International Book Blitz 2026

May 4, 2026

This event is for Weatherhead affiliates or by invitation only. 

4:30pm–6:00pm
Fisher Family Commons
CGIS Knafel Building
1737 Cambridge Street

Celebrate the end of the academic year at our annual International Book Blitz. At this popular event, open to all Weatherhead affiliates, a panel of faculty and alums will each give a seven-minute “speed talk” about their recent book, launching us into compelling issues from around the world. A party for affiliates will follow the presentations.
 

READ: Coverage in the Harvard Gazette

Moderator

• Erez Manela, Acting Center Director (2025–2026); Director, Graduate Student Programs; Faculty Associate. Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History, Department of History, Harvard University.

Speakers

• Eram Alam, Faculty Associate. Associate Professor, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University. The Care of Foreigners: How Immigrant Physicians Changed US Healthcare (Johns Hopkins University, 2025)
• Bruno Carvalho, Faculty Associate (on leave 2025–2026). Codirector, Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative; Professor, Departments of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University. The Invention of the Future: A History of Cities in the Modern World (Princeton University Press, 2026)
• Ian Kumekawa, Anniversary Fellow, Center for History and Economics, Harvard University; Lecturer in History, MIT. Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge (Penguin Random House, 2025)
• Taeku Lee, Faculty Associate. Bae Family Professor of Government, Department of Government, Harvard University. Billionaire Backlash: The Age of Corporate Scandal and How It Could Save Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2026) NOTE: Taeku Lee was unable to participate in this event.
• Gabrielle Oliveira, Faculty Associate. Jorge Paulo Lemann Associate Professor of Education and of Brazil Studies, Harvard Graduate School of Education. Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life (Stanford University Press, 2025)
• Daniel Lord Smail, Faculty Associate. Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of History; Interim Chair, Department of History, Harvard University. Magdalena Coline: A Life Beyond Slavery in Mediterranean Europe (Princeton University Press, 2025)