Panel: Manuscript Review, "One Nation Under God," by Kevin Kruse

The intellectual centerpiece of the the Miller Center Fellowship Spring Conference, the manuscript review continues our tradition of considering an important forthcoming book by a leading scholar of history or social science. This year, Princeton University’s Kevin Kruse will present his manuscript One Nation Under God: Corporations, Christianity and the Rise of the Religious Right.  Providing commentary will be a panel that includes Reihan Salam of National Review, Darren Dochuk of Washington University in St. Louis, and Michael Lienesch of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Panel: A Conversation with Ryan Crocker and James Schlesinger

RYAN C. CROCKER, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan, and JAMES R. SCHLESINGER, who served as both secretary of defense and energy, will take part in a wide-ranging conversation on foreign affairs covering a broad range of topics including the Middle East and Asia, defense and diplomacy, and the state of American politics.  The session will be moderated by Miller Center director and CEO GERALD L. BALILES, and a question and answer period with the audience will follow.

Ryan C. Crocker is the 2013 James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center. He holds the diplomatic rank of career ambassador, the U.S. Foreign Service’s highest rank. He served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012 and U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009. He previously served as U.S. ambassador to Pakistan from 2004 to 2007; to Syria from 1998 to 2001; to Kuwait from 1994 to 1997; and to Lebanon from 1990 to 1993.

James R. Schlesinger served as secretary of defense under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and as the nation’s first energy secretary under President Jimmy Carter. He also held leadership roles with the Central Intelligence Agency and the Atomic Energy Commission during a distinguished career in public service. Schlesinger taught economics at U.Va. from 1955 to 1963.

Limited public seating for this event will be available on a first come, first served basis.

Forum: Lincoln's Code: The Laws of War in American History

JOHN FABIAN WITT is professor of law at Yale Law School and author of Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History; Patriots and Cosmopolitans: Hidden Histories of American Law; and the prize-winning book, The Accidental Republic: Crippled Workingmen, Destitute Widows, and the Remaking of American Law. In 2010, Witt was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Before returning to Yale, he taught legal history at Columbia and served as law clerk to Judge Pierre N. Leval on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. A book signing will follow his Forum. With support from the H. F. Guggenheim Foundation.

Forum: The End of the American Century?

A professor of international relations and history at Boston University, ANDREW J. BACEVICH is the author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War,  The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, and American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U. S. Diplomacy. Bacevich has held fellowships at the American Academy in Berlin, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Forum: Klansville, USA: the Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan

DAVID CUNNINGHAM is associate professor and chair of sociology at Brandeis University’s Social Justice & Social Policy Program. Cunningham has worked with the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Mississippi Truth Project. His current research focuses on the causes, consequences, and legacy of racial violence. Cunningham’s most recent book, Klansville, U.S.A.: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan, is the first substantial history of the civil rights-era Ku Klux Klan’s rise and fall. A book signing will follow his Forum. With support from the H. F. Guggenheim Foundation.

Panel: A Memorial Service to Celebrate The Life of Kenneth W. Thompson

Please join the family and friends of Professor Ken Thompson to share your memories in the John W. and Rosemary P. Galbraith Forum Room at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, 2201 Old Ivy Road, Charlottesville, Virginia.

The Thompson family invites you to join them at a reception in the Miller Center's Scripps Library immediately following the service. 

Reservations are not necessary for the memorial service; seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. If you plan to attend the reception, please respond to Shirley Burke at sburke@virginia.edu or 434.924.6049.

Memorial gifts may be made to the Miller Center Forum Endowment Fund, at the request of the Thompson family, to support an enduring legacy of Mr. Thompson's work.

Information about donating to the Miller Center is at millercenter.org/foundation/millercenterfund. Please designate your gift "in memory of Kenneth Thompson" in the "Special Instructions" box on the online gift form.

Panel: The U.S.-Israeli Relationship in a World of Change and Volatility

MICHAEL OREN, Israel’s ambassador to the United States since 2009, meets regularly with officials in the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon, as well as with members of Congress from both parties. He regularly briefs Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders on issues vital to the U.S.-Israel alliance. Born in the United States, Oren has served as a visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, and Georgetown, and as a distinguished fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. His last two books, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East from 1776 to the Present and Six Days of War, were both New York Times bestsellers. This event is co-sponsored with U.Va.’s Darden School of Business and Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics.

Forum: Who Stole the American Dream

Pulitzer Prize winner HEDRICK SMITH’s book, Who Stole the American Dream?, shows how seismic changes, sparked by a sequence of landmark political and economic decisions, have transformed America. Smith examines the accidental beginnings of the 401(k) plan, the major policy changes that began under Jimmy Carter, how the New Economy disrupted America’s engine of shared prosperity, and how America lost the title of “Land of Opportunity.” Who Stole the American Dream? includes conversations with political leaders, CEOs, and middle-class Americans. Smith is also the author of The Russians, which took readers inside the Soviet Union, and The Power Game, which explored Washington's corridors of power. A book signing will follow his Forum.

Forum: The King Years

TAYLOR BRANCH is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the acclaimed America in the King Years trilogy, which includes the books Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire, and At Canaan’s Edge. For his latest book, The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement, Branch has identified 18 essential moments from the Civil Rights movement, and providing selections from his trilogy, has placed each moment in historical context. He argues that these events remain crucial for anyone who wishes to understand our divided political climate. A book signing will follow his Forum. Photo Credit: J. Brough Schamp

Colloquium: Before the Washington Consensus: India and the Rise of Neoliberalism

NICOLE SACKLEY is associate professor of history and American studies at the University of Richmond. The author of several articles on the history of international development, she is currently completing a book titled Development Fields: American Social Science and the Practice of Development in the Cold War.  During the 2012-2013 academic year, Sackley is a Truman-Kauffman Fellow at the Harry S. Truman Library Institute.

Please RSVP to gage@virginia.edu by noon on Wednesday, March 27.