Lecture Series

Thomas L. Friedman
October 2
Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum
4:00 pm

One of the world’s preeminent commentators on international affairs, Thomas L. Friedman is a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner. Vanity Fair called him “the country’s best newspaper columnist” and U.S. News and World Report named him one of “America’s Best Leaders.”

Friedman has covered many of the monumental stories of recent decades, from the return of Hong Kong to China and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the months following 9/11, his Op-Ed page column for The New York Times provided the clarifying, evenhanded assessments that were so urgently sought. In awarding him his third Pulitzer Prize (the 2002 award for Distinguished Commentary), the Pulitzer Board cited his “clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat.”

Friedman’s latest book is the international bestseller The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. His previous bestseller, Longitudes and Attitudes: The World in the Age of Terrorism, traces his post-9/11 journey through nations of the Middle East to meet with the regions’ leaders, thinkers and citizens. His bestseller, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, has been called “simply the best book written on globalization.”

After joining The New York Times in 1981, Friedman has served as Beirut bureau chief, Israel bureau chief, Washington chief diplomatic correspondent, chief White House correspondent, and chief economics correspondent. Friedman appears in his own segment, “Tom’s Journal,” on public television’s The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and is a frequent guest on programs such as Face the Nation and Charlie Rose.

The Friedman lecture is sponsored by Merchant Capital, Montgomery, AL

Littleton-Franklin Lecture Series