It is not easy to see how matters could be worsened by a parley at the summit.'

Winston Churchill coined the term 'summit' in 1950, during some of the darkest days of the Cold War. In the second half of the twentieth century summit meetings became a central element of international diplomacy -- among them dramatic encounters such as Kennedy and Khrushchev at Vienna in 1961 and Reagan and Gorbachev in Reykjavik in 1986. Today summits are in the headlines all the time -- for meetings of the EU, G8 and G20 -- and the word is often used in other walks of life, especially in business. But there is relatively little reflection about what summit meetings are supposed to achieve or about their costs as well as benefits.

We need to take a long view of summitry, exploring why, for most of history, leaders deliberately avoided face-to-face meetings. We should look more closely at some of the classic Cold War meetings, asking why some worked and others did not. And we also need to understand how summitry has changed since the Cold War. 'Lessons' from the past are always tentative but this lecture suggests what twenty-first century statesmen might learn from history, if they have the time and inclination.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/summit-diplomacy-some-lessons-from-history-for-21st-century-leaders
Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently nearly 1,500 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.ukTwitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollegeFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

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