Seventeen years after appearing unexpectedly on the political scene in Russia, Vladimir V. Putin remains an enigmatic leader who confounds his opponents at home and abroad even as he reasserts Russian power. How does Putin's background shape his view of the country and the world? What are the roots of his popularity at home? How stable is the system he has created? And how will the world react to a resurgent Russia that is increasingly hostile to the West?

Join New York Times correspondent Steven Lee Myers, author of The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin, as he discusses Putin, Russia, and implications for the U.S. presidential election at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 7, at Penn State Law and the School of International Affairs. The discussion will be moderated by Penn State Law affiliate faculty member Scott Sigmund Gartner, director of the School of International Affairs.

A book signing will follow the talk, starting at 7:00 p.m. This event is free and open to the public. Prior registration is requested.

This event will be webcast live. Tune into YouTube at 5:30 p.m. to watch a live stream of this event. 

Register

Free parking is available in the lot behind the Katz Building beginning at 5:00 p.m.

About Steven Lee Myers

Steven Lee Myers is a correspondent in the Washington Bureau of The New York Times who covers foreign policy and national security issues. He previously worked as bureau chief in Moscow in 2013 and 2014, having also served as a correspondent and bureau chief there from 2002 to 2007, covering Russia and the other former Soviet republics. He is the author of a biography of Vladimir Putin, entitled The New Tsar, published by Alfred A. Knopf Books in September 2015 and reissued as a Vintage paperback in August 2016.

Mr. Myers began his career at The Times in 1989 and worked in New York City until moving to Washington in 1996, where he covered first the State Department and then the Pentagon through the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

He has reported on conflicts from the ground in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Chechnya and Iraq. In 2003, he was “embedded” with the Army’s Third Infantry Division during the invasion of Iraq and reported extensively on the division’s experience there and back home that year. He returned to Iraq as a correspondent and bureau chief from 2009 to 2011.

In Washington, he also covered the White House during the presidency of George W. Bush and has written on the State Department during the tenures now of five different Secretaries of State, most recently Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry.

Born in Los Angeles in 1965, Mr. Myers received a bachelor’s degree in rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley, graduating with honors in 1987.  As a Rotary International scholar, he received a master’s degree, with distinction, in literature and art history from the University of Reading, Reading, England in 1989.