How I Write: A Conversation with Ian Morris

Ian Morris is a Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and a member of the Stanford Archaeology Center faculty. He grew up in Britain and studied at Birmingham and Cambridge universities before moving to the University of Chicago in 1987 and on to Stanford in 1995. He has published thirteen books and more than a hundred articles in academic journals and newspapers. His book Why the West Rules—For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future received three literary awards, was named as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Economist, Foreign Affairs, Newsweek, Nature, the Evening Standard, and other periodicals, and has been translated into thirteen languages. He followed it with The Measure of Civilization and his latest book, War! What Is It Good For? His next book, Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Values Evolve, will be published this year. Morris is currently writing yet another book to be called In the Beginning: A Global History of the Ancient World.

Join Hilton Obenzinger, an accomplished fiction and nonfiction writer and lecturer in the Stanford Department of English, the American Studies Program, and Stanford Continuing Studies, as he engages Ian Morris in conversation, focusing on the techniques, quirks, and joys of writing.

This program is co-sponsored by Stanford Continuing Studies and the Hume Center for Writing and Speaking. For video, audio, and transcripts of previous “How I Write” conversations, visit continuingstudies.stanford.edu/howiwrite.