Today, Hoover invites those in the Bay Area to a special public event honoring individuals who fled authoritarian regimes in search of liberty, featuring Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado; Andrew Roberts speaks with author Tomiwa Owolade about the limits of applying American ideas on race in Britain; and Amy Zegart and Emerson Johnston report updated findings on the talent pipeline powering Chinese AI firm DeepSeek, identifying important problems and realities for US policymakers to address.
USA@250
A new public exhibition by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Choosing Freedom, draws from powerful testimonies, personal belongings, and striking archival materials to tell the stories of individuals who fled authoritarian regimes in search of liberty. Through intimate artifacts and firsthand accounts, the exhibition illuminates the enduring human desire for freedom and the extraordinary courage required to pursue it. To mark the opening of Choosing Freedom, Hoover is hosting a special evening chaired by renowned historian Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin. The program will feature María Corina Machado, leader of Venezuela’s democratic movement and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who will deliver remarks and join Kotkin for a conversation on democratic resistance, political courage, and the enduring pursuit of liberty in the face of authoritarian rule. Register for this free in-person event, taking place tomorrow, June 17, here.
British History
Author and columnist Tomiwa Owolade joins Secrets of Statecraft host Andrew Roberts to discuss his bestselling book This Is Not America and why Britain’s conversation about race has become increasingly shaped by American ideas and assumptions. He argues that importing US concepts such as critical race theory, identity politics, and Black Lives Matter into a fundamentally different British historical and social context has distorted public debate, weakened social cohesion, and obscured the real sources of inequality. The conversation also covers “cultural cringe,” the future of wokeness, the rise of sectarian politics, anti-Semitism, social justice ideology, and the enduring power of American culture. It’s a wide-ranging conversation about race, national identity, free inquiry, and whether Britain can rediscover a shared civic culture before its own culture wars become even more entrenched. Listen here.
Technology and China Policy
Following up on an April 2025 analysis of Chinese AI firm DeepSeek, Senior Fellow Amy Zegart and coauthor Emerson Johnston find that DeepSeek's researchers are more cited and more credentialed than they were a year ago, and still over half of them have never held an affiliation outside China. Among those who did train in the United States, most returned home, and the length of their stay did not meaningfully predict whether they returned. The data points to two distinct problems for US policy, Zegart and Johnston argue. The first is retention: American institutions train researchers who leave. The second is independence: China now produces, at an unprecedented scale, frontier AI researchers who never pass through the United States at all. Neither of these problems are likely to revolve without concerted policy changes, the authors write. Read more here.
US History
Research Fellow Jennifer Burns is the 2026 recipient of the Joseph J. Spengler Prize for Best Book in the History of Economics for her 2023 biography Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative. The prize was awarded by the History of Economics Society and comes with a cash award and an invite to the society’s annual conference, which was hosted in Nice, France this year. It is given annually to the author of an English-language book about the history of economics published in the previous three years. Read more here.
Trade and Economic Policy
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with scholars at the Hoover Institution on June 11, discussing the administration’s trade policy, efforts underway to reduce US trade deficits, and strategies to strengthen American economic security. Greer, who has traveled extensively to manufacturing facilities across the country and to dozens of US trading partners around the globe, shared his perspectives on how he is working to reshape US trade relationships to better serve both American workers and national security interests. The discussion, featuring many Hoover Institution fellows and moderated by Director Condoleezza Rice, covered the administration’s efforts to build international consensus and shape conversations around structural trade imbalances that have developed over recent decades. Read more here.
Law and Policy
Abraham D. Sofaer, appointed the first George P. Shultz Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution in 1994, is this year’s winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award from The Record, a prominent publication focused on the law. Sofaer’s work focuses on the power over war within the US government and on issues related to international law, terrorism, diplomacy, and national security. From 1985 to 1990, he served as a legal adviser to the US Department of State, where he resolved several interstate matters. Sofaer received the Distinguished Service Award in 1989, the highest State Department award given to a non–civil servant. From 1979 to 1985, Sofaer served as a US district judge in the Southern District of New York. Read more here.
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