Remembering Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928–2017)
A Conversation with James Mann and Charles Gati:
"It's an amazing story about the foreign policy elite and its ability to embrace people from abroad."
"He was an American beyond comparison."
The Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) is pleased to present a video interview with Charles Gati, Senior Research Professor of European and Eurasian Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS, in conversation with James Mann, FPI Senior Fellow, on the life and legacy of Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928-2017), former National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, or "ZBig" as he was familiarly called, was also a distinguished professor of American Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins SAIS and an FPI Senior Fellow. While at Johns Hopkins SAIS, Professor Brzezinski hosted a bi-weekly seminar series entitled "Current Issues," which gathered select groups of scholars, policymakers, and journalists to discuss pressing issues of international concern.
Professor Brzezinski also delivered an annual lecture that always drew audiences numbering in the hundreds. He is remembered at Johns Hopkins SAIS not only for his legacy as a leading statesman, strategic thinker, and scholar but also as an extraordinary teacher who was dedicated to educating the next generation of leaders in world affairs.
Charles Gati is a former Senior Adviser with the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State and a former professor at Union College and Columbia University, where he first met Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1970 during a fellowship at the Research Institute of Communist Affairs. Gati's books, Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington, Budapest and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt (2006) and Hungary and the Soviet Bloc (1986) were honored with the Marshall Shulman Prize for outstanding book on the international relations of the former Soviet bloc by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. His most recent work is titled ZBIG: The Strategy and Statecraft of Zbigniew Brzezinski (2013).
James Mann is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced international Studies (SAIS). As an author, Mann has written a series of award-winning books about American foreign policy and about China. He is also a former newspaper reporter, foreign correspondent, and columnist who wrote for the Los Angeles Times for more than twenty years. His best-known work is Rise of the Vulcans: A History of Bush’s War Cabinet (2004). The pathbreaking book served as the primary source for accounts about the careers and ideas of Vice President Cheney and his associates. Another of his books is The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War (2010). He has also written three books about America’s relationship with China, including Beijing Jeep: A Case Study of Western Business in China (1997), About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton (2000), and The China Fantasy: Why Capitalism Will Not Bring Democracy to China (2008), in addition to many others on a variety of topics.