The World Beyond the Headlines — Autumn 2009

The World Beyond the Headlines series is a collaborative project of the University of Chicago Center for International Studies, the International House Global Voices Program, and the Seminary Co-op Bookstores, and is funded in part by the McCormick Foundation. Its aim is to bring scholars and journalists together to consider major international issues and how they are covered in the media.

Speakers at past World Beyond the Headlines events include former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, journalists William Langewiesche and James Fallows, economist Jeffrey Sachs, and South African AIDS activist Zackie Achmat.

The current schedule is posted quarterly here on the CIS website. Questions, comments, or suggestions for future World Beyond the Headlines events can be sent to jbender@uchicago.edu.

* View the upcoming Winter Quarter schedule... *

  • International House Home Room, 1414 E. 59th St.Thursday, October 8, 2009 • 6:00 PM

    Five to Rule Them All: The U.N. Security Council and the Making of the Modern World

    David Bosco

    "A must for those who want to know how the Council, despite its many failures and shortcomings, keeps coming back as the one place where we are, can, and should be working to resolve the world's major problems of peace and security."

    —Thomas R Pickering, former US Ambassador to the United Nations

    From the Berlin Airlift to the Iraq War, the UN Security Council has stood at the heart of global politics. Part public theater, part smoke-filled backroom, the Council has enjoyed notable successes and suffered ignominious failures, but it has always provided a space for the five great powers to sit down together. Five to Rule Them All tells the inside story of this remarkable diplomatic creation. Drawing on extensive research, including dozens of interviews with serving and former ambassadors on the Council, the book chronicles political battles and personality clashes as it opens the closed doors of its meeting room. What emerges here is a revealing portrait of the most powerful diplomatic body in the world.

    David L. Bosco is Assistant Professor in the School of International Service, American University. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he is a former Senior Editor at Foreign Policy and has been a political analyst and journalist in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and deputy director of a joint United Nations-NATO project in Sarajevo. His writings have appeared in a variety of publications, including the Washington Post, Slate, the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal-Europe, The American Prospect, and the American Scholar. He has provided commentary and analysis for CNN, National Public Radio, Voice of America, and other outlets.

  • International House Assembly Hall, 1414 E. 59th St.Thursday, October 29, 2009 • 6:00 PM

    The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East

    Neil MacFarquhar

    "Neil MacFarquhar is that rare and wonderful thing, a Middle East correspondent who not only speaks Arabic but also grew up in the region. This experience infuses his book -- the product of 20 years of reporting -- with the wit, insight and eye-rolling exasperation of a near-native."

    —Wendell Steavenson, Washington Post

    The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday reveals a cross-section of unsung, dynamic men and women pioneering political and social change. There is the Kuwaiti sex therapist in a leather suit with matching red headscarf, and the Syrian engineer advocating a less political interpretation of the Koran. MacFarquhar interacts with Arabs and Iranians in their every day lives, removed from the violence we see constantly, yet wrestling with the region's future.

    Neil MacFarquhar has been the United Nations bureau chief of The New York Times since June 2008. From November 2006 to May 2008, he was a Times national correspondent, based in San Francisco. He was the Middle East correspondent for the paper, based in Cairo, from 2001 until 2006.

  • International House Assembly Hall, 1414 E. 59th St.Tuesday, November 17, 2009 • 6:00 PM

    Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization

    Lester Brown

    "How to build a more just world and save the planet... We should all heed Brown's advice."

    —Former President Bill Clinton

    As fossil fuel prices rise, oil insecurity deepens, and concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new energy economy is emerging. Wind, solar, and geothermal energy are replacing oil, coal, and natural gas, at a pace and on a scale we could not have imagined even a year ago. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, we have begun investing in energy sources that can last forever. Plan B 4.0 explores both the nature of this transition to a new energy economy and how it will affect our daily lives.

    Lester R. Brown is founder and President of Earth Policy Institute. He is considered a pioneer of the concept of environmentally sustainable development. His books have been published in more than forty languages. He has been honored with numerous prizes, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the United Nations Environment Prize, and Japan's Blue Planet Prize.

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