Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/01/2013
All Day
Watch lecture video (70 minutes in five parts)
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Eighteen months on from the Arab Spring and a year after the Occupy protests, social unrest continues. Paul Mason explores the roots of the great dissatisfaction among the young and educated, and reflectes on how his thesis – that this is an 1848 of the mind, driven by new information networks and horizontal forms of protest – has stood up in the face of attempts to normalise and colonise the protest movements.
He also explores the changing dynamic of the economic crisis that underpins the social unrest, showing how events in Russia and China – countries that have delivered economically to their middle classes – fit into the pattern of disruption and challenge begun in Tahrir Square.
This lecture is a landmark exposition of Mason’s analysis, incorporating new research and reactions to the original criticisms of his book, Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions.
Paul Mason is the economics editor of the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight. He has covered globalisation and social justice stories from locations around the world, including Latin America, Africa and China, has been nominated for an Emmy for his work with BBC World News America, and has twice been nominated for the Orwell Prize for his blog, Idle Scrawl. He is the author of Meltdown and Live Working or Die Fighting.