Insights

Writing. Convening. Teaching. Training. Modeling. Experimenting. Engaging. Across time zones and international boundaries, members of our community are at work. Our “Insights” gallery is a multimedia guide to intellectual life at the Davis Center.

ulugbek madrash in Uzbekistan
Individuals negotiating at a table.

Renegotiate Commitments Without Letting People Down

Deep into a negotiation, you realize an issue you fought hard for no longer suits your interests. What should you do now?

Black and white photo showing people seated around a table with newspaper Pravda in the foreground and portraits of Stalin and Lenin on wall

New Guide Expands Access to Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System

An expanded guide to the HPSSS, a collection of anonymous interviews in which several hundred Soviet displaced persons and defectors described their experiences.

Islam Karimov

Negotiating With Karimov

Although I had met Islam Karimov once or twice before my arrival at Tashkent in October, 1997, I hardly knew him. He evidently knew a lot about me.

Höfði house

New Arms Control Negotiation Academy Seeks to Reimagine International Security

Six institutions from the United States, Russia, and Europe recruit 16 future leaders in arms control for intensive training program.

Dirk van der Kley

Less is More… The New BRI in Central Asia

Dirk van der Kley reassesses conventional wisdom about China's Belt and Road Initiative in Central Asia.

Ambassador Simons with three others in front of an Uzbek historical site holding a Harvard flag

On the Coast of Bohemia: The US and Central Asia in the Early 1990s

A former ambassador reflects on the many directions of change in Central Asia, from walking through markets to presidential meetings.

Caravanserai, Khiva, Uzbekistan

Wanderlust: Six Wonderful Books by Westerners Who Traveled to Central Asia a Century Ago

When trips to Central Asia are cancelled, seeing the region through another's eyes is the next best thing.

Book cover of The Hungry Steppe in English and Russian

Remembering the Kazakh Famine

"The Hungry Steppe," a new book by Sarah Cameron, has influenced the burgeoning public discourse on the famine of 1932–33 in Kazakhstan.

Cristopher Patvakanian

Digging into Diaspora Data

Cristopher Patvakanian ’20 set out to explore whether foreign investors behave differently if they belong to the diaspora of the country in which they are investing.