Peter Geoghegan

Journalist, author, broadcaster

Tahrir

Sean O'Casey in Tahrir Square

In 1936, Robert Merton published a seminal paper entitled “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action” in the American Sociological Review . Seemingly minor events, the then 26-year-old argued, can have profound, unanticipated implications. The “law of unintended consequences” was born. Mohammed Bouazizi was the same age as Merton when he provided the digital age’s most […]

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