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Speakers:
George Black, Author and Journalist
Elizabeth Becker, Author and Journalist
Sera Koulabdara, CEO of Legacies of War; Chair, U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines & Cluster Munitions Coalition
Moderator:
Peter Osnos, Journalist
What are the impacts and lasting effects of the bombardments of Agent Orange, napalm, and other explosive ordnance on Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam? How has this affected the country and its people? What can we learn from what has happened and how do we move forward from here? In this panel, we get perspectives from leaders who have insider knowledge on the legacies of war.
Speakers' Bios:
George Black is a British-born author and journalist. He is the author of eight books, including works on the Chinese democracy movement, the 19th century exploration of the American West and the wars against the Plains Indians, a memoir of his travels on the River Ganges in India and Bangladesh, and, most recently, The Long Reckoning: A Story of War, Peace, and Redemption in Vietnam (Knopf, 2023). He is currently working on a history of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. His award-winning long-form journalism has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, and many other magazines and newspapers.
Black lives in New York City with his wife, Anne Nelson, an author, playwright, and research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs
An award winning journalist for The Washington Post and The New York Times, Elizabeth Becker began her career covering the war in Cambodia and its aftermath under the Khmer Rouge. She interviewed Pol Pot during his last days in power and testified as an expert witness at the Cambodian genocide tribunal. She is the author of six books including the now classic WHEN THE WAR WAS OVER: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution and, most recently, YOU DON’T BELONG HERE: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War, winner of Harvard’s Goldsmith Book Prize and the Sperber Book Prize.
Sera Koulabdara serves as CEO of Legacies of War, the only international U.S.-based advocacy and educational organization working to address the impacts of war in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, including the removal of unexploded ordnance (UXO) and victims assistance. By unanimous vote, Sera was elected to serve as the Chair of the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munitions Coalition in January 2023. Sera is the first BIPOC, millennial, and person with lived experience from an impacted country to take on this leadership role. As a leading expert in mine action, Sera has been featured in USA Today, Washington Post, NBC, Responsible Statecraft, and more.
Peter L. W. Osnos covered Vietnam for The Washington Post between 1970-1973 and has written, edited and published extensively on the subject for more than fifty years. He will be publishing later this year a narrative titled LBJ and McNamara; The Vietnam Partnership Destined to Fail based on his extensive work with McNamara on his memoir In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam and other original material.
Courtesy of the Mach Family Gift for Global Vietnamese Studies
This talk is part of the Legacies of the Vietnam War 75th Anniversary series and the 75th Anniversary Global Asia Film Series Learn more about WEAI's 75th anniversary. It co-sponsored by the Columbia Journalism School, Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, SIPA Technology, Media, and Communications, and NYSEAN.
For more information on the other talks of the series, please click here: https://weai.columbia.edu/content/legacies-vietnam-war-75th-anniversary-series.
