Stephen Colbert calls Andras Simonyi "the only ambassador I know who can shred a mean guitar!" In fact, Simonyi, the former Hungarian ambassador to the U.S., may be the only diplomat to also front a rock band. And as both, he has witnessed two of the most powerful forces in modern life: democracy and rock and roll. In ROCKING TOWARD A FREE WORLD, Simonyi reflects on the profound effect of those two forces in his life. He details the struggle of growing up behind the Iron Curtain in 1960s Hungary, and how under a communist regime music was powerful but furtive: records were black-market bootlegs; concerts were held in secret; protests were hidden in lyrics. To get caught meant punishment, even prison. But Simonyi was determined and knew how music could feed the culturally impoverished. Inspired by the protest music coming out of the US and the UK, he formed a band, befriended musicians, and became part of the burgeoning rock scene. There were setbacks, the oppression of the regime, and the collapse of his own dreams of stardom. But Simonyi came of age in step with his struggling homeland. By 1989, when a watershed Amnesty International concert in Budapest helped signal lasting change in Hungary, it was Simonyi, now a bureaucrat, who helped make the concert a reality. That same year, the Berlin Wall fell, and communism began its collapse. Inspiring and moving, ROCKING TOWARD A FREE WORLD shows the soft power of rock and roll as a driver of change, and how it inspired one boy to make a difference in his country and the world.

Over the last decade, expensive and unpopular wars, recession, ballooning debt, and the rise of China and other regional powers have brought the limits of traditional power into focus. So far, " Smart Power "has been seen as the idea that an effective foreign policy must place principal reliance on a tailored synthesis of both hard and soft power and the precise mix depends on the circumstances.

This timely volume underscores why "smart power" is still a clue for policymakers seeking to combine different tools within a coherent strategy. It also questions the practical and institutional challenges stand in the way of a true smart power approach. It underscores the need for the United States and Europe to pull all the levers of power and influence, including military, diplomatic, legal, cultural, energetic and technological. The authors introduce new approaches including the concept of spectral power, super-seeding the dichotomy of hard and soft power and urging the rethinking of the concept of smart power. The authors have held senior executive positions in the U.S. administration and governments in Europe.

The volume presents the material of the first Oxford-Budapest Conference on Truth, Reference and Realism held at CEU in 2005. The problem addressed by the conference, famously formulated by Paul Benacerraf in a paper on Mathematical Truth, was how to understand truth in the semantics of discourses about abstract domains whose objects and properties cannot be observed by sense perception. The papers of the volume focus on this semantic issue in four major fields: logic, mathematics, ethics and the metaphysics of properties in general. Beyond marking an important event, the collected papers are also substantial contributions to the above topic, from the most distinguished authors in these areas (Daniel Isaacson, Ralph Wedgwood, Timothy Williamson (University of Oxford), Nenad Miscevic (CEU, University of Maribor), Howard Robinson (CEU), Ian Rumfitt (University of London)), and four of them were prepared for this volume.

Over the past quarter-century, northern Europe has been transformed. Formerly riven by Cold War divisions, today the region shows that market democracy can work, human rights and the rule of law can be respected, a positive outward vision of the world is still possible, and the transatlantic cooperation remains indispensable to tackle many challenged. Yet insecurities have yet again returned to northern Europe, and greater uncertainties also beset the High North, with its shared borders and special neighborhood. The Center for Transatlantic Relations has brought together strategists and experienced practitioners from many different countries to explore ways to advance U.S.-Nordic-Baltic security cooperation in light of changing security challenges facing the transatlantic community. Authors explore integrated approaches to preventive diplomacy and security, alternative NATO partnership architectures and energy security. They examine U.S-Nordic-Baltic cooperation on the Arctic and the High North. They suggest ways to strengthen U.S.-Nordic-Baltic defense cooperation and recommend more effective ways to realize a Europe whole, free, and at peace, particularly in light of Russia's continued provocations in central and northern Europe.