Speaker biographies

Matthias Küntzel is a political scientist in Hamburg, Germany. From 1984 to 1988, Mr. Küntzel was a senior adviser to the Federal Parliamentary Fraction of Germany’s Green Party. Since 2004, he has served as a research associate at the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2006, he became a member of the board of directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. In 2007, his most recent book, Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11 (Telos Press, 2007), was awarded the London Book Festival’s annual grand prize. His essays about Islamism and anti-Semitism have been published in the Jerusalem Post, the Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Policy Review, and Telos and have been translated into more than ten languages.

Michael A. Ledeen, the Freedom Scholar at AEI, is an expert on U.S. foreign policy. His research areas include state sponsors of terrorism; Iran; the Middle East; Italy; intelligence; and Africa (Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe). A former consultant to the National Security Council and the U.S. State and Defense Departments, he has also written on leadership and the use of power. He most recently authored The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots’ Quest for Destruction (St. Martin’s Press, 2007) and The War against the Terror Masters: Why It Happened, Where We Are Now, How We’ll Win (St. Martin’s Press, 2002).

Michael Novak is a theologian, author, and former U.S. ambassador who holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the AEI. He is the 1994 recipient of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Mr. Novak has written twenty-six influential books on the philosophy and theology of culture, especially the essential elements of a free society. His masterpiece, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (Madison, 1982), was published underground in Poland in 1984 and, after 1989, in Czechoslovakia, Germany, China, Hungary, Bangladesh, Korea, and many countries in Latin America. His latest book is Washington’s God: Religion, Liberty, and the Founder of Our Country (Basic Books, 2006). For his work and influence, he has received many international awards.

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