Inventing Iran; Inventing Iraq: Britons and Americans in the Middle East
SHAREEN BLAIR BRYSAC (Author and former producer at CBS News) and KARL E. MEYER (Former senior affairs writer and foreign correspondent for The Washington Post and The New York Times)
Date/Time: 2nd October 2008, 17:30
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In this lecture, Shareen Blair Brysac and Karl E. Meyer will explain how Britain and America changed regimes, implanted thrones and reshaped two oil-favoured nations. They will discuss key characters such as Gertrude Bell, A.T. Wilson, General Edmund (Tiny) Ironside, and Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of Theodore and saviour of the Shah.
Shareen Blair Brysac is co-author with her husband, Karl E. Meyer, of the acclaimed Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia (Counterpoint 1999, republished with a new introduction by Basic Books, 2006). In addition, she is the author of Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestra (Oxford, 2000) which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A former producer for CBS News, she is the recipient of several Emmys and the Peabody Award. Articles that she has written have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Lear’s Archaeology Magazine and Military History Quarterly.
Karl E. Meyer, who has edited World Policy Journal since the year 2000, is an experienced writer and commentator on international affairs, a senior foreign affairs writer and editorial board member of both The New York Times and The Washington Post, the author of a dozen books, and a visiting professor at Yale, Princeton, Tufts, and most recently Bard College. Born in Madison Wisconsin, he earned his BA at the state university and his MA in public affairs and PhD at Princeton University. He has been a visiting fellow at Oxford University and Berlin's Institute for Advanced Study. He is also a fellow of Davenport College, Yale University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.