In 1971, U Thant was ranked as the sixth ‘most admired man’ in America – a remarkable achievement for a former schoolteacher from Burma. In Peacemaker: U Thant, the United Nations, and the Untold Story of the 1960s, award-winning writer, historian and conservationist Thant Myint-U traces his grandfather’s extraordinary rise from a quiet life in 1947 to becoming the United Nations’ longest-serving Secretary-General, and a global celebrity at the heart of Cold War politics.

Thant Myint-U reveals U Thant’s pivotal yet often forgotten role in some of the twentieth century’s most critical crises: confronting mercenaries in the Congo, helping to steer the Cuban Missile Crisis towards peace, and working to maintain a ceasefire after the Six-Day War. At once intimate, gripping and politically urgent, Peacemaker captures a golden age of international diplomacy – and asks what hope, peace and individual action might still achieve in today’s uncertain world.

In conversation with David Reynolds.

Venue: Old Divinity School

Duration: 1 hour