between, those colleagues and him about these issues that you covered in the book? well, england sure was lot, of course, balance between england and the united states on this as there had been earlier with abolition and oh, the first part of the book is the connection closely connected. those two movements were the abolition movement and the women's rights movement. so. the pankhurst ran things differently. alice paul and certainly not north did not copy them, but that was going on simultaneously in other countries around world. but i, i actually did not see anything beyond what north like catalog, which was the progress that was made around the world. so they would in their magazine,

they would highlight it, look at what's happening around the world but beyond that, i don't know that there was deep collaboration. thank you so much. okay. email sogood evening. thank you all for coming. i appreciate very much always the attendance our our regulars. those are new to the baker institute new to these gatherings. we do these with individuals we believe provide insight opinions views, thoughts not just on

today's world, but tomorrow's and yesterdays in a way that stimulates thought. this is what baker is about. about nonpartisan discussion of issues that are of importance to texas, to the united states and to the world. we appreciate very much the of those who are members of our roundtable. we encourage those of you who not to look into joining as say on pbs. it is viewers you. it is audiences like you that make programs like this possible. and so we thank those of you who are those who are not. please look into assisting us. we have a very, very interesting speaker this evening. we have professor michael, who is the christian herder, significant in and of itself, professor emeritus of american policy at the johns hopkins

school of advanced international science. professor, you have served for three years as the associate director of the aspen institute, congressional project on american relations with the former communist world, a topic that was and of exceeding interest and importance in policy. your prolific author. you have written describing transformative ideas and most recently transformative personalities on the global scene. now as i said, we look here at the institute at the present analysis policy recommends for challenges facing local national internal national audiences. but also look at the past because the informs the present both the future and your book. professor titans of 20th century addresses fundamental what's the

impact of individuals on history and why. we're going to talk about the factors that go into the ability and particularly in the 20th century of individuals to have a transformative impact on history on our history and on our future. how does that happen? why does it. what does it look like for future? you've chosen a number of significant individuals you believe fit that pattern of transfer actors on the 20th century stage. woodrow wilson, lenin. hitler. churchill franklin roosevelt. gandhi. david ben-gurion and mao zedong. very different ideologies coming from very different systems, very different histories. but all trans formed. and we're going to be talking about why you chose them, how you would them. we've got some specific questions on some of those folks. and then of i will ask you to take a look to the present and into the future on what will

prove to be the transfer formative titans, if there are any of the 21st century. i'd like start off of by welcoming you to the institute but by asking you a question. titans of the 20th century. why did the 20th century produce these titans and how did you define the characteristics that made them subjects for your book. well thank thank you ambassador satterfield. thank you all for coming. thanks to the baker institute for making this possible. and to our c-span viewers for tuning in, i wrote this book for two reasons. first, i wanted to remind or in some cases, in form readers

about just who these titanic were in their day. they dominated the world's headlines, but time passes and memories fade. the oldest of them, woodrow wilson, died 100 years ago, the youngest mount's age to almost 50. so this is a kind of refresh course on the men who made the first half of the 20th century. but the second reason for writing this book, and it goes directly to your question that i wanted to address a question that in the study of the past is, on the one hand, unavoidable but on the other hand, can be answered definitively. and that question is what difference. do individuals in history history is made by a combination or, a collision between, powerful individuals and broad

historical forces. these are eight men. and incidentally they're all men because in the first half of the 20th century, all the leaders were men. the careers of golda meir, indira gandhi and margaret thatcher came later. but these men all made a massive on their times. and they did so for a particular. they all lived at a time when it was for individual to make broader deeper differences on their times and, in their times than ever before since. and the reason is that this was the period of the two great world wars the great depression

and decolonization. and cumulatively these epical events as a kind of cosmic bulldozer knocking down existing political and economic and provide the opportunity to build and in some cases radically different structures in their places. that is what each of these eight men did. they did it because of their personal characteristics. they were deterred and they were in some cases, charismatic. they had political ideas and were filled with a burning desire to implement them. but they could not have done. they did had they not in this particular a time of great upheaval, a time when were political and economic all over the world crises that were

global, near global in scale that allowed the bulldozer. you spoke transformative possibilities and then the individuals that rose to it. so looking at the individuals you chose one question loomed large. we talked about this before we came in. woodrow wilson, why? a very question. it's especially a good because wilson as policymaker was basically a failure. his great policy initiative was to be one of the major architects of the political settlement. after world war one, and the chief goal of that settlement was to prevent another war. yet 20 years later, world war two broke out. moreover, woodrow wilson believe

that the key to preserving peace was the internal organization that he chiefly designed known as the league of nations. but he was not able persuade the united states senate to give the united the legal basis for joining the league of nations. the united states did not join. so as a policymaker was a failure. so how can be considered a titan? it's because of political ideas that he placed on international stage. ideas about the proper organization of the world, international politics and internal national economics. these ideas became closely identified with them that they came to be known wilsonian ism, wilsonian ism consists of the idea national self-determination

in the proposition that sovereign states should be based on nations than being multinational empires as they were for most of history up to world war one. wilson also strongly believed in organizations among states, democracies within them limitations on armaments and free trade, all as methods for ensuring peace. ideas made. their deepest impact in his own country. in this one, the united states. and while american foreign policy has not always been wilsonian and in some ways has not been wilsonian at all. wilsonian ideas have always been part of american foreign policy as ambassadors is a senior american and policymaker knows very well. it's also the case that other

countries have adopted wilsonian ideas. i think it's fair to say that countries of the european union practice, or at least profess wilsonian ideals. and these ideas have become increasingly important over time. so it's to say, i think, that the hundred years since woodrow wilson's death in 1924 can be called the wilsonian century. and that's the in which he ranks as a titan of the 20th century. as we look at the other leaders that you selected for this book, they did indeed have for good or bad. and it's a mixed record, a transformative effect upon the world, not just their countries not just their region. but as you look at this interplay of individual, the

historical, the context of the times that allowed them to do these things, i asked you, the great question. it's a question, folks debated. as long as historiography has has been out there. is it the times that create the man? is it the man that shapes the times? is it a wholly subjective case by case balance? where do you come out? i come out that it is a subjective case by case balance. i don't think that there is any proposition theorem that tells you where the balance is properly struck between the impact of great history oracle forces and of initiative. and each of these chapters. each of the eight chapters in the titans. the 20th century is divided into sections. the life, the times leadership. and then there's a fourth

section called the personal imprint. and in that section i attempt to give my personal judgment on just what happened as a result. this man of what? this man did that probably would not happened had he not occupied the place that he did at the time that he did. and let me add another factor in historical causation, and that is contingency chance. a good example of. this is hitler. hitler came to entirely legally. in 1933. in 1932. there were fewer than five elections in germany. and in the first three, hitler's nazi party increased its vote total. but in the last two its vote decreased. hitler in, the nazis seemed to be on the decline. well, in january 1933, there

came occasion for forming a government. there had to be a coalition. the conservative parties in the german parliament were the majority, but in order form a a majority government, they to include the nazis and hitler made, a condition of his party joining the coalition that. he become chancellor. the conservative political leaders agreed because they thought that they could easily control him no more. miscalculation was ever made. he came to power and immediately imposed a brutal dictatorship. some of the very politicians who had put in office were executed. but had they not had the impression or the illusion that could control hitler, the nazi

era? and i would argue and do argue in the titans of the 20th century world war two would not have happened. we're all wilsonian now have been. and maybe we're keynesians. maybe we're all keynes peons. but many of these individuals did not have their policies adopted by opposition. their followers continued in many cases, the but it wasn't the blair phenomenon. the labor party adopted made the norm in britain. revolutionary policies. how do you deal with this issue of the titan comes onto the scene, shakes up everything is a bulldozer, but it's others. nothing opposition that normalizes but others who then take over to try to put order

onto the scene. each chapter ends with section on the legacy of the individual who's being profiled and. that section assesses, how much of what the man did during his time in power lived on after him? and this is a very mixed bag in some ways, the most successful. leader of the 20th century was lenin, because without lenin would have been no russian revolution. when lenin was sent back by the germans to saint petersburg, russian capital, in the midst of world one, in order to undermine on the russian war effort, immediately started agitating for his group of radical marxist known as the bolsheviks to seize power. is his colleagues thought he was

crazy. they refused to do it, but he kept pushing and agitating and lobbying and insisting. and finally, 1917, the bolsheviks take power in petersburg in conditions of absolute chaos. later, lenin said that they had found power lying in the streets and, had simply picked it up. and then, of course consolidated in a bloody multi year civil war until. they became the rulers of what had been tsarist multinational empire. well, all of that is to say that without lenin there have been no russian revolution. without the russian revolution, there would been no chinese communist revolution, indeed, no communism. communism, a major feature of the 20th century, would not existed. but for lenin it's also perhaps adding that by some estimates communism caused, the premature deaths of 100 million people. so lenin's influence cannot be

said, have been benign. on the other, there's hitler. he has a distinction among the eight all virtually everything said, did or built was discarded, discredited and repudiated almost immediately after he died. he left no living legacy at all. so when it comes to legacies, these individuals fall along spectrum. some of some of them had their deeds live on. some of them, their deeds were erased almost immediately after they disappeared. was kane's transformative? was he a titan? kane's was extraordinarily important. and the 20th century was very important. century in ways other than political. there were great leaders of economics. there were great leaders in science.

there were scientific revolutions and technological revolutions that have trance formed our lives. but i decided to narrow my focus to political leaders because they have the most image yet large scale effects. but that's not to say that. these were the only eight people who exercised powerful influence in the 20th century or before or afterward. i'm going to ask you to take a walk back to the century before your book. i'll give you some bookends. napoleon and bismarck, maybe metternich in between. would you make the same arguments for the bulldozer impact of historical events, transformative figures for the 19th century. i would not make the same argument because the 19th century did not experi anything like the upheaval of the 20th.

with one exception. and that was the wars of the french revolution, which began in the last of the 18th century and continued on. until 1850, and those sometimes called the napoleonic were the greatest wars that the world had ever seen. napoleon's army was, the largest field armies since, the days of the roman empire. and it it created enormous upheaval after that. there was a peace made at vienna in 1815 and europe relatively stable thereafter. there were wars, including the wars of, german unification over which bismarck. but they weren't as disruptive and therefore not as transformative. but the napoleon ionic wars were and napoleon made broad social reforms and changed the map of europe in ways that endured.

so i would say that by my standard it's napoleon bonaparte probably qualifies as the first titan maybe titan of the 19th century certainly titan of the 19th century. and by my by my definition probably the only one. let's look forward into this century. where do you see the not individual characters but the potential have a titan? what's needed, what's present or not? what is needed is extraordinary social, political and, economic disruption. and disruption is almost always painful and destruct. so it's not something should look forward to. we have important leaders the 21st century and we had

important leaders in the second half of the 20th century about whom i'm now writing a sequel to the titans of the 20th century. but they didn't make as broad and an imprint on their time and on our times as did the people that i profile in this book, because they didn't have the same they didn't have the same political, economic and, social vacuums. and it's not necessarily a bad that they didn't or that their success there's now do not. i end the book with a quote from a play by the german the german communist playwright playwright bertolt brecht. his play was galileo. and in it he has galileo's servant, saying to the great scientist, unhappy the land that has heroes, to which galileo replies, unhappy be the land that needs them. i think we're probably better

off without transformative or the bulldozer, the cosmic crises. yes, that such individuals to come. those have not been happy ones. exactly. so great men, great times, subjective analysis of which shapes the. they're both necessary for transformation to occur. no. one theory, as i understand your view, governed all of this, it's a mix of. the two combined. i go a reminiscence. i passed you my time with bill clinton. clinton read biography and read biography voraciously. and when i asked you know what, why do you do this? he said, because i can understand history better through individuals. well, it's.

that all of these eight were men of ideas and they were all voracious reader. and most of them were very regular writers. most of them wrote a very great deal. of course, churchill's a writer who won the nobel prize for literature. david ben-gurion kept a diary that he filled in every day. he wrote lots of articles. lennon was, a very close student of marx. he translated much of marx into russian. he wrote his own treatises on marx adapting it to what. he claimed were russian. the collected works of mohandas gandhi run a hundred volumes. so reading, writing ideas. these were what made the titan's titan it. they weren't readers of because

they were too engrossed in their own time. in the case of lenin believed that the body of doctrines had been handed to them was the scientific truth, and they had to study it. but what they knew about great leaders and ben-gurion particularly churchill, he lived for part of world war two in great britain. he admire the kind of leadership that churchill gave the british people. and i think it's pretty clear from reading what he wrote that he modeled his own leadership in israel's time of crises, its war of independence in 1948 on what had observed of winston churchill. churchill is a living a living figure today, not only because of his great his great achievement of preventing hitler from world war two.

churchill and the british held out after the fall of france in june of 1940, when britain, the only country anywhere opposing nazi germany, and while britain and churchill could not have won the war themselves, they could have lost by themselves, and they would lost it if they had accepted hitler's offer to keep in being britain's overseas empire in for britain dropping out of the war. right. important in the british cabinet wanted to accept this offer. churchill resisted and by eloquence and his determination kept britain fighting until the united states and the soviet union, the war and germany defeated. so he performed a priceless to the world because. without him, the nazis would have won hitler's war and europe and much of the world would have

experienced a prolonged period, unparalleled barbarism. so to say that, winston churchill saved civilization is not an overstatement. but in addition to that, wilson would cite. churchill is an example human qualities that we all value today. one is eloquence. another persistence. churchill had many in his life, but he always picked himself up, dust himself off and kept going. he made many mistakes to an third and most important. churchill had courage. he had physical courage. during world war two, he kept his old service revolver with him, and he made it clear that if the germans succeeded in invading, he wasn't going to flee. he was going to go down fighting and take as many him as he could and an interesting thing that i discovered about for d-day, the great anglo-american canadian landing in europe on the beaches

at normandy in northern france. churchill had a raid to be aboard a ship that was going to be firing the french coast at german. and he had to be talked out of it. he wanted to be in the middle of the action even though he was prime minister. and what turned the trick in talking him of it was a letter from king king george the sixth, which i quote in the book. he said, i'm naval man. i was in the last war. there's nothing i'd like better than to go into now. but i can't because the king. so why should you be able to do what i'm unable unable? let ask you about an individual. was not in your book teddy roosevelt. why not. well, teddy roosevelt was a very important president, but he didn't live at a time of

extraordinary crisis and plasticity and the flexibility of the world. he was important because in a way he defined the modern presidency. he made it the center the action, as somebody once said, of him, he wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. it was extraordinary really important, he began the the program of social reform known as progressive ism that woodrow wilson carried on and that franklin delano roosevelt continued. that was important for the united states it was a reform not a revolution. his impact on the world was much smaller. he he was a participant in the spanish-american war that led to the american conquest of cuba and the philippines and the first formal american.

so teddy roosevelt in some sense the chief american imperialist, he wasn't president during the war. he was a colonel leading his brigade known as the rough riders. and the charge at san juan. but the american empire was really not very important, even in american history. it was rather small in last very long. americans very interested in it. american officials, including roosevelt, after he became president, couldn't wait to get rid him. so teddy roosevelt was not a titan because he didn't have the chance to become a titan, had politics gone differently. he would have been president during world war one or might have been president during world war one. he was very much in favor of america intervening. he died soon after the war ended of a heart attack. but interestingly, in the history of american foreign

policy in this i i document in my previous book called the four ages of american foreign policy, which is a history of american foreign policy from 1765 to 2015. theodore and woodrow wilson are antipodal. they're opposites. roosevelt is the great apostle of power of the balance of power, power politics of what he. of what. what we call realpolitik. the opposite to that wilsonian ism. realism or realpolitik to do with interests and with power. wilsonian sometimes called idealism, has to do with ideas is and with america and values. the first is to protect american. the second seeks to promote values. theodore roosevelt was really the apostle, the first tradition, although he was aware

of the second. wilson the apostle of the second. although he was very much aware of the first. and when it comes, one of the titans in the titans of the 20th century, franklin roosevelt, he managed to synthesize the too in a way that other presidents have followed. franklin roosevelt followed in the footsteps of his distinguished cousin theodore roosevelt, but also in the footsteps of woodrow wilson. he served throughout world war as assistant secretary of the navy. so the seventh of the two traditions re reaches its zenith in the in the presidency of franklin roosevelt and where are we today in 2024. synthesis a renewed tension between the two motivations. we're in tension between two motivations, as are all democracies. all the crises would like to

promote democracy abroad and for good reason. we believe that every other country. that's not a democracy would be better off being a democracy and we can make a good case for it. but our efforts to make countries democracy especially the the the last decade of, the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st have not been entirely political culture gets in our way. so we americans are condemned to be the bearers of these two traditions. to juggle them. to combine them. to leave one behind. when we have two or when we can. but ultimately to come back to best synthesis that we can make. we've had henry kissinger here multiple times. we had martin indyk writing about kissinger's middle east experience in terms of kissinger's very realist view.

don't go for grand transformations. go for the best stability you can achieve. for the longest period of time, you reach for the grand prize. you more often than not. not only fail, but you make things worse. how do you place kissinger in this balance squarely? in the theodore roosevelt tradition? he and richard nixon were the most realist we have had in the postwar period. but to show you the of woodrow wilson kept i think woodrow wilson's desk in the oval office he believed woodrow wilson although he was not a wheel and he was an anti wilsonian. henry kissinger first book his doctoral dissertation the world restored is about the peace conference at vienna following, the great napoleonic wars, which aimed not at transformation but

at stability and. kissinger is very approving of the statesmanship of those who made the peace. vienna. i have always read that book as an indirect of woodrow wilson for trying to go further and yet realize i'm settling for what you get. try not trying to beyond what seems feasible, the time also has its after all for david ben-gurion and for the jewish in israel and mandatory palestine by the british. a jewish was simply a dream. a dream up by a viennese journalist, theodor herzl, although with deep roots in the jewish tradition, the bible and gurion left poland at the beginning of the 19th century and came to this swampy, malaria ridden, unproved piece of territory to build a state. there very few people thought

was at all realistic and in fact, at least half of those who came to israel in those years and thereafter left gave up as hopeless. but ben-gurion persisted. and the result today what one might call the miraculous of israel, a flourishing and thriving country, and the only in the middle east. so kissinger in realism its place and avoids overreach. it avoids schemes that cannot be fulfilled it avoids trying to do good and doing harm instead. but it's not the right approach. before we turn to questions from the audience, which i very much want to have, i'm going to ask you one personally of great interest me containment as a strategic approach and i don't mean necessarily passive contained it, but containment in all the dimensions it can take is that realism is it realism

designed to make a more ideal stick view or structure possible? how you interpret it? well, that's a very important question. and it us to a major point about american foreign policy. where real and wilsonian ism conflict america has to make a choice and it's sometimes difficult choice but where they are in harmony where a policy both american interests and promotes american value in that case and there such cases you get very strong public for those policies and public support for any foreign policy is the key make one known for a successful policy. it happen that world war two and the cold war provided occasions

for promoting both american interests and american values. america was prevent in germany in the in world war two and the soviet union in the cold from dominating the european. that's a geopolitical but in both cases america was also democracy. britain and, france in the first case, western europe in the second. and it's no accident that those are conflicts that have enjoyed broader and more prolonged public support in the united states than any other in history. this and division are normal in american wars. dissent is as american as apple pie. there is no war in america history that has not ever cloaked serious dissent except world war, where the dissent came before war with the with

the america first movement and some qualifications. the war and the reason for that is that these are these were conflicts that conform to the ideas of theodore roosevelt and, of woodrow wilson. agree. but i would argue to you that the events of 88, 89, 90 and 91 in europe and in the former soviet union led both policymakers policy, formers, intellectual and the public to look for swift and decisive resolutions to strategic impatience rather than strategic patience in a world in which contra. to francis fukuyama history didn't end as a challenge. well, i add one so self-promoting note those events

led america to believe that the whole world was ready for democracy and the united states could promote it. and that effort is a theme of my 2016 book, mission failure america and the world in the post-cold war era. so you for giving i give you the lead in mentioning. i give you the lead in questions the audience. i would ask that you keep your comments in the of a question as brief as possible to give time for the answer all the way in the back. you know why have oh crises and since world war two what are the forces and the actors that instability. the world has been more stable we've had the state as the widely accepted form of government. we have not had major world war.

do i think in no part to the existence of weapons and we have not had an economic down as long and as series is as the great depression and that has a variety of causes the closest we've come perhaps is the financial crisis of 2008 and there are many books that describe how policymakers prevented that, hurt that downturn from coming from becoming a great depression. so the answer to your important is it's part leigh. the nature of the world in which we have lived since 1945 and partly policymaking that has been the whole successful in avoiding catastrophe. this time you. would you excuse me gentlemen to

the back memorable welcome to the great state of texas. thank you for your scholarship ambassador satterwhite. thank you for your contributions to, the diplomacy for this country and thank you for everything you're doing, for this wonderful institution, the great man, churchill's a pessimist, sees difficulty in every opportunity of an optimist, sees opportunity in every difficulty from. the vantage point of a historian from the vantage point of a diplomat. where do you see the world today? where are we going today? well, i'll defer to you today. we have both and difficulties. fortunately, balance, although in some ways unforeseen intimately we do not

opportunity. and difficulties of the same as the people i describe in the titans the 20th century confronted. i would would simply add the work of diplomacy see is to find the opportunities not necessarily to advance into the green but to prevent at times a slide the red to mitigate harm and provide for a better a chance at a different different circumstances to move forward. you all want to make progress. sometimes that's not possible. then your challenge is to contain harm mitigate risk. wait for a carefully and observe better moment. but that takes to use one of my favorite phrases strategic and it requires public support for that patience that has been too

frequently in the last decades. very, very short supply over on this side. so i go back to the 19th century of the great progress. it was a list of one. i wonder if you would have would include if you were doing that book and you would have included lincoln, maybe because what he did, the united states didn't affect the whole world. but in some respects his fraying of the satellites did that open up the whole idea of diversity to the world which never really existed in the world until the slaves were emancipated by lincoln? well, lincoln ranks with george washington and franklin roosevelt as one of america's three greatest presidents. and it's no that each of them was the commander chief of one

of america's three most important wars. what lincoln did, extraordinarily important. the united states. it's also true that the idea of equality became more important in 20th century than than it was in the 19th and the 19th century. and this was true even of as great a man, as churchill, the 19th century, believe that there was a natural hierarchy in the world, among peoples and nations. and that's one of the reasons, although certainly not the only reason, that churchill was a passionate believer in the british. roosevelt was not a believer in the british empire. so they had deep differences, but they managed to resolve them, for the sake of their common cause in defeating nazi germany, imperial japan, lincoln believe that what he was doing,

which was initially and overall not freeing the slaves, but the union, he thought that that was important the whole world because he thought that the american experiment would decide whether would survive and thrive in the world. so he thought that a failure in the civil war would deal deathblow to democracy the world. in my previous book, the four ages of american foreign policy, i do have a chapter on the civil war, and i argue you that the battle of gettysburg was a turn in point in world history, although not understood as such at the time for the following reasons. the battle of gettysburg made it clear that lee's strategy for victory would not succeed that is rampaging the north and forcing the north to sue for

peace. that meant the united states would be one country, not two or even several. and it was a united america that came to rescue twice in the half of the 20th century and preserved european democracy without a united america in the history of europe in. the first half of the 20th century, in the half covered in the titans of the 20th century, would been entirely different. but of course, it was only the next century that demonstrated that was not remotely what lincoln in mind. questions from the side. yes. yeah. a great deal of the disruptor that you've discussed pertaining the 20th century. and then even as you look ahead prior to that have had to with, you know, political structures

within a country and those which are internationally oriented, what we're looking at right now and we see to some extent a trend of populism and, you know, within certain countries and then some degree of disintegrate we should have international constructs and then also some rebalancing. but are there other disruptors we to be watching for, for example, energy disruptors, technological disruptors. you know, we've seen health systems disruptors in that vein. what other that may be not political, could also drive the next titans and maybe they come from other spaces of society. the world all the time. and the rate of change has accelerated in our time, in part the rate of change depends in large part not exclusive, but in large part on technological innovation and technological has speeded up, in part, there are

more engineers and scientists work now than ever before. so there are sources of change. and you've mentioned some of them and a political system and individuals have to be able to adapt those changes. that's on now and it will go on probably at a greater pace in the future. what we don't have are the massive disruption zones of all of society that we found in the first half of the 20th century. and for that we should be grateful. yes i mean, how would david ben-gurion, any of the other titans you talk about if they were the prime minister of israel instead of netanyahu, how would they handle the conflict with hamas in. well, we don't know that. question we don't know the answer that question obviously, i, i have no doubt that any

israeli prime minister would have this war and would have waged more or less as it has waged, despite the fact that there are criticisms of the prime ben-gurion had to particular feature of his strategic outlook, that are arguably relevant, although we don't know whether they would be relevant or how they would be relevant. first been. gurion wanted. the nation state, the jewish people to be composed of -- in the war of independ dence in 1948 and 1949. the the the israelis started out terrible beleaguered underdog, but they improved their military performed and they gained the upper hand and generals came to and said, you know, we can

conquer the entire west bank and said, no, he wanted to maintain the border that was drawn by the un partition resolution. of 1947 and that was known as the green line. it's that many the arab inhabitants of mandatory palestine left in 1948 but they left because there was a war which the arabs had started and they left because their leaders had told them they just left for a few weeks, they'd be able to come back and seize the property. the --, whom they would easily well, they were not defeated. and after the war, ben-gurion decided that he would not admit all of those who had fled, and many of them went gaza, and it's their descendants live there now. so ben-gurion now in 1967, ben-gurion was still alive when

israel captured the territories in the six day war, which was also forced upon them that ben gurion had declined to control to decades before and at that point, ben-gurion said he would keep all of jerusalem and give all the rest back. he then made a few more. he suggested that he might keep golan heights. he died in 1973. we don't really know what he would have done, but of course, in the immediate aftermath of the war, the israelis offered negotiate and the arab in a summit at khartoum in sudan. now war zone in 1967 issued their famous three no's no recognition, no negotiation, no compromise. the second then gurion doctrine conceivably relevant here. i don't think we can say with any confidence what he would have done was he in sadler in

israel up to the borders and he believed in preemptive attacks. he said we are a small country. we afford to fight wars on our territory. we have to fight them on other people's territories and 56 war of which he was in charge was fought that way. the 67 war was also fought that way because it was his deciding, such as moshe dayan, who were in of this war or these two wars, because israel's also in the north as well as hamas. the south came because, they were allowed to build up massive military forces and bury them underground, whether bigger syrian would have tolerated a up that goes back almost two decades. we don't know but it was certainly can't to what his

doctrine was at the birth of the state i would only add to to a counterfactual what would ben-gurion do in today's israel putting aside all the factors michael you reference the domestic picture of israel today would be to ben-gurion a modern free market entrepreneurial state where the vestiges of the socialist system he prized so much the connection to the land that he would see in the most of him all of that beginning with begin's election in 77 if you have to pick a date begin transforming. that was his vision society and recall then gurion thinking when state was created about the ultra-orthodox haredim was the goal the state was to provide a dignified funeral for shtetl jewelry. well, that that's an point it

would israel would not be recognizable or in some ways pleasing to ben-gvir and now he was a socialist and this is not socialist country. that said however i conclude in my section on his legacy in the chapter in the titans of the 20th century on ben gurion that in a profound sense this is his state in two ways. first, his great insight to tional contribution was israeli army. he more responsible than anyone else for building it? he understood earlier than virtually anyone else that the war would cause britain leave palestine, that that would create the opportunity for a jewish state to to that they would proclaim it, but then they would have to defend it against arab neighbors. and for that, they need real

army, which the jewish had not had for almost two millennia. he built army, and without that army, there be no israel. the second way in which think his legacy lives is that his goal to paraphrase the title of a recent biography of ben-gurion by an israeli tom segev was a at any cost. and there is a state and that would have meant ben-gurion that his life's was fulfilled. yes, i may have missed it, but i would appreciate your elaborate on the role of mao zedong as a titan of 20th century mao, the supreme ruler of china from the communist of china. until in 1949, until 1976.

and main feature was a pinch for unleashing massive destructive campaigns across the whole country in the 1950s. he the great leap forward whose goal was for china to catch up and with and surpass the west in industrial production. it didn't succeed, but it created the worst in the history of a country with many famines. then in the 1960s he promulgated what he called the the great proletarian cultural revolution. this was designed overcome what he saw the chief obstacles to the achievement of gen u. and communism as he defined in china. one of the principal obstacles he identified was the communist

party of which he was the head, and he instituted a savage purge of its upper ranks, including the murder of many people with whom he'd worked for decades. mao's famine. the famine of great leap forward cost an estimated 40 million lives and millions more died in his other campaigns and in his normal methods of governance, all of which make mao tse tung. as i say in the chapter on mao, which is the last chapter of titans of the 20th century, all of which make mao the greatest mass murderer in history. yes, yes, yes. thank you for remarks today. two of your eight are americans

and basically we're an island nation. two friendly neighbors. so we get to choose what we get involved in and whether it's world or post-colonial. asia. are there any neglected lessons from these a that might help us as we enter into other external involvements in what remains of this century? well, i draw two lessons. one is historical, and that is there is always a balance. great historical forces and the individual and. what the balance is depends upon the particular circumstance. the second lesson that i draw from the titans of the 20th century is that the conditions make for titans are not necessary rarely desirable. that's the of the galileo quote at the end of the book. but you me the opportunity to

make a particular point that is there were three people or three groups of people whom i did not include who think could well have been included among the titans of the 20th century, one coming from the part the world for which you had responsibility. ambassador satterfield is mr. kamel, known as editor father of the turks. he was the founder of modern after world war one. and in many against the wishes of the powers and he created, the first ethnic nation state in the middle east, second in the 20th century by far the most important asian country was japan. and yet there's no individual japanese leader represented the eight titans of the 20th

century. and the reason is that i couldn't find an individual who stood out this is a collective society and although i have found a japanese titan for second half of the 20th century, yoshida shigeru, who was prime minister for most of the period between 1945, in 1953, i didn't a comparable japan is titan which means that as a history of the 20th century the titans of the century is in that sense incomplete the third obvious candidate who was left out was stalin stalin construct the institutions of the soviet that the chinese imitated and that the cubans and vietnamese and other communist countries duplicate. it and stalin was the commander in chief of the red in world war two and the red army more than any other army. one that war because it took

much higher casualties. you know opposing the germans than did american or british or french armies. why did i leave out style? well, in the chapter on lenin in the titans of the 20th century, i argue that everything stalin did had its roots in either lenin's policies or his teachings. stalin used to say as a way of justifying his position as the head of communist party of the soviet union, that he was the best leninist. and i believe that he was. i believe that he followed faithfully in lenin's footsteps. for example, it was lenin who decided that the party, the communist party, should have supreme and uncheck challenged power, and that no one could ever object what it did in style and course carried that out. it was lenin who his own secret

police force, which stalin expanded it of course there was a secret police force under the czars as well, but it wasn't as large or as brutal as the various in of the soviet police force. and it was who first began to practice terror. the mass killings of people just for the sake of the rest. lenin was an enthusiastic terrorist, and of course, stalin took it to a much wider. but then he had more power he had more people he could kill. ambassador, professor, thank you for everything you've done. and you talk about i to leap into two things you mentioned voracious reading and you just replication. so focus in particular on hitler. i'd like to know what your thoughts are on what hitler

hitler replicates learn about for united states in india as it relates to the slave trade and slavery in the united states. well hitler didn't pay much attention to the united states. he certainly believed in hierarchy. he didn't think much about africans or african-americans. he never any contact with them. but he certainly believed that the germans were the master and had the right to govern all europe. he believed that slaves were lesser people. interestingly, the people for whom he had the greatest were the british, and he i think regarded what planned to do and did for a few terrible years in europe as being comparable to britain's overseas empire in india.

but he was much more brutal than the ever were in the 1930s when the when the indian independence movement led by gandhi was gathering. hitler said to a british official, you should just shoot 100 shoot gandhi. that'll keep rest quiet. but the british do that and couldn't do it. they didn't do it because they were committed to the rule of law even in their empire and when in my chapter about mohandas gandhi, i point out that for all the last months of his life he was a citizen of the british empire, the british empire was extremely important to him. it allowed him become a lawyer in london. it allowed him to perfect the techniques of political non violence in south africa where he lived for two decades and. his technique of nonviolence resistance was successful of who

the british were. he knew how far he could push the british. he knew that the british would not do to indians what hitler did, to the people that he conquered. and he and nehru both being british trained, absorbed political values. they believed in british democ, but they also believed that britain should apply the principles of democracy to india and give india its independence. and ultimately it did where hitler did take inspiration from the united states, was in his anti-semitism, he famously kept a picture henry ford on his desk. he believed that ford, the american system, which was riddled with anti-semitism along, with racism in the early part of the 20th century, showed that what he planned, what

wished to do would not be opposed because it had essentially been already as part of the culture and society of the united and those of you who have the chance. yad has a fascinating exhibit on ford american anti-semitism. early part of the 20th century, hitler and nazi is a very important point. let let me add a couple points about hitler. when i wrote the chapter about hitler, the titans of the 20th century, there were two question lines that i wanted to answer for myself. and i write a lot about them without coming to a conclusion. one answer was what was his what was the source of his obsession? --. he had a cosmology he had a view of the world as, a kind of crude darwin in struggle among nations with the -- have a nation. they weren't powerful. so his anti-semitism didn't fit

into his other ideas. the historian john who wrote a very good book, the hitler of history spec slate and it said it was only speculation, didn't have any evidence for it that hitler hated his father. well, that we know that that wasn't speculation and that hitler may have suspected that his father part jewish and thus he hated the part of himself that might have been jewish. well, i couldn't i couldn't answer the question. i the answer has to do with the psychopathology, an individual and the psyche shut down. and in april of 1945. never to reopen i think we'll never know the other question about hitler that i asked myself that i wanted find out was why did the germans follow him? faith even slavishly at enormous cost to themselves, even when they knew that the cause was

hopeless. i write in the book about suicide on april 30th of 1945. he had been living in a bunker under the chancellery in berlin since january. the germans, the russians the red army were within the city limits of berlin they were shelling the reich's which was reinforced hitler gave instruct that after he committed his body should be he didn't want the russians get it so he committed suicide about midday and in bunker were young people who his staff people in their twenties they in they got the body they brought it out to the garden they burned it along with the the is is well, she's called his mistress. she was really his girl friend, eva braun, and she married her at the just before their their joint suicide the the young

people burned both bodies and they stayed to make sure that bodies turned to ash all the while was incoming from the russians who were bombing the reich's chancellery repeatedly. so they were risking their lives in order to carry out his instruction. when they carried it out, they went back into the bunker, and then they fled they weren't committing suicide. they were to escape. they weren't so devoted the cause that they were willing to die for it what could cause people to do that? i don't know. thank you. i was happy to hear a mention of gandhi simply because it was all of this has been by people who murdered many many people who were violent. what the trigger for gandhi to begin his program of peace.

it's a very interesting. gandhi was a person some whose deepest beliefs had do with individual conduct with how a person should lead or her life, which made him as much a religious as political figure you some of his some of his ideas personal conduct such celibacy haven't really caught on but gandhi gandhi was a very religious person he was not conventionally religious he was very interested in christianity. he had a great appreciation of jesus. he very interested in hinduism in in in in islam, although he didn't know a whole lot about it, but he was very sympathetic to islam he believed that he was almost buddhist in his sense,

that an individual had defied and a way of being trained of inner peace. and he thought a lot about that and he wrote a lot about that. he founded what, he called ashrams, which were really so that people could live a lifestyle where they could they could they could achieve kind of calm that he in. so i think that his use of nonviolence was rooted in his religious although ecumenical religious temperament where he developed of the techniques of nonviolence was south africa he went to south africa south africa originally because he didn't succeed as a lawyer in bombay. and i describe all of this in the chapter on gandhi, the titans of the 20th century. and he went there to represent muslim business man who needed somebody who could speak both english. he could. and gujarat, which was his

native language and their native language. he he stayed there for two decades. and he became a of the indian community. the indian community was against because white south resented fact that indians would come become very effective business people and put them out of business. and so the south african government made it very difficult for indians to stay in africa. and gandhi objected, tried to get them to change the legislation and and when they didn't, he developed these techniques of nonviolence violence certainly would not have succeeded. the indian whom he was helping wanted to part of south africa. they weren't to overthrow the government. so his combination of his religious temperament, his circumstances in south africa and the goals that he was pursuing led to these

nonviolence techniques which he then transferred to india. he returned to india during world one until the end of, world war one, the indian national movement as the congress movement consisted of a handful wealthy indians, mostly high hindus, whom the could easily manage. gandhi made it a mass and he got hundreds of thousands of people to take part in his campaigns of nonviolent resistance, which called satyagraha truth force. so he made it a mass movement and that ultimate ali forced the british give up that and the weakening impact that world war two had had. it's also it's true that the american civil rights movement adopted gandhi's techniques. martin king made what i think he

described as a pilgrimage to india, but the most important link between the civil rights movement and gandhi was bayard rustin, who knew a lot about gandhi and india who was a pacifist and who called himself explicit lee a a although the civil movement and you could say opposition in eastern europe in 1989 and even the south african movement, at least as embodied by mandela, not all of the of the south african resistance, but adopted gandhi and techniques but when gandhi was in south africa at the end of the 19th century, in the first part of the 20th century, he he worked on behalf of the of ethnic indians. he did nothing for the africans there, barely even noticed them. they really weren't a factor in

his worldview at time michael and gentlemen we can carry this on but our author has books to sign. yes i will i will sign any book you give me, preferably if it's mine. so please buy a copy of the titans of the 20th century and i will inscribe. michael, thank you so much. thank you. thank you all all.