Thomas de Waal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will speak on: Black Sea Histories: The Political Background to the Sochi Olympics.

Sochi, the town on the Black Sea, which is the venue of the 2014 Winter Olympics, is in a region with an unusually rich and tragic history.  It is on the western edge of the North Caucasus, the site of a continuing violent Islamist insurgency.  It borders the conflict region of Abkhazia.  And it is also the historical site of the conflict between the Russian Empire and the Circassians which has been called the "longest war of the 19th century."

Tom de Waal is author of the authoritative book on the Karabakh conflict, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War (NYC Press, 2003), which has been translated into Armenian, Azeri, and Russian.  His latest book is The Caucasus: An Introduction (Oxford Univeristy Press, 2010).

Ngiste Abebe, co-author of Bidding for Development: How the Olympic Bid Process Can Accelerate Transportation Development (Springer, 2013) will moderate the discussion.

Cost: $5

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Host

Sonja Kotlica