Past FPRI Events (2008)

Monday, May 12, 2008

Rocco Martino Lecture on Innovation

Technological Innovation and National Security

Paul Bracken Professor, Yale School of Organization and Management

Paul Bracken is Professor of Management and Professor of Political Science at the Yale School of Management. Professor Bracken is a leading expert in global competition and the strategic application of technology in business and defense. He has devoted his research and teaching to developing solutions for senior management as it deals with rapidly changing strategic developments under conditions of intense uncertainty.

This lecture is the first of the Rocco Martino Lectures on Innovation, founded by FPRI Senior Fellow Rocco L. Martino in 2007 to promote studies and education in innovation.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Asia Study Group

Implications of China's Military Buildup

Jacqueline Newmyer, Long Term Strategy Group LLC

Dr. Jacqueline Newmyer is President and CEO of the Long Term Strategy Group, a Cambridge, MA-based defense consultancy. For the last five years, she has worked with the Director of the Office of the Secretary of Defense/Net Assessment on projects related to East Asia. Recent studies include an analysis of the security implications of alternative Chinese futures, an assessment of China’s capacity for technological innovation, and a book chapter on China’s energy security strategy. Newmyer has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies in the Government Department of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She has been published in the New York Times, Policy Review, the Weekly Standard, and War in History, and she has been cited in a range of media outlets including Newsweek. Prior to entering the national security field, she worked as a journalist and an investment analyst.

Monday, April 28, 2008

FPRI BookTalk

The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace

Aaron David Miller

Aaron David Miller is a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC; his latest book, America and the Much Too Promised Land, will be published Mar. 25, 2008 (Bantam/Dell). Between 2003 and 2006 Miller served as president of Seeds of Peace, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering young leaders from regions of conflict with the leadership skills required to advance coexistence and reconciliation.

For the previous two decades, he served at the Department of State as an adviser to six Secretaries of State, where he helped formulate U.S. policy on the Middle East and the Arab-Israel peace process. In 1984 he served a temporary tour at the American Embassy in Amman, Jordan. Between 1998 and 2000, Mr. Miller served on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. His articles have appeared in newspapers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The International Herald Tribune. His recent appearances include CNN, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, FOX News, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, National Public Radio, BBC, Canadian Broadcast Network, Al Arabiya, Al-Jazeera and Israeli Radio.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Sponsored by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations

with local co-sponsors the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the University of Pennsylvania Law School

Nationwide China Town Hall: Local Connections, National Reflections

Thursday, April 17, 2008
Webcast: 7:00-7:45 p.m. ET
On-Site Briefing: 7:45-8:30 p.m. ET

Attendees for the webcast and on-site briefing need to show up at 6:45 p.m.

University of Pennsylvania Law School, Gittis Room 214
(enter on Sansom Street midway between 34th and 36th Streets)
3400 Chestnut St.
Philadelphia, PA 19102 [display map]

• For more information contact 215 732 3774, ext 303 or lux@fpri.org.
• Become an FPRI Partner

In this year of presidential and Congressional elections, the role of China, and its effect on the lives of every American, has a central place in discussions of U.S. foreign policy. CHINA Town Hall: Local Connections, National Reflections, a nationwide event being conducted in 40 cities, will provide an opportunity for Philadelphia-area residents to learn about the importance of China’s relationship with the U.S. and have the questions that matter to them answered by leading China specialists.

CHINA Town Hall will feature Norman J. Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. After his talk, he will respond to questions from audience members throughout the country in a conversation moderated by Stephen A. Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Following the national portion of the program, each venue will have an on-site China specialist who will address China-related topics of particular interest to the local community. In Philadelphia, the on-site specialist will be Adam Segal, the Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow of China Studies of the CFR and author of “Digital Dragon: High Technology Enterprise in China.”

(To view the webcast subsequently, visit: www.ncuscr.org/cth).

Thursday, April 17, 2008

FPRI Center on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, and Homeland Security

The Failure of the Imagination: 9/11 and Beyond

Gunnar Olson

Thursday, April 17, 2008
11:00 am-12:00 pm

FPRI Library
1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610
Philadelphia, PA 19102 [display map]

• For more information contact 215 732 3774, ext 303 or lux@fpri.org.
• Become an FPRI Partner

Gunnar Olsson is professor of economic geography and planning at the Nordic Institute for Studies in Urban and Regional Planning in Stockholm. He was professor of geography at the University of Michigan and has been a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies. His books include Distance and Human Interaction and Birds in Eggs/Eggs in Bird; his most recent book is Abysmal, A Critique of Cartographic Reason.

Monday, April 14, 2008

FPRI Asia Program Conference

Elections, Political Transitions and Foreign Policy in East Asia

Detailed conference information.

Monday, April 7, 2008

FPRI Study Group on America and the West

European Perspectives on Jihadist Terrorism

Michael Burleigh

Michael Burleigh has held posts at New College, Oxford, the London School of Economics, and Cardiff, where he was Distinguished Research Professor in Modern History. He has also been Raoul Wallenberg Chair of Human Rights at Rutgers University, William Rand Kenan Professor of History at Washington & Lee University in Virginia, and Kratter Visiting Professor at Stanford University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and founded the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions.

His books include Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, from the Great War to the War on Terror (HarperCollins, Feb. 2007), Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War (HarperCollins, 2006), The Third Reich: A New History (2001), and Ethics and Extermination: Reflections on Nazi Genocide (Cambridge University Press 1997). He won the British Film Institute Award for Archival Achievement in 1991 for the Channel 4/Domino Films documentary Selling Murder: The Killing Films of the Third Reich and a 1993 New York Film and Television Festival Award Bronze Medal for Heil Herbie: The Story of the Volkswagen Beetle (Channel 4/Domino Films).

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Exclusively for 2008 partners (Bronze level and above)

4th Annual Champagne Brunch

Honoring Irvin Borowsky
with the first Robert Strausz-Hupé Award

and featuring a keynote talk by

Robert Kaplan

Irvin Borowsky is the Founder/Chairman of both the American Interfaith Institute and the National Liberty Museum, hailed organizations which foster scholarly studies and initiatives within a framework of research, exhibitions, teaching resources, symposia, publishing and distribution of instructional materials.

Robert Kaplan, Senior Fellow, is a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and the Class of 1960 Distinguished Visiting Professor in National Security at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. His recent books include Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground (Random House, 2005).

Thursday, March 13, 2008

FPRI BookTalk

Throes of Democracy: America in the Civil War Era, 1829–1877 (HarperCollins)

sequel to McDougall’s Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History, 1585–1828

Walter A. McDougall
Co-chair, FPRI History Institute and Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania

Walter A. McDougall is Co-chair of FPRI’s History Institute for Teachers and Co-chair of FPRI’s Center for the Study of America and the West. He is also the Allyn-Ansin Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago in 1974 and is a veteran of the Vietnam War.

His books include The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age, which won a Pulitzer Prize; Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776; and, most recently, Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History, 1585-1828, the first volume of a trilogy on the history of the United States.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008 (rescheduled)

FPRI Asia Study Group

The Evolution of Capitalism and Innovation in China

Andrew Mertha Assistant Professor of Political Science, Washington University

Andrew Mertha is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Washington University. He is author of China´s Water Warriors: Citizen Action and Policy Change (Cornell University Press, forthcoming 2008) and The Politics of Piracy: Intellectual Property in Contemporary China (Cornell, 2005).

Saturday-Sunday, March 1–2, 2008

China Encounters the West: A History Institute for Teachers

cosponsored by University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Asia Program

China’s rapid economic development — made possible in part by institutions and policies it implemented based on its two-century encounter with the West — has led to its emergence as a great power. The PRC’s interaction with the West — and the U.S. especially — has become and will remain a central concern of international relations. FPRI’s Marvin Wachman Center for International Education is therefore pleased to cooperate with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Asia Program in sponsoring a weekend-long History Institute for Teachers that will provide teachers cutting-edge scholarship on the origins and current state of China’s encounter with the West.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

East Asian Security: A Trip Report

Arthur Waldron Lauder Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania
Senior Fellow, FPRI

To be held at the Union League of Philadelphia, the lecture will be given in two-parts:

• 4:00 p.m. Lecture (Part I)
• 4:45 p.m. Break with Refreshments
• 5:00 p.m. Lecture (Part II)
• 5:45 p.m. Q&A

FPRI Senior Fellow Arthur Waldron was a guest in Japan of the Foreign Ministry for two weeks in early December. During this time he met dozens of top officials in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense, as well as key journalists, members of parliament, and academics and researchers.

The highlight was an unusual visit to Okinawa and the Sakishima Islands, the chain that runs southwest of Japan almost to Taiwan—the island of Yonaguni is only sixty miles from the west coast of that country. The Japan Self Defense Forces also provided a Chinook helicopter and crew to take Dr. Waldron and his Japanese colleagues on a rare fly-over of the Senkaku islands, roughly 100 miles north of the Sakishima chain—also claimed by China, which regularly sends submarines and fighters into the area. Dr. Waldron also spent four days in Taiwan, where he met with top strategic analysts, and visited the Penghu/Pescadores Islands in the Taiwan Strait, historically the "key" to Taiwan itself.

Dr. Waldron's presentation will describe his visit and what he learned—with accompanying maps, photographs, and video, but more importantly, it will also present some new insights into the politics and strategic significance of the northeast Asian group of states: Russia. the Koreas, China, Japan, and Taiwan.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The Abraham Lincoln Foundation of The Union League of Philadelphia presents its 11th Annual Lincoln Symposium for educators and students

The Image of the Great Emancipator: Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Battle for Public Memory

Harold Holzer Co-Chairman, United States Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (1809–2009)

Co-sponsored by FPRI’s Wachman Center

• 4:00 p.m. Reception
• 4:30 p.m. Lecture
• 5:45 p.m. Optional tour of the Union League

Harold Holzer is one of the country’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era. He serves as co-chairman of the United States Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, appointed by President Clinton in september 2000, and elected co-chairman in 2001. Holzer has authored, co-authored, and edited 30 books. His book Lincoln At Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President (2004), won a 2005 Lincoln Prize, the most prestigious award in the field.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Discussion and Luncheon

Paul Hockenos Author and Political Analyst

Revisiting the German Autumn: Leftwing Terrorism in Postwar Germany

Co-sponsored by The Philadelphia Eric M. Warburg Chapter of the American Council on Germany

Paul Hockenos is an American author and political analyst based in Berlin who has written about Germany and Southeastern Europe since 1989. His articles and commentaries have appeared in World Policy Journal, The New Statesman, The Nation, The Boston Review, Internationale Politik, Die Tageszeitung, Christian Science Monitor, as well as many other periodicals in Europe and North America. He is the author of Free to Hate: The Rise of the Right in Post-Communist Eastern Europe (1993), Homeland Calling: Exile Patriotism and the Balkans Wars (2003) and Joschka Fischer and the Making of the Berlin Republic: An Alternative History of Postwar Germany (2007). From 1997–99 he worked with the OSCE in Bosnia and in 2003-04 for the UN in Kosovo. Since then, Hockenos has been a visiting fellow at the American Academy in Berlin and the European Journalism College at the Free University Berlin. He is presently editor of Internationale Politik-Global Edition.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Members’ Seminar

The Iranian Nuclear Challenge

Efraim Inbar Director, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University (Israel)

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

FPRI Study Group on America and the West

Conservative Versus Liberal Views of Europe and the EU

Ronald J. Granieri

Ronald J. Granieri is Assistant Professor of Modern European History at the University of Pennsylvania. He teaches courses on European International Politics and Diplomacy, with special attention to the period after 1945. He received his Ph.D. (1996) from the University of Chicago, and has also studied at the Universities of Heidelberg and Cologne in Germany. He is the author of The Ambivalent Alliance: Konrad Adenauer, the CDU/CSU, and the West, 1949–1966 (Berghahn Books, 2003).

Monday, February 4, 2008

FPRI BookTalk

Faith, Reason, and the War against Jihadism

George Weigel

George Weigel is a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. His other books include Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (HarperCollins, 1999), The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God (Basic Books, 2005), and God’s Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church(HarperCollins, 2005).

Monday, January 14, 2008

FPRI Members’ Briefing

Hizballah’s Military Strategy

Andrew Exum, King’s College, London

Andrew Exum served in the US Army from 2000-04, leaving active duty as a captain. He was decorated for valor in 2002 while leading a platoon of light infantry in Afghanistan. Subsequently, he led a platoon of Army Rangers into Iraq in 2003 and into Afghanistan in 2004. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he has lived in Beirut, where he studied at the American University. He is author of This Man’s Army: A Soldier’s Story from the Front Lines of the War on Terrorism (Gotham, 2004).

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Members’ Briefing on Iraq

Iraq War Update

Trudy Rubin Columnist, Philadelphia Inquirer