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The BBC Reith Lectures 2007 – Jeffrey Sachs – Contents

Lecture 1:
Bursting at the Seams

The 21st century will be marked by severe natural resource limits, the
rise of new economic powers and the threats of failed states. These are
tectonic changes with the potential to unleash global-scale upheavals.
Global cooperation of an unprecedented depth and scale will be needed
but we are not yet prepared for such cooperation.

Lecture 2:
Survival in the Anthropocene
The biggest challenges that we face – climate change, alleviation of
hunger, water stress, energy – are translated in the shadow of ignorance
into “us versus them” problems, with only the weakest links to
underlying scientific principles and technological options.

Lecture 3:
The Great Convergence

Power and America have seemed synonymous for the last fifty years. No
longer. Power in the 21st Century is shifting to the East: to India and
above all to China. Facing up to the end of centuries of North Atlantic
dominance – first Europe then the U.S. – will pose huge challenges.

Lecture 4:
Poverty in the Midst of Plenty

This lecture considers the challenges of extreme poverty and the extreme
worry of the rest of the world which fears for its own prosperity. It
spells out the limits of the free market to solve these problems and
proposes a plan of action which presents choices to those listening.

Lecture 5:
A New Politics for a New Age

The key political novelty of our age is mass political awareness and
mobilization. Mass mobilization has brought the Age of Empire to an end,
and accounts for the failures in Iraq. No society any longer tolerates
being ruled by another. Social mobilization can be a dramatic force for
positive change.