[Note: see video here.] Bill Gates: It’s an inspiration that one person [Leonardo da Vinci] off on their own, with no positive feedback, nobody ever told him, you know, it was right or wrong. That he kept pushing himself. You know, found knowledge in itself to be a beautiful thing. Gates scoffs at any comparison…
Sir Ken Robinson on education… There are three principles on which human life flourishes, and they are contradicted by the culture of education under which most teachers have to labor and most students have to endure. The first is this, that human beings are naturally different and diverse…
[*Note: video available here.] Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations and (at one point) the U.S. Army War College, sat down with Harry Kreisler at UC-Berkeley in 2006 to talk about his work in general and his book Military Victory in specific. However, in conversation about his career, he gave an interesting response to…
Dr. Don Snider, a former professor of mine at West Point, gave a riveting lecture to the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia on 2 April 2011. To be honest, I got a little carried away with the notes I took – I’m not sure if I’ve ever transcribed so much. But this was great…
Author Sebastian Junger gave an interview to NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross on 18 April 2013 about Junger’s new film Which Way is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Times of Tim Heatherington. Heatherington, a British photographer, became very close to Junger while they collaborated on the documentary film Restrepo, which Junger turned into…
[Note: see video link here.] It was a privilege to listen to someone I worked for (albeit very low on that totem pole) – Major General H.R. McMaster – speak to CSIS on 20 March 2013 about his thoughts on the future of American ground forces. The selection you see that follows is typed out…
The excellent radio program on BBC4, In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg, covered Clausewitz’s On War on 12 May 2012. I almost can’t say enough about the value of this 43 minute recording, but here are a couple snippets that might give away the quality of the scholarship:
**All: I posted a contribution to the Lowy Interpreter discussion on the Iraq War – below gets you started, and the last sentence will link you to the rest if you’re interested. All best, Matt Just thought I would attempt a small contribution to your ongoing debate on the Iraq War. I served there twice…
Though you can find them in iTunes as well (just search for “Reith lectures” and you’ll find this series of five in the archive), the BBC keeps the set on it’s website. You can even download the transcript if you’d prefer. Although I don’t necessarily ascribe to all that he has to say in his…
Brigadier Mark Holmes, Australian Army If anyone cared to ask me about my maiden research voyage on behalf the West Point Network Science Center, I think my response would primarily revolve around the words “flight” and “interview,” as that’s about all I remember from the two weeks! Flight-wise, the numbers are astounding, even to me:…