Where:  Downtown Harvard Club

Oct. 4: Post-Imperium - A chat with the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow Director Dmitri Trenin

In Post-Imperium: A Eurasian Story, Dmitri Trenin contends that Moscow's bid to consolidate its "zone of privileged interests" over former Soviet republics has raised questions about the nature of Russia’s relations with its neighbors and prospects for regional stability. Trenin, who served in the Soviet and Russian armed forces from 1972 to 1993, argues that Moscow needs to drop the notion of creating an exclusive power center in the post-Soviet space. Like other former European empires, Russia has no choice but to reinvent itself as a global player and member of a wider community.

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Sept. 14: Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China - A chat with Harvard Professor Emeritus Ezra F. Vogel

Once described by Mao Zedong as a "needle inside a ball of cotton," Deng Xiaoping was the pragmatic,

disciplined force behind China's radical evolution in the late twentieth century. In Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, Harvard Professor Emeritus Ezra Vogel tells how the man confronted the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, dissolved Mao's cult of personality, and loosened the economic and social policies that had stunted China's growth. Obsessed with modernization, Deng opened trade relations with the West, which lifted hundreds of millions of his countrymen out of poverty. Yet he answered to his authoritarian roots, most notably when he ordered the crackdown in June 1989 at Tiananmen Square.

 

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August 25: The Other Barack - A chat with award-winning Globe reporter Sally H. Jacobs

The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama's Father....Author and award-winning Boston Globe reporter Sally Jacobs tells the full story of Barack Obama--father of the American President--through exclusive interviews, prodigious research, and determined investigation. The book profiles a man who arrived in the U.S. from Kenya to become a brilliant, Harvard-educated economist. It reveals the life of a polygamist, an alcoholic, and an ardent African nationalist unafraid to speak truth to power at a time when that could get you killed. Father of eight, nurturer of none, he was nonetheless--like his famous son--a man moved by the dream of a better world.

 

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July 20: Juggernaut - A chat with former WorldBank lead economist William Shaw

In their new book Juggernaut William Shaw, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and co-author Uri Dadush assess how emerging markets are re-shaping the main avenues of globalization -- trade, finance, migration, and the global commons. Projecting the global economy will triple in 40 years, they identify key policy options for managing this transformation.

 

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June 14: The Whistleblower - A chat with human rights investigator Kathryn Bolkovac

Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors, and One Woman's Fight for Justice...Soon to be a major motion picture starring Rachel Weisz, this is the riveting account of Kathryn Bolkovac, a former Nebraska police officer who served as a human rights investigator in Bosnia. At great personal risk, she exposed human rights abuses committed against young girls, who'd been forced into prostitution and used as sex slaves, by U.S. military contractors such as DynCorp and other UN-related police and international organizations.

 

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May 12: Conversations with Power - A chat with author Brian Michael Till

Brian Michael Till is a research fellow with the DC-based New America Foundation, where he primarily works with Middle East and Latin American policy.  He blogs for the Atlantic. In CONVERSATIONS WITH POWER: What Great Presidents and Prime Ministers Can Teach Us About Leadership, Till sits down with luminaries such as Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Ehud Barak, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Vaclav Havel, asking the hard questions and gleaning their advice for coming generations.

 

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April 20: The Future of Power - A chat with power expert Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr. is University Distinguished Service Professor and former Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School. He has served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Chair of the National Intelligence Council, and Deputy Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology. In 2004, he published Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics; Understanding International Conflict (5th edition); and The Power Game: A Washington Novel. In 2008, he published The Powers to Lead. Nye's latest book just came out: The Future of Power.

March 16: Playing Our Game: Why China's Rise Doesn't Threaten the West

Edward S. Steinfeld, Professor of political economy at MIT, directs the MIT-China Program (MISTI) and co-directs the MIT Industrial Performance Center's China Energy Group. In Playing Our Game: Why China's Rise Doesn't Threaten the West, he challenges the notion that political change in China has lagged economic trans-formation.  The book argues instead that the Chinese growth story is fundamentally about China's internalization of the rules and practices of advanced industrial nations.

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February 15: Osama bin Laden - A chat with CIA bin Laden unit chief Michael Scheuer

We launched our CHAT & CHOWDA Author Series with Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit. His  biography, Osama bin Laden,  offers a no-nonsense biographical look at this "pious, brave, intelligent, charismatic" enemy of the West. A lively Q&A delved into what makes bin Laden such a formidable strategist and threat to the West, and how al-Qaeda might take advantage of current turmoil in the Middle East.

Read the Financial Times book review
Hear CBS Boston's Dan Rea interview Scheuer