The first wave of Iranian migration to the United States happened decades before the 1979 Revolution; many came to the U.S. as student sojourners looking to receive an American education. Many also used the opportunity to protest and distribute information about the Shah’s political policies, social conditions in Iran, and the lived realities of American imperialism. It is from this engagement that expressions of resistance among Iranians in the United States expanded to encompass a diverse array of political leanings.

In the seventy years since its founding, the state of Israel has built all the hardware of a thriving formal democracy—institutions, procedures, and elections—but has yet to fully install the software that will allow it to emerge as a substantive democracy, argued Hoover Institution Distinguished Fellow Ayre Carmon in a discussion with SF Weekly writer Jonathan Curiel at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club.

The Hoover Institution has published Sidney D. Drell: Into the Heart of Matter, Passionately, by Lenora Ferro and Susan Southworth. This portrait examines the life and legacy of the nuclear physicist, violinist, family man, beloved friend, humanitarian in service to his country, and passionate advocate of peace and global stability, revealed through the words of people who knew Drell best.

Each year, the Department of State and the five branches of the US armed forces select a small group of rising leaders from their ranks for senior-level education programs. In addition to military service schools such as the Army, Air, and Naval war colleges, the Hoover Institution is one of a handful of policy research organizations authorized to host such personnel for their year of study and professional development.

Merian Caldwell Cooper would be a top candidate for the "Most Interesting Man in the World." Although Cooper is known for his 1933 production of King Kong, there were many more interesting episodes in his life in addition to that iconic movie. Indeed, in the words of the film historian Richard Schickel, “his career was larger than life.” Expelled from Annapolis in his senior year for advocating air power, a view the navy frowned on, in 1916 he joined the Georgia National Guard and served with General Pershing’s expedition against Pancho Villa.

Since 2014, John B. Taylor, the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, has hosted annual conferences of leading monetary policy makers, financial authorities, and academic economists to discuss the unprecedented post-2008 economic climate and help set the tone for future monetary reform. This year’s forum, titled “International Monetary Stability: Past, Present, and Future,” drew an impressive list of participants including four Federal Reserve Bank presidents and numerous representatives from the Federal Reserve System, academia, the financial sector, and business media. 

In 2016 our nation faced a broad array of issues at home and abroad. Throughout it all, in publications across the country, Hoover fellows offered their unique brand of thoughtful and scholarly insight and ideas. A selection of those pieces follows.

America’s political leaders no longer deliberate and compromise over the best policy solutions, but instead seek total victory in political battles and wars, all at a great cost to the nation, says Hoover scholar David Davenport.

The depth of Hoover’s scholarship is reflected in the numerous books published by our fellows on a broad variety of topics and issues. This timely and prodigious output offers insight on the most pressing issues in public policy. This year Hoover fellows published books on a wide range of topics, including social networks, global insecurity, and American exceptionalism.