Seeing the Future in the Ruins of the Past: Ronald Wright

Summary: Interview with Ronald Wright, a novelist, essayist, historian, philosopher and the author of nine books, including the 2004 CBC Massey Lectures, A Short History of Progress, which won the Libris Award for Nonfiction Book of the Year and was subsequently produced as a documentary film with Martin Scorsese as its executive producer. Wright is also a compelling and well-regarded speaker who began as an archaeologist and then returned to it later looking for patterns in the rise and fall of human societies. He says it tells us "that people all over the world, time and again, have made similar advances and mistakes."¨When societies fail - and almost all do, sooner or later - the story is remarkably consistent.