Category: World
For some time now I have tried to relate major innovations in science and mathematics to the movement of society in history. At the grandest level of generalization, there are observations such as Oswald Spengler’s when, in The Decline of the West, he contrasted ancient and modern ideas of number in terms of ‘magnitude’ and […]
This is the first of three lectures, the culmination of an undergraduate course given at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2005-6, that consider the question of how anthropologists might approach the formation of world society in the coming century. The other two were posted earlier. The set is: 1. the anticolonial revolution 2. development and […]
An undergraduate anthropology lecture in six parts given at Goldsmiths College in 2006 (filmed and edited by Ricardo Leizaola). Part 1. Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
The family took a trip to Normandy based on Caen, home to William the Conqueror (formerly known as the Bastard) and the Memorial to World War II. We went to Bayeux for the tapestry and visited the beaches of the Normandy landings in June 1944. We were exposed to a bombardment of images and sounds, […]
Machines, money and people in the formation of a global society. A lecture in five parts given at Goldsmiths, University of London on 23rd October 2007. Filmed and edited by Ricardo Leizaola. Part 1 The rest of the lecture can be found here: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
A lecture in five parts given at Goldsmiths College, London on November 26th. Filmed and edited by Ricardo Leizaola. Part 1 The rest of the lecture can be found here: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
1. LETS and Me All my life money has been an obsession. When I was 5, I was bewildered by the relationship between rationing coupons and pocket money. When I was 12, I took up betting on the horses. Gambling saw me through university. I even became an entrepreneur in the slums of a West […]
This is an undergraduate lecture on Anthropology and Globalisation (in five parts) that I gave at Goldsmiths College, London in 2006. Filmed and edited by Ricardo Leizaola. Part 1 The rest of the lecture can be found here: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Russian comment on YouTube: Not many people even politicians […]
It is manifestly contrary to the law of nature, however defined.…that a handful of people should gorge themselves with superfluities while the hungry multitude goes in want of necessities. J.-J. Rousseau Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men (1754) Cosmopolitan Right shall be limited to Conditions of Universal Hospitality [the right of […]
In 1900, about four-fifths of the planet’s land was controlled by people of European origin. Although European expansion was by then four centuries old, this land grab had largely taken place in the previous half-century and for most of Africa in the last two decades. It was manned by the world’s first population explosion, when […]
The two great memory banks are language and money. Exchange of meanings through language and of objects through money are now converging in a single network of communication, the internet.
We must learn how to use this digital revolution to advance the human conversation about a better world. Our political task is to make a world society fit for all humanity.
