Authors & Insights: Former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster

Join the McCain Institute for International Leadership for its next installment of its book talk virtual series on Wednesday, Oct. 7. This event will feature former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and Arizona State University President and McCain Institute Trustee Michael M. Crow as they discuss Gen. McMaster’s newest book, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World and the roles freedom and democracy play in American foreign policy.

H.R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Stanford University. A native of Philadelphia, H.R. graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1984. He served as an Army officer for thirty-four years and retired as a Lieutenant General in 2018. He remained on active duty while serving as the 26th Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. He taught history at West Point and holds a PhD in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Michael M. Crow is an academic leader and educator, designer of knowledge enterprises, and science and technology scholar. He has been the sixteenth president of Arizona State University since July, 2002. He is guiding the transformation of ASU into one of the nation’s leading public metropolitan research universities, an institution that combines the highest levels of academic excellence, inclusiveness to a broad demographic, and maximum societal impact—a model he designed known as the “New American University.” Under his leadership ASU has established major interdisciplinary research initiatives and witnessed an unprecedented academic infrastructure expansion, quadrupling of research expenditures and attainment of record levels of diversity in the student body.

He was previously professor of science and technology policy and executive vice provost of Columbia University, where he served as chief strategist of Columbia’s research enterprise and technology transfer operations. He has been an advisor to the U.S. Departments of State, Commerce, and Energy, as well as defense and intelligence agencies and a number of nation states on matters of science and technology policy and knowledge enterprise design. An elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and National Academy of Public Administration, he is the author of books and articles analyzing knowledge enterprises, science and technology policy and the design of higher education institutions and systems.

While the U.S. faces a range of challenges these days – both here at home and on the world stage – the McCain Institute maintains that all of them can be met by reaffirming character-driven leadership. To bolster its message, the Institute hosts Authors & Insights Book Talk Series. Through this “reverse book tour,” Institute leaders interview authors of important newly-released books on American politics, policy and leadership with the intention to engage the American people in a dialogue that affirms the importance of character-driven leadership and America’s leadership in the international community. The result will be a blueprint for a brighter future.