Join us for an evening of discussion with special guest
KATI MARTON
Award-winning former NPR and ABC News correspondent
Preceded by
UNA-NYC Annual Meeting
This Book Talk is held in conjunction with
the Institute of International Education
6 - 6:30 p.m. | UNA-NYC Annual Meeting
6:45 p.m. | Presentation
7:30 p.m. | Reception and Book Sale
Institute of International Education
809 United Nations Plaza, Kaufman Center
New York, NY
ADMISSION
UNA Members: FREE
UNA Student Members: FREE
Guests and Non-Members: $15
The Unquiet American is both a tribute to an exceptional public servant and a backstage history of the last half-century of American foreign policy.
Richard Holbrooke, who died in December 2010, was a pivotal player in U.S. diplomacy for more than forty years. Most recently special envoy for Iraq and Afghanistan under President Obama, Holbrooke also served as assistant secretary of state for both Asia and Europe, and as ambassador to both Germany and the United Nations. He had a key role in brokering a peace agreement among warring factions in Bosnia that led to the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995.
Widely regarded to possess one of the most penetrating minds of any modern diplomat of any nation, Holbrooke was also well known for his outsized personality, and his capacity to charm and offend in equally colossal measures. In this book, the friends and colleagues who knew him best survey his accomplishments as a diplomat, activist, and author. Excerpts from Holbrooke's own writings further illuminate each significant period of his career.
This evening our special guest will be Mr. Holbrooke's wife, author and journalist Kati Marton, who will share her memories about her late husband's life, career and their marriage together.
Guest Speaker
KATI MARTON
Kati Marton, an award-winning former NPR and ABC News correspondent, is the author of several books, including Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages That Shaped Our History (2002), a New York Times bestseller.
Born in Hungary, she has combined a career as a reporter and writer with human rights advocacy. From 2003 to 2008 Marton chaired the International Women's Health Coalition, a global leader in promoting and protecting the health and human rights of women and girls. From 2001 to July 2002 Kati Marton was Chief Advocate for the Office of the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict at the United Nations. Marton has been formerly the director, the chair and currently is a board member of the Committee to Protect Journalists, an organization founded to monitor abuses against the press and promote press freedom around the world.
She also serves on the board of directors of the International Rescue Committee, Human Rights Watch, the New America Foundation and the Central European University, where she was last year's graduation speaker. Her parents Ilona and Endre Marton were the last two independent journalists reporting from behind the Iron Curtain in the 1950's and have been arrested as spies by the Communist government. Upon their release the family moved to the United States. Her memoir entitled Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America (2009), described how her parents survived the Nazis in Budapest and were imprisoned by the Soviets, and was a National Book Critics Circle finalist.
Since 1980, Marton has published several other books and contributed as a reporter to ABC News, Public Broadcasting Services, National Public Radio, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The Times of London, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, and The New Republic. Among her other titles are: The Great Escape, Wallenberg, The Polk Conspiracy, A Death in Jerusalem, and a novel, An American Woman.
Marton attended Wells College in Aurora, New York, the Sorbonne, and the Institute des Etudes de Science Politiques in Paris. She earned a B.A. in Romance Languages and a M.A. in International Relations from the George Washington University. She has also received two honorary doctorates: one from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island in 2000 and another from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York in 2009. Winner of a George Foster Peabody award for a documentary on China, Marton has joined the faculty of Bard College and Al Quds, a Palestinian University in East Jerusalem.
Mother of a son and a daughter, Kati Marton lives in New York.
Acclaim from the Reviews
"A spectacular series of essays retracing Holbrooke's life and career through the eyes of those who knew him best. Power's essay alone is worth the price of the book; reflecting on her mentor, Power is affectionate, exasperated, and eloquent, catching Holbrooke at his most intense, most personal, and most effective… A collection of writings that reminds those who knew Holbrooke what they have lost and allows others to learn something about one of the great men of our time." Foreign Affairs
"This is an important, timely and imaginative book, a collection of essays from friends, colleagues, journalists and academics who knew Holbrooke well and observed him closely. The book takes readers through a smart and fast-paced history of half a century with Holbrooke — who, like some diplomatic Zelig, was always on the crucial scene." Washington Post
"Together, the essays paint a portrait of a trailblazing diplomat and highly charismatic man… The Holbrooke that readers see in these pages is direct, sometimes blunt, but always moving forward…"The Unquiet American'' is a powerful memorial to this unique, indefatigable, and exceptionally capable diplomat." Boston Globe
"A must-read for anyone interested in public service and U.S. foreign policy. Holbrooke is best known as the architect of the Dayton accords, which brought a tenuous peace to the Balkans. This book is a reminder of how much more he accomplished in his 45-year diplomatic career." Financial Times
"Derek Chollet and Samantha Power have assembled in "The Unquiet American" a festschrift-like tribute to Holbrooke that includes excerpts from his own writing. The result is a fascinating book." New York Times Book Review
"Remarkable… captures the essence of the Holbrooke persona that dazzled the foreign policy community with its drive, intelligence, wiliness, humor, intense curiosity and characteristic dominance… What is unique about this book is that the editors have also matched every professional recollection with a set of articles written by Holbrooke himself commenting on the same subjects, almost as if Holbrooke intended to mark down his own personal account of past events for posterity." Huffington Post
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