When you are the president of the United States, people notice everything you do.  Every detail, no matter how small, it is noted by the press.  So, it came as no surprise that when President Biden left for the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland to prepare for the state of the union address, both Politico (a Washington, DC based publication focused on politics and government) and CNN took note of the fact that the president was carrying a copy of the recently published book Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict.  According to Ury, a White House staffer passed the book on to Biden because the president is always focused on America as a nation of possibilities so the book seemed like a natural fit for the president. 

Harper Collins, the publisher of Possible, sums up the central message of the book as:  “In Possible, Ury argues conflict is natural. In fact, we need more conflict, not less—if we are to grow, change, evolve and solve our problems creatively. While we may not be able to end conflict, we can transform it—unleashing new, unexpected possibilities.”

Ury is well-known and accomplished in the field of negotiations.  A social anthropologist by training, Ury along with former President Carter founded the International Negotation Network and he is the co-founder of the Harvard Center on Negotiation.  Ury’s 1981 work Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In is a classic in the field.

 

Martin Burns

Martin recently graduated from the Masters degree programme: Conflict Transformation and Social Justice.  His dissertation was on The Politics of Persuasion: How the Irish Republican Leadership Sold the 1998 Good Friday Agreement to their Constituency.