America, India, and the Politics of Humanitarian Intervention

About the Topic: A study of how two major democracies, the United States and India, responded to one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 20th century: the 1971 atrocities in East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh). This book documents the extent of Nixon and Kissinger's support for the Pakistani military regime, and India's mix of humanitarian and strategic motivations in its 1971 war, which created an independent Bangladesh.

About the Speaker: Gary Bass is a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide (Knopf, forthcoming September 2013); Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention (Knopf); and Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals (Princeton). A former reporter for The Economist, he has written often for The New York Times, as well as writing for The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other publications.

He has written academic articles and book chapters on human rights and international justice. He has been a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University and a visiting professor of law and government at Harvard Law School. He got his Ph.D. and A.B. at Harvard.