The Hopkins China Forum and The Georgetown Alumni Club cordially invite you to:
World War II in Europe: The American Experience and the World They Made
Frank Lavin
Former U.S. Ambassador to Singapore, Former Undersecretary for International Trade, CEO and Founder of Export Now
SAIS ’92 and Georgetown ‘85
Thursday, November 8th, 2018
19:00pm – 20:15pm
Wooden Box
9 Qinghai Lu (just to the South of Nanjing West Road)
青海路 9 号, 近南京西路, 地铁二号线南京西路站
18:45 – Doors Open
19:00 – Lecture
19:45 – Q&A
20:15 – Mixer
RSVP to Frank Tsai of Hopkins China Forum (http://www.shanghai-review.org/lecture-series/) at editor@shanghai-review.org.
In tonight’s talk, the speaker will first discuss his book, Home Front to Battlefront: An Ohio Teenager in World War II (https://www.amazon.com/Home-Front-Battlefront-Teenager-Society-ebook/), which is a history told through the story of his father, combat infantryman Carl Lavin, based on official military histories, conventional history sources, personal letters of the time, and taped recollections. It is a story of ordinary Americans, thrust into a harsh and dangerous world, where G.I.’s grapple with the horrors of combat, the idiocies of bureaucracy, and the oddities of life back home – all in the same day. It displays the best and the lowest of the human experience, including examples of heroism, compassion, and sacrifice along with cowardice, pettiness, and plain foolishness. It is the war-time juxtaposition of the trite and horrific; the banal and bizarre that gives this narrative emotional impact.
Through discussion of the book, the speaker will take us back to what it was like for U.S. soldiers to serve in Europe and draw some implications from America’s role in the war for the contemporary world.
Frank Lavin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lavin) is the CEO and founder of Export Now (https://www.exportnow.com/), a U.S. firm that operates e-commerce stores in China for international brands. He has served as Undersecretary for International Trade at the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Singapore, Director of White House Political Affairs, and in positions at the Department of Commerce, Department of State, and the National Security Council.
In the private sector, Lavin served in senior finance and management positions in Hong Kong and Singapore with Edelman, Bank of America, and Citibank. He is a columnist for Forbes.com, and co-author of Export Now: Five Keys to Entering New Markets (2011) and Home Front to Battlefront: An Ohio Teenager in World War II (2017), an account of his father’s service in World War II.
He holds a B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, M.S. in Chinese from Georgetown University; M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS; and MBA in Finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
