Nigel Ashton, senior lecturer in international history at the London School of Economics will discuss his new book, King Hussein of Jordan: A Political Life (2008). Comments will be provided by Alexander Wieland from the State Department's Office of the Historian.

Drawing upon materials from King Hussein's files in Jordan's Royal Hashemite archives, Ashton's biography of Hussein sheds new light upon Jordan's foreign policy, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Iran-Contra scandal and the Middle East as a whole for the entire span of Hussein's nearly 50-year reign.

Nigel Ashton is a senior lecturer in international history at the London School of Economics where he specializes in contemporary Anglo-American relations and the modern history of the Middle East. In addition to his latest book on Jordan's King Hussein and a wide variety of scholarly articles, Ashton is also the author of Eisenhower, Macmillan and the Problem of Nasser: Anglo-American Relations and Arab Nationalism (1996) and Kennedy, Macmillan and the Cold War: the Irony of Interdependence (2006).

Alexander Wieland is a historian at the U.S. Department of State's Office of the Historian where he is currently researching the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) volume covering the Carter administration's policy-making toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict between 1978 and 1980. Wieland previously edited the FRUS volume covering the organization and management of U.S. foreign policy between 1973 and 1976. Wieland received his Ph.D. in international history from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2006 and is currently revising for publication his dissertation entitled At Odds in Arabia: Anglo-American Relations and British Withdrawal from the Federation of South Arabia, 1962-67.