WORLD OF IDEAS WITH BILL MOYERS, A: JOHN LUKACS (TV)
Summary
One in this series of interview programs hosted by Bill Moyers. In this edition, Moyers interviews John Lukacs, a prominent scholar of modern European history and the postwar American political scene. Moyers opens the program by commenting that "left and right today are joined in their common lament over the giant but invisible mechanism called bureaucracy." He then gives a brief biography of Lukacs, who fled his native Hungary in 1946 for the United States and is now professor of history at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia. Lukacs is the author of over a dozen books. Moyers alludes to two in particular, "The Passing of the Modern Age" and "Outgrowing Democracy," which he describes as analyzing the U.S. "vulnerability to changes in our national character since World War II." Moyers visits Lukacs at home in Pennsylvania to talk to him about recent events in the United States. Lukacs notes that the federal government was much smaller when he first arrived in the United States, and he explains why he considers himself a reactionary rather than a conservative. Lukacs also brings up what he sees as the American impulse to spread democracy all over the globe and calls the current federal government a big bureaucracy. He also touches on citizenship and participation in community affairs; the reasons for which he thinks the U.S. won the cold war; the trust Americans place in education; recent changes in American psychology; and the appeal of the "modern" versus the "old-fashioned" to the American public. Moyers remarks on Lukacs's faith in democracy, and Lukacs closes by echoing Edmund Burke, saying, "The people must never be regarded as incurable."
Cataloging of this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 2000.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS WNET New York, NY
- DATE: November 30, 1987
- RUNNING TIME: 0:27:41
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:18285
- GENRE: Talk/Interviews
- SUBJECT HEADING: Bureaucracy; Federal government; Historians
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1988-1990
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Jack Sameth … Executive Producer
- Judy Epstein … Coordinating Producer
- Kate Roth Knull … Producer, Director
- Lynn Novick … Associate Producer
- Arthur White … Production (Misc.), Production Executive
- Bill Moyers … Host
- John Lukacs … Guest
- Edmund Burke