The Odyssey Bookshop will host a book signing with Joseph J. Ellis, Ford Foundation Professor of History at Mount Holyoke, and Anthony Lake, former MHC professor and national security adviser, for their new books, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation and Six Nightmares: Real Threats in a Dangerous World and How America Can Meet Them, respectively, Saturday, December 9, from 2 pm to 3:30 pm.

Founding Brothers

Founding Brothers is a study of the intertwined lives of the founders of the American republic—John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington. During the 1790s, the greatest statesmen of their generation—and perhaps of any—came together to define the new republic and direct its course for the coming centuries. Ellis focuses on six moments that exemplify the most crucial issues facing the fragile new nation, including Burr and Hamilton's deadly duel, and what may have really happened; Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison's secret dinner, during which the seat of the permanent capital was determined in exchange for passage of Hamilton's financial plan; and Washington's precedent-setting Farewell Address, announcing his retirement from public office and offering his country some final advice.

 

Six Nightmares

From high-tech terrorism at home to political instability abroad, the United
States cannot afford to be lax about its security in today's world. In Six Nightmares, Anthony Lake examines six very real scenarios—each one a threat to America's safety—and lays out what steps we can take to prevent them. Lake has written not only a vital warning, but also a memoir, weaving in firsthand views of recent crises in Somalia, Haiti, and Kosovo with a serious examination of dangerous trends at home and abroad.
Says George Stephanopoulos, “Combining the pacing of Ludlum and the insight of Kissinger, Anthony Lake's Six Nightmares is packed with hard-won wisdom from the world's second-hardest job.”
Anthony Lake served as national security adviser to President Clinton from 1993 to 1996. Formerly Five College Professor of International Relations at Mount Holyoke, he taught at the College from 1984 to 1993. He is currently a professor of Georgetown University and lectures extensively across the country.