Speaker

For more than four decades, William Drozdiak has been regarded as one of the most knowledgeable American observers of European affairs. During his tenure as foreign editor of the Washington Post, the newspaper won Pulitzer Prizes for its international reporting on the Israeli—Palestinian conflict and the collapse of the Soviet communist empire. He also served as the Post’s chief European correspondent, based at various times in Bonn, Berlin, Paris and Brussels, and covered the Middle East for Time magazine. He later became the founding executive director of the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Center in Brussels and served for ten years as president of the American Council on Germany. Before becoming a journalist, he played professional basketball in the United States and Europe for seven years. His highly acclaimed book, “Fractured Continent: Europe’s Crises and the Fate of the West,” was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best political books of 2017. His latest book, “The Last President of Europe: Emmanuel Macron’s Race to Revive France and Save the World,” which focuses on France’s youthful president and his efforts to shape the future of Europe and a new world order, was published by Hachette/PublicAffairs in April 2020. He was previously a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and its Center for the United States and Europe. He is currently a Global Fellow at the Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C.