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Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, a husband and wife team, began working together in 1979 co-producing a documentary for Paul's television show, Watchworks. Called, The Arms Race and the Economy, A Delicate Balance, they found themselves in the midst of a swirling controversy that was to boil over a few months later with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Their acquisition of the first visas to enter Afghanistan granted to an American TV crew in the spring of 1981, brought them into the middle of the most heated Cold War controversy since Vietnam. But the pictures and the people inside Soviet occupied Afghanistan told a very different story from the one being broadcast on the evening news. Following their exclusive news story for the CBS Evening News, they produced a documentary (Afghanistan Between Three Worlds) for PBS and in 1983 they returned to Kabul for ABC Nightline with Harvard Negotiation project director Roger Fisher. They were told that the Russians wanted to go home and negotiate their way out. Peace in Afghanistan was more than a possibility. It was a desired option. But the story that President Carter called, "the greatest threat to peace since the second World War" had already been written by America's policy makers and America's pundits were not about to change the script. As the first American journalists to get deeply inside the story they not only got a view of an unseen Afghan life, but a revelatory look at how the US defined itself against the rest of the world under the veil of superpower confrontation. Once the Soviets had crossed the border into Afghanistan, the fate of both nations was sealed. But as Paul and Liz pursued the reasons behind the wall of propaganda that shielded the truth, they found themselves drawn into a story that was growing into mythic dimensions. Big things were brewing in Afghanistan. Old empires were being undone and new ones, hatched. America had launched a Medieval Crusade against the modern world and the ten year war against the Soviet Union was only the first chapter. It was at the time of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 when Paul and Liz were working on the film version of their experience under contract to Oliver Stone, that they began to piece together the mythic implications of the story. During the research for the screenplay many of the documents preceding the Afghan crisis were declassified. Over the next decade they trailed a labyrinth of clues only to find a profound likeness in Washington's official policy towards Afghanistan - in the ancient Zoroastrian war of the light against the dark - whose origins began in the region now known as Afghanistan. It was a likeness that grows more visible as America's involvement deepens. Afghanistan's civil war followed America's Cold War while Washington walked away. A new strain of religious holy warrior called the Taliban arose but no one in America was listening. As the horrors of the Taliban regime began to grab headlines in 1998 Paul and Liz began collaborating with Afghan human rights expert Sima Wali. Along with Wali, they contributed to the Women for Afghan Women: Shattering Myths and Claiming the Future book project. In 2002 they filmed Wali's first return to Kabul since her exile in 1978. The film they produced about Wali's journey home, The Woman in Exile Returns, gave audiences the chance to discover the message of one of Afghanistan's most articulate voices and her hopes for her people. In the years since 9/11 much has happened to bring Paul and Liz's story into sharp focus. Their efforts at combining personal diplomacy with activist journalism is a model for restoring a healthy and vibrant dialogue to American democracy. Ultimately their book, Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story lays bare why it was inevitable that the Soviet Union and the U.S. should end up in Afghanistan and what that means to the future of the American empire.

Paul Krugman is the world's preeminent economist, having won the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics. An insightful, outspoken Op-Ed columnist for the *New York Times*, he is a passionate and articulate speaker, with a gift for relating global economic events to his audiences, and committed to speaking the truth as he sees it in the most compelling terms. He is the author of several books, including most recently, *The Conscience of a Liberal*, and of *The Great Unraveling*, a bestseller. In response to the current financial crisis, Professor Krugman has released an updated edition of his prescient 1999 book, *The Return of Depression Economics*.

John Stauffer writes and lectures on the Civil War era, antislavery, social protest movements, and visual culture. He is the author of seven books and more than 45 articles, including *The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race* (2002), which won four major awards, including the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, the Avery Craven Book Award, and the Lincoln Prize runner-up. His essays have appeared in *Time Magazine*, *Raritan*, *New York Post*, *21st: The Journal of Contemporary Photography*, and *The Harvard Review*; and he has appeared on national radio and television shows. His new book, *GIANTS: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln*, was published in November 2008. Currently, John is completing a book with Sally Jenkins on radical interracialism and Unionism in Civil War era Mississippi. The story, *Free State of Jones*, will appear as a major motion picture by the filmmaker Gary Ross, with whom John served as a scholarly consultant. John received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1999, began teaching at Harvard that year, and was tenured in 2004. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife, Deborah Cunningham, and their two-year-old son, Erik Isaiah Stauffer.

Harry Belafonte's studied drama at Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop, where a singing role led to night-club engagements and a recording contract as a pop singer. In 1950 he became a folksinger, learning songs at the Library of Congress' American folk-song archives. He sang West Indian folk songs as well, in nightclubs and theatres; his handsome appearance added to his appeal as a frequent performer on television variety programs. With hit recordings such as "Day-O" (Banana Boat Song) and "Jamaica Farewell," he initiated a fad for calypso music; in the mid-1950s his *Harry Belafonte and Mark Twain and Other Folk Favorites* were the first of his series of hit folk-song albums. Belafonte was the male lead (but did not sing) in the film musical Carmen Jones (1954), a success that led to a starring role in the film *Island in the Sun* (1957). He also produced the film *Odds Against Tomorrow* (1959), in which he acted, and in the 1960s became the first African-American television producer. He helped introduce South African singer Miriam Makeba and Greek singer Nana Mouskouri to American audiences. A civil-rights activist, he was also active in charitable work. In the 1970s, when his singing career was a secondary occupation, he was featured in the films *Buck and the Preacher* (1972) and *Uptown Saturday Night* (1974).

Mary Frances Berry has been a Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of History since 1987. She received her Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan and JD from the University of Michigan Law School. She is the author of nine books, including *And Justice For All: The United States Commission On Civil Rights And the Struggle For Freedom in America* (2009); *My Face is Black Is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations* (2005); *The Pig Farmer's Daugher and Other Tales of American Justice: Episodes of Racism and Sexism in the Courts from 1865 to the Present* (1999); *Black Resistance, White Law: A History of Constitutional Racism in America* (1994, orig. 1971); *The Politics of Parenthood: Child Care, Women's Rights, and the Myth of the Good Mother* (1993); *Why ERA Failed: Politics, Women's Rights, and the Amending Process of the Constitution* (1986); *Long Memory: The Black Experience in America, with John Blassingame* (1982); and *Military Necessity and Civil Rights Policy: Black Citizenship and the Constitution, 1861-1868* (1977). Professor Berry has had a distinguished career in public service. From 1980 to 2004, she was a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and from 1993-2004 served as Chair. Between 1977 and 1980, Dr. Berry served as the Assistant Secretary for Education in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). She has also served as Provost of the University of Maryland and Chancellor of the University of Colorado at Boulder. In recognition of her scholarship and public service, Professor Berry has received 32 honorary doctoral degrees and many awards, including the NAACP's Roy Wilkins Award, the Rosa Parks Award of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Ebony Magazine Black Achievement Award. She is one of 75 women featured in *I Dream A World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America*. Sienna College Research Institute and the Women's Hall of Fame designated her one of "America's Women of the Century." Professor Berry teaches the History of American Law, and the History of Law and Social Policy. She also advises students in African American History.

Neil deGrasse Tyson was born and raised in New York City where he was educated in the public schools clear through his graduation from the Bronx High School of Science. Tyson went on to earn his BA in Physics from Harvard and his PhD in Astrophysics from Columbia.

Stephen Wozniak, cofounder of Apple Computers, is often given credit for starting the PC revolution. Born August 11, 1950, Wozniak built his own amateur radio station when he was 11 years old and got a ham-radio license. Two years later, he built his first computer. In the 1970's he built blue-boxes which he later sold with Steve Jobs. Having dropped out of college in 1975, Wozniak was working with a group called the Homebrew Computer Club, based in Palo Alto, CA. There, he developed a successful computer, but was working as a hobbyist. That is where he met Jobs, and the two decided that a completely assembled and inexpensive computer would be a hot item. They raised some money and built a prototype in Jobs' garage. Named Apple I, it was a fully assembled and functional unit that contained a $25 microprocessor on a single-circuit board with ROM. On April 1, 1976, Jobs and Wozniak formed the Apple Computer Company. Wozniak quit his job at Hewlett-Packard and became the vice president in charge of research and development at Apple. Apple I was priced at $666.66. Jobs and Wozniak sold their first 25 computers to a local dealer. In 1980, the Apple company went public and made Jobs and Wozniak millionaires. In 1981, Wozniak was in a plane crash that caused him short-term memory loss. He withdrew from his work at Apple, and went back to school, earning degrees in computer science and electrical engineering. He went back to work at Apple, in development, but decided to leave the company for good in 1985. That year President Ronald Reagan presented Wozniak with the National Medal of Technology. In 2000, Wozniak was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In May 2004, Woz received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from North Carolina State University for his contributions to the field of personal computing, as well as several other honorary degrees from various institutions.