Page:The impact of science on society.pdf/7

James Burke

For more than a decade, James Burke has been one of the British Broadcasting Corporation's outstanding television writers, hosts, and producers. Born in Northern Ireland and educated at Oxford University, Burke spent 5 years in Italy teaching at the Universities of Bologna and Urbino and directing the English Schools in Bologna and Rome. He made his television debut in 1965 as a reporter for Granada Television's Rome Bureau.

Burke's impressive following in the British Isles dates back to 1966, when he joined the BBC's weekly science show, Tomorrow's World. As the chief BBC correspondent for all Apollo space flights, Burke won critical acclaim for his interpretation of the US space program to an audience of over 12 million people. During this time he developed and presented a variety of documentaries, and in 1972 he became the host of his own weekly prime-time science series, The Burke Special. The programs earned for Burke a Royal Television Society Silver Medal in 1972 and a Gold Medal in 1973. In 1975–1976, Burke co-authored and co-hosted The Inventing of America, an NBC/BBC joint production for the US Bicentennial.

Burke's 10-part television series Connections, which aired in 1979, attracted one of the largest followings ever for a Public Broadcasting Station documentary series, and the companion book was a bestseller in both the UK and the US. The series, which took a year of research and another year to film at more than 100 locations in 22 countries, surveyed the history of technology and social change by tracing the evolution of eight major modern inventions: The atom bomb, telecommunications, computers, production lines, jet aircraft, plastics, rocketry, and television. In 1980 Burke wrote and presented Burke: The Real Thing, a BBC six-part series on reality and human perception. He is a regular contributor to such major magazines as Vogue, The Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, New York Magazine, and New Scientist.

2