Major new B.B.C. series

Press, 16 June 1978, Page 11

Major new B.B.C. series

A major 8.8. C. series, “The Age of Uncertainty,” will begin on SPTV tonight. It is a series of 14 programmes on the rise and crisis of industrial society, seen through the eyes of the distinguished American economist, Professor J. K. Galbraith. Each programme will be repeated on the following Sunday afternoon.

The series is written and narrated by Professor Galbraith. The main historical framework runs from the mid-18th century to the present day. There are occasional references to earlier periods but, throughout the aim is to put into perspective some of the confusions, dilemmas and socio-econ-omic concerns of today. The “Age of Uncertainty” has the same broad vision as “Civilisation,” “The Ascent of Man” and “America.”

The filming for the series took place in 19 countries. They included North America, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Mexico, Pakistan, Israel, Poland, East Germany and other countries throughout Western Europe.

Most of the programmes feature a central film studio location known as “the social theatre.” Here, in a variety of specially designed acts, the series develops a form of stylised historical reconstruction which allows Professor Galbraith to explain in detail the social and economic concepts.

The programmes could be described as “intellectual entertainment with serious intention.”

In the first programme, “The Prophets and Promise of Classical Capitalism,” Professor Galbraith teils the story of the men who laid the foundations of economics — Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Thomas Malthus. John Kenneth Galbraith was born in 1908 on an Ontario farm. He graduated in agriculture at Toronto and took a Ph.D. at the University of California. He became Social Science Fellow at Cambridge and in 1949 was appointed professor of economics at Harvard. From 1941 to 1943 he directed America’s wartime price-control activities at the Office of Prices

Administration. For five years he was a member of the board of editors of the board of editors of “Furtune” magazine. From 1962 to 1963 he was American Ambassador to India. The first book he wrote for general consumption — “The Affluent Society” (1958) — shot straight into the bestseller lists and stayed there for 30 weeks.

A huge list of the prizes have come his way — medals, honours, fellowships, certificates of merit, literary awards. He says of himself: “I am a reformer.” One of his American professional colleagues said: “Galbraith does not appear to be a revolutionary because in person he is urbane, in style elegant, and his programme well within the compass of reform.”