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WOODS HOLE, MA - William Taubman, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for the biography Khrushchev: The Man and His Era will present a lecture of the same title at the Marine Biological Laboratory's (MBL) Falmouth Forum on Friday, February 11 at 7:30 p.m. in the Lillie Auditorium, MBL Street, Woods Hole. Taubman's presentation is sponsored by the Associates of the Marine Biological Laboratory and is free and open to the public.

Remembered by many as the Soviet leader who reportedly banged his shoe at the United Nation, Nikita Khrushchev was in fact one of the most important, contradictory, and colorful political leaders of the twentieth century. Taubman will speak about how Khrushchev became the person he was, and how his personality both shaped and reflected his era.  He will try to explain such key events as Khrushchev's stunning "secret speech" denouncing Stalin in 1956, and his risky decision to send nuclear missiles to Cuba in 1962.

William Taubman is the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science at Amherst College.  He is an internationally known expert on Russia, the former Soviet Union, and the cold war.  His Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, was reviewed on the front pages of The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Toronto Globe and Mail book reviews.  It was selected by those newspapers, as well as by The Economist, as one of "the best books of 2003." Khrushchev was also awarded the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award for biography, and the 2004 Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize for distinguished scholarship in the field of American foreign relations.

In addition to authoring Khrushchev, several other books, and scholarly articles, Taubman has written op-ed pieces, and book reviews for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Atlanta Constitution, The Washington Post, and The London Review of Books.  He has also served as a television analyst for CNN as has appeared on the Today Show, the MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, and NPR's All Things Considered among others.  Since the 1960s he has made more than twenty-five trips to Russia and the former Soviet Union.

Admission to this Falmouth Forum presentation is free and open to the public. A buffet dinner is available before the lecture at 6:00 p.m. in the Swope Center located near the auditorium. Dinner tickets are $20 and must be purchased in advance at either Eight Cousins Children's Books, Main Street, Falmouth, or at the MBL in Woods Hole. Dinner seats are limited and are available until they sell out or until 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 8.   All tickets are nonrefundable. For more information contact the MBL's Associates Liaison at 508-289-7281.

The MBL Associates were founded in 1944 to provide an opportunity for friends of the Laboratory, both scientists and non-scientists, to support the MBL.  Over the years the Associates have taken on a wide range of projects, including providing fellowships for young scientists, supporting the MBL/WHOI Library, renovating the Lillie Auditorium, and landscaping the Whitman-Loeb quadrangle on the Woods Hole campus.  The Associates also help bring the work of the Laboratory to a broader public by sponsoring the Falmouth Forum Series and operating the MBL Gift Shop.  Membership is open to anyone with an interest in the Laboratory.

Remaining lectures in the series are below.  Visit www.mbl.edu for additional information.

March 4, 2005
America in a Dangerous World
H.D.S. Greenway, Columnist, Boston Globe

March 25, 2005       
Visiting the Family: Rare Primates of the World   
Connie Rogers, author and book editor