Conversations with Power: What Great Presidents and Prime Ministers Can Teach Us about Leadership

by Brian Michael Till

Overview

Fresh out of college, and frustrated with own generation's political apathy, Brian Till set out to interview the former world leaders he most admired. To his surprise, they were eager to talk, and he soon found himself discussing everything from energy to terrorism to nuclear disarmament with the greatest leaders of the last twenty-five years. Here, he distills what they learned in office, their predictions for the future, and their advice for the leaders of tomorrow. Including interviews with:

*Bill Clinton

*Gro Bruntland

*Jimmy Carter

*Fernando Henrique Cardoso

*Ehud Barak

*Vaclav Havel

*Mikhail Gorbachev

*Pervez Musharraf

*F.W. de Klerk

*Ricardo Lagos

*Helmut Schmidt

*Goh Chok Tong

*Paul Keating

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230110588
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/10/2011
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Brian Michael Till is a Research Fellow at the New America Foundation and a correspondent for The Atlantic. His columns have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, The Dallas Morning News, The Las Vegas Sun, the Los Angeles Daily News, Newsday, The Oregonian, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the St. Petersburg Times. He has been a guest on NPR's Talk of the Nation and has worked with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont and the Treatment Action Campaign in Cape Town, South Africa. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 The Sociologist Fernando Henrique Cardoso 5

2 The Matador Ricardo Froilán Lagos Escobar 23

3 The Viking Warrior Gro Harlem Brundtland 43

4 The Playwright Václav Havel 61

5 Two Gorbachevs Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev 77

6 The Last Afrikaner King Frederik Willem De Klerk 93

7 The Good General Pervez Musharraf 115

8 The Horologist Ehud Barak 137

9 The Natural William Jefferson Clinton 157

10 A Good & Decent American James Earl Carter Jr. 171

11 Schmidt Schnauze Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt 187

12 Wooden Tiger Goh Chok Tong 201

13 Canberra's Maestro Paul John Keating 221

Conclusion 241

Acknowledgments 245

Notes 248

Index 257

Editorial Reviews

This is a collection full of voices that have not been heard enough in America, and the world. Brian Till has spent quality time with some of the most innovative and significant officials of the past few decades, and their experiences and insights are a delight to read, as well as provide an important series of history lessons.” —Seymour M. Hersh

“Conversations with Power reflects one young man's quest for knowledge and reassurance from a fascinating array of past leaders. The result is not only a revealing set of lessons about the possibilities and limitations of power; it is also a challenge to a new generation to take the future into its own hands.” —Madeleine K. Albright, Former U.S. Secretary of State

“This is a marvelous collection. Brian Till has journeyed around the world talking to leaders of all sorts of government about how they got to the top, what they did there, what worked, what did not. His book gives valuable insights into the secrets of power - and how the powerful see the world today.” —William Shawcross, author of Deliver Us From Evil

“An astonishing range of knowledge is on display here - both in world leaders giving context to their rule, and in the piercing, precise questions Till uses to gain access to the answers...as entertaining as any thriller you'll see this year.” —Stephen Gaghan, Academy Award-winning writer of Traffic and writer/director of Syriana.

From the Publisher

An astonishing range of knowledge is on display here - both in world leaders giving context to their rule, and in the piercing, precise questions Till uses to gain access to the answers...as entertaining as any thriller you'll see this year.

Academy Award-winning writer of Traffic and writer Stephen Gaghan