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Book Club: Diana Villiers Negroponte
Diana Villiers Negroponte, an author, lawyer, and professor, highlights how Secretary of State, James Baker, played a critical role on the world stage in the final years of the Cold War as the Soviet Union unraveled. This in-person symposium will include a private reception, book, and Q&A portion. Moderated by our own Ambassador Sichan Siv.
Diana Villiers Negroponte
Author and professor, Diana Negroponte has focused on the Cold War and how it ended. In between teaching at Fordham, George Washington and Georgetown Universities, she used her own time to research and write. In 2015 the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies offered her a fellowship to write her book Master Negotiator: James A. Baker, III’s Role at the End of the Cold War.
Earlier, Diana got a law degree from American University and was an associate at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker where she practiced aviation and international trade law. But with 5 children, she was unable to meet her billable hours and left law practice to become an academic. She remains a member of the DC Bar and ABA.
While teaching at Fordham University she began Seeking Peace in El Salvador: The Struggle to Reconstruct a Nation at the End of the Cold War, Palgrave Macmillan (2012) and later translated into Spanish and published in El Salvador, En Busca de La Paz en El Salvador, Editorial Delgado (2016). She retained her focus on Latin America becoming a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution where she wrote reports on New Directions in Brazilian Foreign Relations (2007), The Merida Initiative and Central America: the Challenges of Containing Public Insecurity and Criminal Violence, (2009) and edited a book The End of Nostalgia: Mexico Confronts the Challenges of Global Competition (2013).
She has received numerous awards, including Soroptimist International’s Advancing the Status of Women Award, the Salvation Army of Mexico’s Award for Outstanding Community Service, Rotary Club of Honduras’ Woman of the Year and the Belgium King’s Chevalier de l’Ordre de Leopold. She currently directs a Saturday Supper program for the homeless in Washington D.C.
Her current work at the Woodrow Wilson Center is focused on Britain’s future in a post-Brexit world and teaching a master’s seminar on international mediation and conflict resolution at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
Sichan Siv was the United States ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council from 2001 to 2006. From 1989 to 1993, Ambassador Siv served at The White House as deputy assistant to President George H. W. Bush and at the State Department as deputy assistant secretary. He has also held various positions in the private sector and has written two books.