Please join us for this Book Talk presentation hosted by the United Nations Association of New York
Ambassador Marie L. Yovanovitch (Ret)
Former United States Ambassador to Ukraine
Author of Lessons from the Edge
Ramu Damodaran (Moderator)
Board Member
United Nations Association of New York
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Wednesday | 29 June 2022 | 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. EST
Register for this event here
LESSONS FROM THE EDGE is an inspiring and urgent memoir by the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine — a pioneering diplomat who spent her career advancing democracy in the post-Soviet world, and who electrified the nation by speaking truth to power during the first impeachment of President Trump.
Marie Yovanovitch was at the height of her diplomatic career when it all came crashing down. In the middle of her third ambassadorship — a rarity in the world of diplomacy — she was targeted by a smear campaign and abruptly recalled from her post in Kyiv, Ukraine. In the months that followed, she endured personal tragedy while simultaneously being pulled into the blinding lights of the first impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump. It was a time of chaos and pain, for her and for the nation.
Yet Yovanovitch was no stranger to instability and injustice. Born into a family that had survived Soviet and Nazi terror, she first saw the corrosive effect of corruption in Somalia while cutting her teeth as a diplomat in the male-dominated world of the 1980s State Department. She was an eyewitness to the 1993 constitutional crisis in Russia and the street fighting in Moscow. And she rose to the top of her profession in the crucible of the former USSR, where she saw how President Vladimir Putin adeptly exploited corrupt leaders in neighboring countries and undermined their developing democracies.
Nowhere was Putin’s aggression clearer than in Ukraine, where Russia meddled in elections, launched cyberattacks, peddled misinformation, illegally annexed Crimea, invaded the Donbas, and attacked Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea. But when Yovanovitch was abruptly recalled from her post and Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, found himself set upon by Trump, it became clear just how dangerously close to the edge America itself had strayed.
Through it all, Yovanovitch tirelessly advocated for the Ukrainian people, while advancing U.S. interests and staying true to herself. When she made the courageous decision to participate in the impeachment inquiry — over the objections of the Trump administration — she earned the nation’s respect, and her dignified response to the president’s attacks won our hearts. She has reclaimed her own narrative, first with her lauded congressional testimony, and now with this powerful memoir: the dramatic saga of one woman’s role at the vanguard of American foreign policy during a time of upheaval, for herself and for our country.
We are pleased to announce the upcoming appearance of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch for a special event on June 29 to discuss her memoir — which was just published this spring, and which interested readers anticipating this event can purchase and read using the link below. She will be interviewed by UNA-NYC Board Member Ramu Damodaran.
Note: readers can purchase the book here
From reviews of Lessons from the Edge
“A brilliant, engaging, and inspiring memoir from one of America’s wisest and most courageous diplomats—essential reading for current policymakers, aspiring public servants, and anyone who cares about America’s role in the world.” — Madeleine K. Albright
“A superbly crafted and intimately revealing self-portrait of a true hero of American diplomacy.… Wherever her diplomatic missions took her, Yovanovitch epitomized foreign service office philosophy, hewing to the principle of representing American ideals and policies with dignity and integrity.” — Booklist
“Diplomats are the military’s indispensable partners—the protectors of the protectors. In this riveting, fast-paced account of her thirty-three years in the U.S. Foreign Service, Marie Yovanovitch reveals how our diplomats serve as the front line of our national security. She convincingly argues that active U.S. engagement overseas makes for a better world and a more secure America, and she sounds the alarm about the threats we face from an increasingly emboldened Russia. Lessons from the Edge is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding how best to advance U.S. interests abroad.” — General John Abizaid (US Army, Ret.), former commander of US Central Command, and former senior defense adviser to Ukraine
“At turns moving and gripping and always inspiring … a powerful testament to a uniquely American life well-lived and a remarkable career of dedicated public service at the highest levels of government.” — Fiona Hill, New York Times best-selling author of There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century
“Absorbing… During the [impeachment] hearings, Yovanovitch sounded calm and self-assured, but in her book she describes how scared she was…. That I arrived at this moment in the book with my heart in my throat speaks to how skillfully Yovanovitch narrates her life story." — Jennifer Szalai, New York Times
"Subtle and engaging ... Yovanovitch emerges from this narrative as a model of what America should want in its diplomats: courageous, steadfast, removed from politics to the point of naivete." — David Ignatius, The Washington Post
AMBASSADOR MARIE L. YOVANOVITCH (Ret)
Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University. Previously, she served as the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine (2016-19), the Republic of Armenia (2008-11) and the Kyrgyz Republic (2005-08). She also served as the Dean of the School of Language Studies at the Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State and as the Deputy Commandant and International Advisor at the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, National Defense University. Earlier she served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, where she coordinated policy on European and global security issues. Before that, she was the bureau’s Deputy Assistant Secretary responsible for issues related to the Nordic, Baltic, and Central European countries.
In 2003-04, Ambassador Yovanovitch was the Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Prior to that, she was the Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine. Within the Department of State, Ambassador Yovanovitch has worked on the Russia desk, the Office of European Security Affairs, and the Operations Center. She has also worked overseas at the U.S. Embassies in Moscow, London, Ottawa, and Mogadishu.
A Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Ambassador Yovanovitch has earned the Senior Foreign Service Performance Award eight times and the State Department’s Superior Honor Award on nine occasions. She is also the recipient of two Presidential Distinguished Service Awards and the Secretary’s Diplomacy in Human Rights Award.
Following her retirement in 2020, Ambassador Yovanovitch received the Trainor Award for Excellence in the Conduct of Diplomacy from Georgetown University, the inaugural Richard G. Lugar Award from Indiana University, the 2020 PEN/Benenson Courage Award from Pen/America, the Morgenthau Award from the Armenian Assembly of America, the American Spirit Award for Distinguished Public Service from the Common Good, and the Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government.
Ambassador Yovanovitch is a graduate of Princeton University where she earned a BA in History and Russian Studies. She studied at the Pushkin Institute and received an MS from the National Defense University.
RAMU DAMODARAN
Ramu Damodaran joined the United Nations Department of Global Communications in 1996; his responsibilities in the Department have included oversight of relationships with civil society, the creative community and celebrity advocates, publications (including as Chief Editor of the UN Chronicle), the Dag Hammarskjöld Library and the United Nations Academic Impact which he was asked by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to devise and lead. He has also been secretary of the United Nations General Assembly’s Committee on Information since 2011. He completed his career with the United Nations in May 2021.
His earlier Secretariat assignments included the Departments of Special Political Questions and Peacekeeping as well as speechwriting in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General. He was spokesman for the “Durban Review” human rights conference in 2009 and has fulfilled a range of speaking engagements on behalf of the Organization over his career.
As a member of the Indian Foreign Service, where he was promoted to the rank of ambassador, he served as executive assistant to the Prime Minister of India between 1991 and 1994 and earlier in the Ministries of External Affairs, Home Affairs, Defence, Planning and Human Resource Development.
Before joining government service in India, he worked as a television news anchor, radio producer and host, and university correspondent for All India Radio and the Hindustan Times Evening News. His radio feature on university students in Delhi won the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union award. Ramu also served as President of the United Nations Staff Recreation Council.Ottawa, Canada.