Friday, April 17, 20264:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Bunche Hall Rm 10383
The UCLA Center for European and Russian Studies invites you to a talk by Stephen Kotkin, moderated by Daniel Treisman. This talk, entitled "Pathways to WWIII", will feature a discussion of the origins of WWII and and today's pathways towards WWIII in Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Iran, China and elsewhere. This event will take place in Bunche Hall, Room 10383 on Friday, April 17, 2026 at 4PM PST. Registration is required.
About the Speaker
Stephen Kotkin is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Within FSI, Kotkin is based at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and is affiliated with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and The Europe Center. He is also the Birkelund Professor in History and International Affairs emeritus at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School), where he taught for 33 years. He earned his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley and has been conducting research in the Hoover Library & Archives for more than three decades.
Kotkin’s research encompasses geopolitics and authoritarian regimes in history and in the present. His publications include Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 (Penguin, 2017) and Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928 (Penguin, 2014), two parts of a planned three-volume history of Russian power in the world and of Stalin’s power in Russia. He has also written a history of the Stalin system’s rise from a street-level perspective, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (University of California 1995); and a trilogy analyzing Communism’s demise, of which two volumes have appeared thus far: Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse 1970–2000 (Oxford, 2001; rev. ed. 2008) and Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment, with a contribution by Jan T. Gross (Modern Library, 2009). The third volume will be on the Soviet Union in the third world and Afghanistan. Kotkin’s publications and public lectures also often focus on Communist China.
About the Discussant
Daniel Treisman is a professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is currently also the Co-Director of UCLA’s Center for European and Russian Studies.
A graduate of Oxford University (B.A. Hons.) and Harvard University (Ph.D.), he has published six books and many articles in leading political science and economics journals including The American Political Science Review and The American Economic Review, as well as in public affairs journals such as Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy.
His research focuses on Russian politics and economics as well as comparative political economy, including in particular the analysis of democratization, the politics of authoritarian states, political decentralization, and corruption.
Venue
Bunche Hall Room 10383
11282 Portola Plaza
Los Angeles, CA
Nearby parking is available at Parking Structure 5 and Parking Structure 3.