The Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program: Recent and Upcoming Events

At this California event, Barry Lynn, a New America Foundation senior fellow, discussed his ground-breaking book, End of the Line: The Rise and Coming Fall of the Global Corporation.

We are used to thinking about the effects of globalization and outsourcing in terms of winners and losers: how these trends harm certain classes of American workers or benefit consumers. Lynn goes beyond the stereotypical debate about whether this economic revolution is good or bad to expose the dangerous underside… more

The New America Foundation is pleased to invite you to the Washington, D.C. Premiere of a new documentary film by Rob McGann. This screening of "American Zeitgeist: Crisis and Conscience in an Age of Terror" will be followed by a panel discussion on terrorism featuring New America's Peter Bergen and William Rosenau of the RAND Corp.

The film explores the underlying fractures of the War on Terrorism from 1979 to the present. Interviewing over 40 leading voices from… more

This important New America conference features some of the nation's foremost economic experts. Video of the complete event is available at right.

Two new papers from our Economic Growth Program are being released as well -- one detailing the larger growth agenda, the other focused on developing America's Heartland. Both documents are now available below.

The New York Times Sunday Book Review calls The American Way of Strategy: U.S. Foreign Policy and the American Way of Life “a shrewd and plausible critique of the drift of policy since the cold war" and Publishers Weekly praises it for “exposing the folly of the current imperial strategy” of the United States. Michael Lind, Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation and author of The American Way of Strategy, recently appeared on CNN’s " more

In 2002, only months after the Taliban was dispersed throughout Afghanistan, Rory Stewart set out in the footsteps of 15th century emperor Babur to traverse one of the most rugged and conflict-ridden countries in the world. He recounts this epic journey in The Places In Between, a New York Times best-selling book that describes harrowing scrapes with nature while negotiating passage through de facto Taliban-ruled land.

Stewart, a resident of Scotland, has written for the New York Times Magazine and the… more

We are pleased to invite you to a discussion with David Kimche, who served for many years as Deputy Head of the Mossad and later became Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Relations. Mr. Kimche will be discussing the current situation in Israel and the region, the prospects for a peace move, a new round of conflict or something in-between. Kimche brings his wealth of experience and depth of analysis to an assessment of the options for a comprehensive… more

In January 2006, the Herbert Quandt Foundation started a new project on the future of the middle class in Germany and beyond. Part of their Politics & Society program, the project reflects the perception that there is a looming tectonic shift in the composition of German society that is of increasing public concern. The widespread perception of a decline of the “middle class” and the end of German “middle class society” is connected with the perceived threat of a more… more

With the possibility of Congress changing hands this January and the start of the race for the next White House, what kind of foreign policy will guide the country post-Bush? Recently, a debate about what U.S. foreign policy should look like has begun in earnest among realists, idealists, multilateralists, and nationalists.

This event, sponsored jointly by the New America Foundation and Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, brought together thinkers from across the political spectrum to debate the future of American… more

The safety net on which Americans once relied is fast unraveling. With retirement plans in growing jeopardy and health coverage eroding, more and more economic risk is being shifted away from government and business and onto the fragile shoulders of the American family. And no matter how well educated and hard working, many Americans fear that bankruptcy could be just one unexpected lay off or health crisis away.

In The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health… more

David Corn of The Nation and Michael Isikoff of Newsweek will discuss their new book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War.

Hubris explores the inner workings of the current administration and the deliberations behind the decision to begin the Iraq War. After brief presentations by the authors, a Q&A will be moderated by New America Schwartz Senior Fellow Peter Bergen.

In a lunchtime forum jointly sponsored by The New America Foundation's American Strategy Program and The Century Foundation's Prospects for Peace Initiative, Robert Malley, Middle East and North Africa Program Director at the International Crisis Group, presented and discussed the report, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: To Reach a Lasting Peace.

This new International Crisis Group report looks at the lessons from the conflict this summer, the last six years of regression, and the United States' political absence from the process.… more

Alastair Crooke is considered the foremost international expert on Hamas. As EU Security Envoy under Javier Solana during the Second Intifada Crooke mediated with all the Palestinian political and armed factions, including ending the Bethlehem Church of the Nativity siege. Crooke worked for more than two decades in the broader Middle East region, including as a member of the Senator Mitchell Fact Finding Committee and a negotiator between Israeli security forces and Palestinian factions such as Hamas. … more

Ethical Realism: A Vision for America’s Role in the World is a cogent, refreshing, and striking new prescription for America’s foreign policy. The co-authorship of the book marks a truly rare coming together of two minds from different parts of the political spectrum. Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman, who differ considerably over domestic policy, are united in their belief that the foreign policy being advocated by both the Republican and Democratic wings of the U.S. establishment is bankrupt.

Lieven… more

At this launch event for Sidney Blumenthal's new book, How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime, New America's Whitehead Senior Fellow Michael Lind introduced Blumenthal, and moderated the Q&A that follows. Video of the event is available at right.

Review Excerpts:"Sidney Blumenthal...understands the workings of the White House. His recently published book, How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime, collects his columns from November 2003 to April 2006, and they provide week-by-week freeze-frames of… more

In his new book, Looming Towers: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Lawrence Wright uses his unique brand of journalism to paint a vivid portrait of the global history and specific people and events that culminated in the 9/11 attacks on America. The book focuses on four key figures to guide its narrative: the two leaders of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri; the FBI’s counterterrorism chief, John O’Neill; and the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince… more

At this recent New America event, Flynt Leverett, former National Security Council Senior Director of Middle East affairs and Middle East expert with the current Administration's Policy Planning Staff, outlined a compelling vision for a U.S. recovery strategy for the region in this special event with American Strategy Program Director Steven Clemons.

The discussion elaborated on Leverett's cover story for The American Prospect, which makes a cogent case for the return of a realist-based… more

Paycheck paralysis, rising cost of living, out of control student loans, credit card debt... many young workers, even those with college degrees, are facing hard economic realities. Is it just perception, or is it really tougher being a 20- or 30-something today than it was 30 years ago? Americans of all ages face an era of economic insecurity. This uncertainty is now so common that younger generations know it as part of the experience of being American. But it hasn't… more

Thanks to the digital revolution, people, companies, and industries can increasingly choose to locate anywhere, making regions with a good quality of life increasingly attractive as economic centers of activity. In this regard, the Heartland, that vast expansion of America from the Middle West to the Mountain West, has enormous underutilized and untapped resources -- from low housing costs and good schools to a favorable business climate, plentiful land and other natural resources -- that make it a potentially attractive… more

While many books have been written on post war Iraq, only a handful have been by writers who speak Arabic and --until now--none by a writer who has had direct access to the insurgents. Nir Rosen’s new book fills this important gap. The New America Foundation is pleased to host the first DC event featuring Rosen, author of the forthcoming In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq.

The title of… more

Central America is the oldest region of U.S. external influence. It also remains one of the most important for U.S. interests. The history of American involvement in the region is a mixed one, with great successes, but also tragic failures and crimes. In recent decades, American supremacy has been maintained, the Communist threat in the region defeated, and forms of democracy established. But the cost to the peoples of the region, and to the international reputation of the U.S., has… more