Conscience and creativity - Managing the challenges of the 21st century

Tickets: Single lecture £10, series £40. Concessions: single lecture £7.50, series £30.
Please send a cheque, payable to SMVPH, and SAE to:
Primrose Hill Lectures
St Mary's Church
Elsworthy Road
London NW3 3DJ
Tickets will also be sold on the night at the door, subject to availability.

Further information is available on tel: 020 7722 3238 (answerphone) or via email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Affluenza: can we be successful and stay sane?
Wednesday 13th June, 7.30pm

Clincial psychologist, author and broadcaster Oliver James is well known for his searching examination of modern mores. His wide ranging, occasionally controversial opinions on contemporary neuroses have established him as a prominent media commentator with a string of TV series and newspaper columns. His latest book 'Affluenza – How to be Sane and Stay Successful' diagnoses a depressive, middle class illness brought on by too much materialism. "We define our lives through earnings, possessions, appearances, celebrity," he argues, "and it's making us more miserable than ever before."

Carbon conscience: time to face the truth
Wednesday 20 June, 7.30pm

Environmentalist, activist and author Mark Lynas is a leading figure in climate change science. His latest book, 'Six Degrees – Our Future on a Hotter Planet' offers a terrifying vision of what unchecked global warming will do, not only to our environment but to our society as world powers compete for dwindling resources. A seasoned green activist, Lynas is dismissive of doom merchants who do nothing: "Getting depressed about the Global Warming situation," he warns, "is like sitting in your living room and watching the kitchen catch fire rather than grabbing an extinguisher and dousing the flames."

Personal freedom, public interest
Wednesday 27 June, 7.30pm

Former Head of the Civil Service Lord Butler of Brockwell, KG.,GCB.,CVO., has served under five prime ministers. Respected across the political spectrum, he was Cabinet Secretary from 1988 to 1998 and played a crucial role in the transition from the Major to Blair governments. In 2004, he chaired the Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction ('the Butler report') which voiced concern over the use of intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq war. Currently Master of University College, Oxford, Lord Butler remains critical of the process of cabinet decision making: "We, as a country," he says, "suffer very badly from parliament not having sufficient control over the executive, and that is a very grave flaw."

China: Mao's life and legacy
Wednesday 4th July, 7.30pm

Born in Sichuan Province, the daughter of high ranking officials in the Communist Party of China, Jung Chang is an internationally respected commentator on Chinese affairs. Her 1991 family memoir 'Wild Swans' was a best seller worldwide, but remains banned in China. Chang's latest book, co-authored with her husband, historian Jon Halliday, is a highly critical biography of Mao Tse-tung. Only the truth about its past, Chang maintains, will enable modern China to emerge from Mao's long shadow. "Mao was as evil as Hitler and Stalin" she says, "yet the world knows astonishingly little about him."

India: a 5,000 year epic
Wednesday 11th July, 7.30pm

Historian, traveller and broadcaster Michael Wood is the critically acclaimed writer and presenter of landmark TV series such as 'Art of the Western World', 'In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great' and 'Conquistadors'. In a preview of this summer's BBC2 series and book 'India: An Epic Journey Across the Subcontinent', Wood traces Indian civilisation from its origins in prehistory to its new status as 21st century superpower. "Everything about India," he says, "is older, bigger, more colourful, more diverse and more intriguing than anywhere else."