Meet The New President Of The Berggruen Institute

Craig Calhoun has been director of the London School of Economics and Political Science since September 2012 and is poised this summer to become the new president of the Berggruen Institute, a “think and action tank” concerned with political governance, philosophy and cross-cultural understanding that is building new headquarters in L.A.’s Brentwood neighborhood. Among Calhoun’s books on politics and social movements are Neither Gods Nor Emperors: Students and the Struggle for Democracy in China and The Roots of Radicalism. Before he discussed whether America is still a British colony , he talked in the Zócalo green room about how he got in trouble as a kid, an airplane conversation he couldn’t get out of and a particularly American way of conversing.