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Cambridge Forum hosts free, public discussions that inform and engage, so that people can better explore the varied issues and ideas that shape our changing world. CF broadcasts its live events via podcasts, weekly NPR shows and online presentations via GBH Forum Network on YouTube.

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Jennifer Jordan: Women of K2

Wed, Jan 29, 2003

Award-winning journalist and filmmaker Jennifer Jordan shares stories from her research expeditions on *The Women of K2*. In 2000, Jordan joined an American expedition of women climbers attempting to summit K2 on the Pakistan-China border. At 28,250 feet, K2 is the second highest mountain in the world, and is widely regarded as the ultimate climb. Its giant pyramid peak towers in isolation, its sheer icy summit flanked by six equally steep ridges, each presenting climbers with a maze of precipices and treacherous overhangs. By the turn of the millennium, only 164 climbers, including just 12 Americans, had reached its summit. Of those, only a handful were women. Jordan discusses her forthcoming film and book about the women who pioneered, pursued, and perished on this most challenging mountain.

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Fixing Elections: America's Winner-Take-All Politics

Wed, Feb 5, 2003

Political analyst Steven Hill discusses his book, *Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner-Take-All Politics* (Routledge, 2002). An exhaustive study completed in 2000 found that the last four decades of the 20th century have seen the lowest levels of voter turnout in our nation's history. Among the explanations for this were the public's distaste for modern campaign techniques, our front-loaded system of nominating candidates, and the Electoral College that renders non-swing states irrelevant in deciding elections. Has voter apathy grown too great? Is our current voting system broken beyond repair? What can be done to restore America's faith in participatory democracy? Hill believes that the root of our political failures is our winner-take-all electoral system. In his new book, he shows why the Electoral College is an antiquated system in desperate need of overhaul, and proposes reasonable, proven solutions for change based on European political models. **Steven Hill** is Senior Analyst for the Center for Voting and Democracy in Washington, DC. His analyses and commentaries have been published in dozens of magazines and journals, including *The Los Angeles Times*, *The Wall Street Journal*, and *The Nation*. Previously, he co-authored *Reflecting All of Us*.

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Just and Lasting Change: Sustainable Communities

Wed, Feb 26, 2003

Daniel Taylor-Ide, president of Future Generations, discusses his new book *Just and Lasting Change*, on proven models for fostering healthy, sustainable communities in impoverished areas worldwide, by creating partnerships among community members, governments, and outside experts. He claims his approach to community-based development, integrated with environmental conservation, really works.

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Essentials for a Decent Working Society

Wed, Mar 5, 2003

Brandeis University professor and Clinton labor secretary, Robert Reich, examines the American social contract in light of corporate frauds, mass layoffs, impending war in Iraq, and fiscal policies that favor the rich and punish the poor. Reich argues that our astonishing economic growth after World War II grew out of a social contract: (a) anyone who wants a job should have one; (b) those who work should earn enough to lift themselves and their families out of poverty; and (c) all Americans should have access to an education. He maintains that this social contract has collapsed over decades of social Darwinism and must be restored. In his book, *Essentials or a Decent Working Society*, Reich insists that denial, escapism, and resignation are the main obstacles to rebuilding a decent working society.

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When Smoke Ran Like Water

Wed, Mar 12, 2003

Devra Davis combines her deep personal connection to issues of health and the environment with her formidable scientific expertise, arguing for fundamentally new ways of thinking about health and the environment. Before she became one of the world's leading epidemiologists, Davis was the victim of environmental pollution. As a young girl in Donora, Pennsylvania, she saw 20 of her home town community members die and scores permanently injured in the smog disaster of October 26th, 1948. In her new landmark book, *When Smoke Ran Like Water*, Devra Davis documents how environmental toxins contribute to a broad spectrum of diseases. The book's title alludes to an event 50 years ago in London. Davis writes that "cool air from across the English Channel settled over the Thames River Valley and did not move. London's eight million residents huddled indoors and warmed themselves by their coal stoves. Smoke ran like tap water from a million chimneys." The inversion layer that had formed over the English capital trapped the coal smoke at ground level. The result was smog so thick that people could not find their own homes, automobile traffic ground to a halt, and people died in droves. The smog is now estimated to have killed some 12,000 people.

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Christopher Hedges: War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

Wed, Jan 22, 2003

Christopher Hedges discusses how human beings are conditioned to embrace what he calls "the myth of war"; the idea that combat is noble, selfless, and glorious. In his new book War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, which draws on the literature of combat, from Homer and Shakespeare to Erich Maria Remarque and Michael Herr, as well as his firsthand experience, Hedges reveals the reality of war; the destruction of culture, the perversion of human desire, and the embrace, ultimately, of death over life.

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Understanding the Bible: An Introduction for Skeptics, Seekers, and Religious Liberals

Wed, Feb 4, 2004

John Buehrens questions the fundamentalist reading of the Bible, offering those with a liberal or progressive outlook ways to reclaim the Bible from literalists. Citing some of the best contemporary historical, literary, political, and feminist readings of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, Buehrens' book serves as a springboard into a discussion of who defines our religious heritage and what constitute 'family values'. **John Buehrens** was president of the Unitarian Universalist Association from 1993 to 2001. He is now minister of the First Parish in Needham, Massachusetts, and special assistant to the secretary general of the World Conference of Religions for Peace. He is co-author, with Forrest Church, of A Chosen Faith.

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Wade Davis: Journey Through the Realm of Vanishing Cultures

Wed, Feb 11, 2004

Wade Davis, in his book Light At the Edge of the World: A Journey Through the Realm of Vanishing Cultures, takes us around the globe to visit ancient cultures, from the rainforests of the Amazon to the deserts of Burkina Faso. Light At the Edge of the World serves as a springboard into a forum discussion on ways we can ensure that cultural and biological diversity don't vanish forever. Davis is an anthropologist, botanical explorer, and best-selling author who received his PhD in ethnobotany from Harvard University. He spent over three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant explorer, living among 15 indigenous groups in eight Latin American nations while making some 6,000 botanical collections. His previous books include Shadows in the Sun (1998), One River(1996), Passage of Darkness (1988) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1986), an international best-seller that appeared in ten languages and was later adapted by Universal Studios into a motion picture.

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Lani Guinier: Race, Gender and Power

Wed, Sep 25, 2002

Civil rights expert Lani Guinier discusses the current distribution of power in the United States. Like the canaries that alerted miners to a poisonous atmosphere, issues of race point to underlying problems in society that ultimately affect everyone, not just minorities. Addressing these issues is essential. Ignoring racial differences, race blindness, has failed. Focusing on individual achievement has diverted us from tackling pervasive inequalities. Guinier proposes a radical new way to confront race in the 21st-Century. How far have we come in achieving equality among all of our nation's citizens? **Lani Gunier** is the author of The Miner's Canary and Lift Every Voice, and the first African American woman to become tenured professor at Harvard Law School.

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Emily Dickinson: My Wars Are Laid Away in Books

Wed, Oct 9, 2002

One of America's greatest poets, Emily Dickinson remains largely an enigma. Alfred Habegger, author of The Father: A Life of Henry James, Sr., sheds new light on Dickinson in his biography, My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson. In his new book, Habegger probes provocative questions: Was she a lesbian? Why did she refuse to publish her poetry, and why was this refusal so integral to her work? Using legal archives, congregational records and previously unpublished fragments of Dickinson's own letters, Habegger provides a rare personal glimpse into Dickinson's troubled brilliance and shows how Dickinson tuned her "voice" and turned her personal life into a work of art.

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