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In Our Time

The Great Disruption

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.69.9K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 1999

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the shift that has gone on through the 20th century from our being an industrial society to what is often called ‘the information society’. Francis Fukuyama’s book, The Great Disruption talks of the third great shift in the whole history of humankind. Along with all the technological and economic changes, in the past thirty years we have seen massive social changes. What has been the cause of this shift and how will we recover the social cohesion that preceded it? With Francis Fukuyama, Hirst Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University, Washington DC and author of The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order; Amos Oz, author and Professor of Hebrew Literature, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.uk.

0:10.0

I hope you enjoy the program.

0:12.0

Hello, I'm joined today by Francis Vukayama and the Israeli writer Amos Oz

0:16.0

to look at the shift that has gone on through our century from our being an industrial society

0:21.0

to what's often called the information society.

0:24.0

Along with all the technological and economic changes in the past 30 years,

0:27.0

we've seen massive social changes.

0:29.0

What's been the cause of this shift and how will we recover the social cohesion claimed to have proceeded it.

0:34.9

Francis Vukli Armary's Hearst Professor of Public Policy George Mason University outside

0:38.7

Washington, D.C. renowned in some quarters notorious for his best-selling and controversial books

0:43.8

the end of history and trust.

0:45.8

He's now widely accepted as one of the most influential

0:48.5

and certainly the best-known commentator on global political and economic conditions.

0:53.0

His latest book is The Great Disruption, Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order,

0:59.0

which covers many of the issues we'll be discussing today.

1:01.8

The Israeli writer Amershors has lived for most of his life under

1:04.2

Kibiz, only recently moving to Arad, a town in the Negave Desert. He's held a number of academic

1:10.3

posts in Israel, Oxford and America, and is now professor of Hebrew literature at the

1:14.9

Bengurian University in Bishiva.

1:17.2

He is the author of 20 books including Don't Call It Night, Black Box and Wear the

1:21.5

Jackals Howell, and is published several collections of essays.

1:25.2

He's been an active campaigner for peace in his country and has been in London talking about

...

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