Life
Macpherson graduated from the University of Toronto in 1933. After earning an M.Sc. in Economics at the London School of Economics where he studied under the supervision of Harold Laski, he joined the faculty of the University of Toronto in 1935. At that time a Ph. D. in the social sciences was uncommon, but some twenty years later he submitted a collection of sixteen published papers to the London School of Economics and was awarded the D.Sc. in Economics. These papers were then published in 1953 edition as the book, Democracy in Alberta; the theory and practice of a quasi-party system. In 1956 he became a Professor of Political Economy at the University of Toronto.
He took several sabbaticals on fellowships which were often spent at English universities including an Overseas Fellowship of Churchill College, Cambridge.
Macpherson gave the annual Massey Lectures in 1964. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour, in 1976.
Following his death, a two-part documentary on his life and work aired on CBC Radio's Ideas program.
The Canadian Political Science Association presents an annual C. B. Macpherson Prize for the best book on political theory written by a Canadian.
Read more about this topic: C. B. Macpherson
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“We only seem to learn from Life that Life doesn’t matter so much as it seemed to do—it’s not so burningly important, after all, what happens. We crawl, like blinking sea-creatures, out of the Ocean onto a spur of rock, we creep over the promontory bewildered and dazzled and hurting ourselves, then we drop in the ocean on the other side: and the little transit doesn’t matter so much.”
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