The Baker Peace Conference on March 20 and 21 focuses on the 100-year anniversary of the outbreak of what was then referred to as “The War to End All Wars.”
The 2014 Baker Peace Conference is an annual event that brings together a diverse group of leading experts to discuss a significant national or international issue related to peace.
Keynote by Sir Hew Strachan
Sir Hew Strachan
Sir Hew Strachan gives the keynote address on “Military Operations & National Policies, 1914-1918” on Thursday, March 20, at 7:30 p.m. in Baker Ballroom A.
Strachan is the Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College. He is a Director of the Oxford Programme on the Changing Character of War between 2003 and 2012. He also serves on the Strategic Advisory Panel of the Chief of the Defence Staff and on the UK Defence Academy Advisory Board, as well as being a Trustee of the Imperial War Museum, a Commonwealth War Graves Commissioner, and member of both the National Committee for the Centenary of the First World War and the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
He is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Visiting Professor at the University of Glasgow. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2003. In 2010 he chaired a task force on the implementation of the Armed Forces Covenant for the Prime Minister. In 2011 he was the inaugural Humanitas Visiting Professor in War Studies at the University of Cambridge and became a specialist adviser to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. In December 2012, Foreign Policy magazine included him in its list of top global thinkers for the year. He was knighted in the 2013 New Year’s Honours.
Some of his recent books are: To Arms (2001), the first of three volumes on the First World War: The First World War: A New Illustrated History (2003); Carl von Clausewitz On War: a Biography (2007); The Direction of War (2013);and as joint editor The Changing Character of War (2011) and How Fighting Ends: A History of Surrender (2012).
Discussion Panels
The discussion panels on Friday, March 21, features some of the most prominent experts in their fields.
Outbreak of War: The first panel, on The Outbreak of War, features Dr. Sean McMeekin of Koc University in Turkey, Dr. Nicholas Lambert of the University of Maryland, and Dr. Keith Neilson from the Royal Military College in Canada debating the origins of the conflict.
Social Change: The second panel, on Social Change, features Dr. Jennifer Keene of Chapman University and Dr. Kimberly Jensen of Western Oregon University exploring the lasting social legacy of this first universal war.
War and Military Changes: The third panel, on War and Military Changes, features Dr. Dennis Showalter of Colorado College, Dr. Leonard Smith of Oberlin College, and Dr. Michael Neiberg of the U.S. Army War College, examining the war’s legacy.
Each panel is structured to reflect a broad range of viewpoints, and the result promises to be a serious, lively, high-level debate about these issues.
About the Baker Peace Conference
The first Baker Peace Conference took place in 1988, six years after the late Dr. John C. Baker, the University’s president from 1945-62, and his wife Elizabeth established the John and Elizabeth Baker Peace Studies Endowment to encourage the education of students and the general public in the means by which peace can be established and maintained throughout the world. The Baker Conferences are jointly sponsored by the Contemporary History Institute and the Baker Peace Studies Program.
All events are free and open to the public.
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