Philanthropist, Pariah, Global Meddler: How George Soros Became the Bogeyman of the Right

At the respectable age of 87, having amassed one of the largest fortunes in the world, married to a fine woman some 40 years his junior, George Soros would be forgiven for taking it easy at the large pool of his sprawling estate. Instead, he has continued his battles for “open societies” with massive funding for his foundations, opposed Britain’s Brexit vote, engaged in US state elections, hectored the EU on how to keep itself together as its members pull apart, come out fighting the IT monopolies of Facebook and Google, and lost the election in Hungary without ever entering the race. For Buying a Better World: George Soros and Billionaire Philanthropy (2015) Anna Porter interviewed Soros and his senior staff at Open Society Foundations. In this talk, she considers what his legacy is likely to be – and what kind of legacy he really wished for. www.annaporter.ca

As Clyne Lecturer at UBC, Anna Porter will also give a public talk for the Vancouver Institute, entitled The Ghosts of Europe: The Return of Tyranny, Nationalism, Racism and Denial to Central Europe, on Saturday, October 13 at 8:15 pm in Lecture Hall No. 2, Woodward Instructional Resources Centre, UBC.