Fredric Smoler
While many people believed that the progressive integration of a steadily expanding EU's member states was inevitable and irreversible, on June 23, 2016, 51.9% of the British electorate voted to withdraw from the EU. Turnout was 72%, the highest in any British vote since the general election of 1992, and until the returns came in this result seemed unimaginable; in retrospect the vote has been interpreted as prefiguring both Donald Trump's victory in the following American presidential election and possible triumphs by various European populist parties in (among other places) the Netherlands, Bulgaria, France and Germany. The prospect and outcome of the Brexit referendum sparked great hopes and great fears of in British, other European and American observers, and this lecture will explore and assess some of those dreams and nightmares.
Fredric Smoler received his BA from Sarah Lawrence College and his MA, MPhil, and PhD from Columbia University. His central interest lies in European history and culture, with special emphasis on military history and literature. He writes regularly for First of the Month, and has written for (among others) Dissent, The Nation, The Observer (London), American Heritage, Audacity, Standpoint (UK), and The New York Times. He is the former editor of Audacity and was a contributing editor at American Heritage Magazine. He has taught at Sarah Lawrence College since 1987.
The Adda Bozeman Chair in International Relations was endowed in 1999 by friends and students of Adda Bozeman, faculty member from 1947 to 1977. She brought to international studies a deep knowledge of the history, law, and culture of the nation-states that shaped the 20th century.