Happy Hour: Shakespeare: How Leaders Rise, Rule, and Fall with Eliot A. Cohen

Sponsored by the ESU Boston Branch

Perhaps our best teacher on the nature of power – how it is acquired, exercised, and lost – is none other than William Shakespeare. An incisive observer of human nature, Shakespeare educates us on the qualities that make a successful leader and warns how power can corrupt a leader’s moral compass. Four centuries after his death, Shakespeare’s plays continue to inspire and relate to a 21st-century audience, and we can learn more about our contemporary political leaders through the lens of his characters. Join our next ESU Happy Hour as Dr. Eliot Cohen compares some of the most memorable leaders of Shakespeare’s plays to their real-world contemporary counterparts. Tracing the art of power from its acquisition to decline. This ESU Happy Hour is sponsored by the ESU Boston Branch. ESU Happy Hour programs are online, free, and open to all members and the public. Registration is required.

 All programs take place on Eastern Time.

Register Here

About Eliot A. Cohen

Eliot A. Cohen is the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Robert E. Osgood Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where he has taught since 1990. He received his BA and PhD degrees from Harvard and taught there and at the U.S. Naval War College before going to SAIS, where he has also served as the school’s ninth dean. His books include, most recently, The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force, as well as Conquered into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battle Along the Great Warpath that Made the American Way of War, and Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime, among others.

From 2007 to 2009 he was counselor of the Department of State, serving as Secretary Condoleezza Rice’s senior adviser, focusing chiefly on issues of war and peace, including Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, and his commentary has also appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and on major television networks.

Cocktail: 

Sherry, served ice cold in a tulip glass as an aperitif.