Please join us for this special Book Talk presentation hosted by the United Nations Association of New York
Kati Marton
Author of The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel
Franz Baumann (Moderator)
Visiting Research Professor, New York University
Graduate School of Arts and Science
Program in International Relations
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Wednesday | 19 January 2022 | 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. EST
In THE CHANCELLOR, a definitive biography of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, author Kati Marton details the remarkable rise and political brilliance of the most powerful and elusive woman in the world.
The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel is at once a riveting political biography and an intimate human story of a complete outsider — a research chemist and pastor’s daughter raised in Soviet-controlled East Germany — who rose to become the unofficial leader of the West.
Kati Marton set out to pierce the mystery of how Angela Merkel achieved all this. And she found the answer in Merkel’s political genius: in her willingness to talk with adversaries rather than over them, her skill at negotiating without ever compromising on what’s most important to her, her canniness in appointing political rivals to her cabinet and exacting their policies so they have no platform to run against her, the humility to allow others to take credit for things done in tandem, the wisdom to stay out of the papers and off Twitter, and the vision to take advantage of crises to enact bold change.
This captivating portrait shows a woman who has survived extraordinary challenges to transform her own country and return it to the global stage. Timely and revelatory, this great morality tale shows the difference an exceptional leader can make for the greater good of a country and the world.
And now, in the twilight of Chancellor Merkel’s remarkable career, bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and connected political insider Kati Marton’s biography couldn’t be better timed.
We are pleased to announce the upcoming appearance of Kati Marton for a special event on January 19 to discuss her book — which is newly published, and available for interested readers anticipating this event. She will be joined by Franz Baumann, NYU Visiting Research Professor. Dr. Baumann’s review of the book can be read here.
UNA-NYC hosted Kati Marton previously in 2012, when she discussed a book about the legacy of her late husband, Richard Holbrooke.
Note: readers can purchase the book here
From reviews of The Chancellor
“Kati Marton has come closer than anyone to unlocking the mystery of Angela Merkel, the most important politician of the twenty-first century.”
— George Packer, National Book Award-winning author of Last Best Hope
“Kati Marton’s cogent and penetrating portrait of Angela Merkel will change our understanding of the most powerful woman in the world. With a rare grasp of the subtleties of global politics, Marton explains how an unassuming science PhD from East Germany emerged to save the Western Alliance. It’s a thrilling tale, skillfully told.”
— Jonathan Alter, New York Times bestselling author of His Very Best
“To understand how we can protect democracy in an era of populist and authoritarian upheaval, we need to understand Angela Merkel. Kati Marton has produced an intimate, insightful portrait of an extraordinarily private leader, who, in her quiet and determined way, made Germany the economic and moral leader of Europe.”
— Walter Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of The Code Breaker
“Impressively researched… with deftly drawn depictions of Ms. Merkel’s early years, personality and daily working life, depictions made all the more interesting by how little most of the public knows about what makes Ms. Merkel tick.”
— The Wall Street Journal
“This is the best English-language biography of her rise from a tough and traditional family, through her career as a physical chemist in communist East Germany, to her current renown.”
— Foreign Affairs
“Fascinating. For anyone who thinks they know a lot about Angela Merkel; for anyone who knows nothing about Angela Merkel—pick up this book and do not put it down until the very last page.”
— New York Journal of Books
KATI MARTON
Kati Marton is the author of True Believer: Stalin's Last American Spy; Enemies of the People: My Family’s Journey to America, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World; Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages That Shaped Our History; Wallenberg; The Polk Conspiracy; and A Death in Jerusalem. She is an award-winning former NPR and ABC News correspondent. She was born in Hungary and lives in New York City.
FRANZ BAUMANN
Franz Baumann spent most of his professional life as a United Nations official. His last assignment was as Special Adviser on Environment and Peace Operations with the rank of Assistant Secretary-General. He left the United Nations at the end of 2015 and joined New York University in 2017 as a Visiting Research Professor. He is a Senior Fellow and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. Baumann started his career at the European Parliament in Luxembourg in 1976 before transferring to the European Commission in Brussels and eventually joining Siemens in Munich. In 1980 he joined the United Nations, where he remained for more than three decades, serving in four cities on three continents in a variety of functions. In 2009, he was appointed as Assistant Secretary-General for the General Assembly and Conference Management at the headquarters in New York. His doctorate in Political Science (African Studies) was obtained from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.