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Bursting At The Seams (Reith Lectures)
The Reith Lectures is a series of annual BBC radio lectures given by leading figures of the day. They are commissioned by the BBC and broadcast on Radio 4 and the World Service. The lectures were inaugurated in 1948 to mark the historic contribution made to public service broadcasting by Lord Reith, the corporation's first director-general. Reith maintained that broadcasting should be a public service that aimed to enrich the intellectual and cultural life of the nation. It is in this spirit that the BBC each year invites a leading figure to deliver the lectures. The aim is to advance public understanding and debate about issues of contemporary interest. The first Reith lecturer was the philosopher and later Nobel laureate, Bertrand Russell. The first female lecturer was Dame Margery Perham in 1961. The youngest Reith lecturer was Colin Blakemore, who was 32 in 1976 when he broadcast over six episodes on the brain and consciousness. The Reith Lectures archive In June 2011 B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Reith
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are entitled to courtesy titles. The collective "Lords" can refer to a group or body of peers. Etymology According to the Oxford Dictionary of English, the etymology of the word can be traced back to the Old English word ''hlāford'' which originated from ''hlāfweard'' meaning "loaf-ward" or "bread-keeper", reflecting the Germanic tribal custom of a chieftain providing food for his followers. The appellation "lord" is primarily applied to men, while for women the appellation "lady" is used. This is no longer universal: the Lord of Mann, a title previously held by the Queen of the United Kingdom, and female Lords Mayor are examples of women who are styled as "Lord". Historical usage Feudalism Under the feudal system, "lord" had a wide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver Franks
Oliver Shewell Franks, Baron Franks (16 February 1905 – 15 October 1992) was an English civil servant and philosopher who has been described as 'one of the founders of the postwar world'. Franks was involved in Britain's recovery after the Second World War. Knighted in 1946, he was the British Ambassador to the United States of America from 1948 to 1952, during which time he strengthened the relationship between the two countries. He was given a life peerage on 10 May 1962. Lord Franks was often called upon by the government of the day to chair important inquiries, and he is best known for his report in the aftermath of the Falklands War which ultimately exonerated the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her government from charges of having failed to heed warning signals of an Argentine invasion. Early life Franks was educated at Bristol Grammar School and Queen's College, Oxford. He became an Oxford academic, and Provost of Worcester College. He was a moral philosopher b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lester Pearson
Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson (23 April 1897 – 27 December 1972) was a Canadian scholar, statesman, diplomat, and politician who served as the 14th prime minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968. Born in Newtonbrook, Ontario (now part of Toronto), Pearson pursued a career in the Department of External Affairs. He served as Canadian ambassador to the United States from 1944 to 1946 and secretary of state for external affairs from 1948 to 1957 under Liberal Prime Ministers William Lyon Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent. He narrowly lost the bid to become secretary-general of the United Nations in 1953. However, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for organizing the United Nations Emergency Force to resolve the Suez Canal Crisis, which earned him attention worldwide. After the Liberals' defeat in the 1957 federal election, Pearson easily won the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1958. Pearson suffered two consecutive defeats by Progressive Conservative Prime Minist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmund Leach
Sir Edmund Ronald Leach FRAI FBA (7 November 1910 – 6 January 1989) was a British social anthropologist and academic. He served as provost of King's College, Cambridge from 1966 to 1979. He was also president of the Royal Anthropological Institute from 1971 to 1975. Early years Personal life Leach was born in Sidmouth, Devon, the youngest of three children and the son of William Edmund Leach and Mildred Brierley. His father owned and was manager of a sugar plantation in northern Argentina. In 1940 Leach married Celia Joyce who was then a painter and later published poetry and two novels. They had a daughter in 1941 and a son in 1946. Education and career Leach was educated at Marlborough College and Clare College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a BA with honours in Engineering in 1932. After leaving Cambridge University, Leach took a four-year contract in 1933 with Butterfield and Swire in China, serving in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Chungking (now Chongqing), Tsingt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006), also known as Ken Galbraith, was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the 2000s. As an economist, he leaned toward post-Keynesian economics from an institutionalist perspective. Galbraith was a long-time Harvard faculty member and stayed with Harvard University for half a century as a professor of economics. He was a prolific author and wrote four dozen books, including several novels, and published more than a thousand articles and essays on various subjects. Among his works was a trilogy on economics, '' American Capitalism'' (1952), ''The Affluent Society'' (1958), and ''The New Industrial State'' (1967). Some of his work has been criticized by economists Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, Robert Solow, and Thomas Sowell. Galbraith was active in Democratic Party politics, serving in the administrations of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert K
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown" and ''berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin. It is also in use as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Danish, and Icelandic. It can be use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leon Bagrit
Sir Leon Bagrit (13 March 1902 – 22 April 1979) was a leading British industrialist and pioneer of automation. Early life and education Born to Jewish parents in Kiev, in the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine), Sir Leon studied law at Birkbeck College in the University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ..., formed his own company in 1935, and for many years headed the revamped firm of Elliott Automation, Elliott-Automation Ltd., which, outside the United States, was the largest computer manufacturer in the world. Career Leon Bagrit was a member of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, 1963–1965 and the Advisory Council on Technology, 1964-1979. He was a director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1962-1970. He founded the Fri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Sloman
Sir Albert Edward Sloman (1921 – 28 July 2012) was the founding and longest serving Vice Chancellor of the University of Essex, UK. Background Albert Sloman was born in Cornwall and educated at Launceston College, before attending Wadham College, Oxford in 1939, where he secured a scholarship to study Spanish and French. After two years’ study he fought with the RAF as a night-fighter pilot, returned to Oxford in 1945 to finish his degree and begin a doctorate. His thesis topic was Pedro Calderón de la Barca's ''El príncipe constante''. However, after a year he took up an Instructorship in Spanish at the University of California, Berkeley. He went on to work at Trinity College Dublin and held the chair in Spanish from 1953 to 1962 at Liverpool University, latterly becoming the Dean of the Faculty of Arts. Contributions In May 1960 the University Grants Committee voted to establish the University of Essex. In 1962, at the age of 41, Sloman was appointed the first Vice Chanc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morris Carstairs
George Morrison Carstairs, (18 June 1916 – 17 April 1991) was a British psychiatrist, anthropologist, and academic. He was Professor of Psychological Medicine at the University of Edinburgh from 1961 to 1973, President of the World Mental Health Organization from 1968 to 1972, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of York from 1973 to 1978. In his youth, he had been a distinguished long-distance runner. Early life Carstairs was born on 18 June 1916 in Mussoorie, India, then part of the British Raj. He was the son of George Carstairs (died 1948), a Church of Scotland missionary, and his wife Elizabeth Huntley Young. He spent his childhood living in India and became fluent in both English and Hindi. At the age of ten, he and his family moved to Edinburgh, Scotland. He was educated at George Watson's College, then an all-boys independent school in Edinburgh. He was an accomplished long-distance runner in his youth. He was the Scottish 3 miles champion in 1937, 1938 and 1939. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edgar Wind
Edgar Wind (; 14 May 1900 – 12 September 1971) was a German-born British interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary art historian, specializing in iconology in the Renaissance era. He was a member of the school of art historians associated with Aby Warburg and the Warburg Institute as well as the first Professor of art history at Oxford University. Wind is best remembered for his research in allegory and the use of religion and mythology, pagan mythology during the 15th and 16th centuries, and for his book on the subject, ''Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance.'' Biography Wind was born in Berlin, Germany, one of the two children of Maurice Delmar Wind, an Argentinian merchant of Russian Jewish ancestry, and his Romanian wife Laura Szilard. He received a thorough training in mathematics and philosophical studies,Kleinbauer p. 63 both at his Gymnasium in Charlottenburg, and then at university in Berlin, Freiburg, and Vienna. He completed his dissertation in Hamburg, where he was Erw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Medawar
Sir Peter Brian Medawar (; 28 February 1915 – 2 October 1987) was a Brazilian-British biologist and writer, whose works on graft rejection and the discovery of acquired immune tolerance have been fundamental to the medical practice of tissue and organ transplants. For his scientific works, he is regarded as the "father of transplantation". He is remembered for his wit both in person and in popular writings. Famous zoologists such as Richard Dawkins referred to him as "the wittiest of all scientific writers", and Stephen Jay Gould as "the cleverest man I have ever known". Medawar was the youngest child of a Lebanese father and a British mother, and was both a Brazilian and British citizen by birth. He studied at Marlborough College and Magdalen College, Oxford, and was professor of zoology at the University of Birmingham and University College London. Until he was partially disabled by a cerebral infarction, he was Director of the National Institute for Medical Research at M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernard Lovell
Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell (31 August 19136 August 2012) was an English physicist and radio astronomer. He was the first director of Jodrell Bank Observatory, from 1945 to 1980. Early life and education Lovell was born at Oldland Common, Bristol in 1913, the son of local tradesman and Methodist preacher Gilbert Lovell (1881-1956) and Emily Laura, née Adams. Gilbert Lovell was an "authority on the Bible" and, having "studied English literature and grammar", was still "bombarding his son with complaints on points of grammar, punctuation and method of speaking" when Lovell was in his forties. Lovell's childhood hobbies and interests included cricket and music, mainly the piano. He had a Methodist upbringing and attended Kingswood Grammar School. Career and research Lovell studied physics at the University of Bristol obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in 1934, and a PhD in 1936 for his work on the electrical conductivity of thin films. At this time, he also receive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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