Chartwell Lecture Series: “Churchill and Crisis Diplomacy: The Cold War Years”
The Chartwell Lecture Series at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, a JMC partner program, in collaboration with the Union League of Anchorage, a nonprofit educational foundation, and the Alaska Association of Scholars, will be hosting Klaus Larres for its 3rd Chartwell Lecture of the 2019-20 year.
Professor Larres will explain how the Cold War years escalated East–West tension to dangerous levels. As leader of the opposition (1945–51) and after his return to 10 Downing Street as peacetime prime minister (1951–55), Winston Churchill recognized these existential dangers. Beginning with his 1946 “iron curtain” speech in Fulton, Missouri, he drew global attention to the looming threat and pointed out how to alleviate Cold War tension. Especially after Stalin’s death in March 1953, Churchill took the initiative to create a more stable and peaceful world. The lecture will describe his attempts to persuade the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, as well as the new leadership in Moscow, to reopen and conclude the Potsdam Conference to terminate the Cold War at an early stage. Churchill’s postwar crisis diplomacy was his attempt to be remembered not only as Britain’s wartime premier but also as a successful Cold War peacemaker.
Monday, December 2, 2019 • 7:30 PM
UAA/APU Consortium Library, Lewis E. Haines Meeting Room, 307 • University of Alaska, Anchorage
Free and open to the public
Click here to learn more about the Chartwell Lecture Series >>
Klaus Larres is the Richard M. Krasno Distinguished Professor of History and International Affairs at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Last year he was counselor and senior policy adviser at the German Embassy in Beijing, where he has served as a visiting professor at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University. He is author of Churchill’s Cold War: The Politics of Personal Diplomacy (Yale University Press, 2002). He is a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University and previously held the Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Learn more about Klaus Larres >>
The Chartwell Lecture Series, named after Winston S. Churchill’s house near Westerham in the English county of Kent, focuses on a wide variety of subjects in the liberal arts. The Series, organized by the Department of Political Science, features lectures on a wide range of subjects in the humanities and liberal arts. Lectures are free and open to members of the general public. Staffing is provided by Kathleen L. Behnke in the Dean’s Office of the College of Arts and Sciences. The Department of Political Science gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Union League of Anchorage, thanks to support from the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America’s Founding Principles and History through a grant from the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust, and to its students in the UAA Political Science Association, who help to organize the lectures.
Learn more about the Chartwell Lecture Series at the University of Alaska >>
This event is supported by Jack Miller Center’s Pacific Northwest Initiative: Advancing Education in America’s Founding Principles and History. Thanks to the generous grant from MJ Murdock Charitable Trust, JMC is working with faculty to organize exciting campus events in the region. The Initiative also provides programs, conferences and other opportunities for professors in the PNW—all to help them make a difference in the education of their students.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates about lectures, publications, podcasts, and events related to American political thought, United States history, and the Western political tradition!
Want to help the Jack Miller Center transform higher education? Donate today.