Commerce, as well as the political offices of minister of revenue for Quebec, minister of health for Quebec, president of the Quebec Liberal Federation, candidacy for the federal leadership (Liberal) in 1968, and federal cabinet minister in Pierre Elliott Trudeau's first government with the positions of postmaster general and minister of communications. After resigning from the cabinet in 1971, he returned to teaching, as professor of economics first at McGill and later at Dalhousie University, and continued lecturing, writing, and serving as a consultant and in other senior positions for financial and government institutions across Canada. His books include
Challenge of Confidence: Kierans on Canada
and his memoirs,
Remembering
. In the 1980s and 1990s he was a member, along with Stephen Lewis and Dalton Camp, of a popular weekly political panel on
CBC
Radio's
Morningside
with Peter Gzowski. Eric Kierans was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 1995.
Cover design: Bill Douglas at The Bang
Cover illustration: Thomas Del Brase/Getty Images
Text design and typesetting: Laura Brady, Brady Typesetting & Design
We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).
Printed and bound in Canada