IES Blog

On February 28, Timothy Scott Brown, IES Senior Fellow and Professor of History at Northeastern University, presented a talk based on his book, The 'Global 1968' at Fifty: What it Meant and What it Means, to a crowd of thirty community members and students. He discussed the global revolt of 1968 on both sides of the Cold War divide, explaining that it is possible and important not only to think at the local level but to look at the global framework and the movement of ideas which shaped the events of 1968. This makes the term “Global 1986” relevant in scholarship and enables us to understand that many “smaller” 1968s also occurred.

On February 21, 2018, IES Visiting Scholar and GHI-West Fellow Albert Manke (Bielefeld University) gave a lecture entitled “Small states and Secondary Actors in the Cold War: Entanglement between Europe and Latin America” to an audience of sixteen students, faculty, and community members. He began by stating that new Cold War studies have turned to personal accounts instead of accounts of violence and conflict. This continued development in Cold War studies is seen in entanglements of history, cultural impact, and the inclusion of the global south.

On February 14th, Henry Thomson gave a presentation in Moses Hall entitled “Food and Power: Regime Type, Agricultural Policy and Political Stability.” Thomson is Assistant Professor at the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University, and his research focuses on the political economy of authoritarianism and democratization. His expertise and interest in the field led him to investigate the impact of authoritarian regimes on agriculture, which he shared with a passionate crowd of students and faculty members.

Max Gruenig visited the Institute on February 12, 2018 to give a talk titled “EU Climate Leadership Post Paris” to an audience of 16 students and community members. As President of the United States Ecologic Institute, Gruenig briefly presented on the Ecologic Institute’s functions and its current major project: Energy Future Exchange (EFEX), which seeks to create transatlantic dialogue for civil society on climate change, and to foster connections between the United States and the European Union in regards to climate action.