The Best Kind of American: A True Story of Murder, War, and America's Undoing in the Middle East
Kim Ghattas, Middle East expert, author, and Emmy-award-winning journalist
Monday, November 16, 202612:00 PM
Bunche Hall, Rm 10383
11282 Portola Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90095
ABOUT THE BOOK
A work of true crime following one American family’s search for answers after a 1984 murder in war-torn Beirut, where the Iranian revolution collided with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, setting off the geopolitical conflagration that burns to this day
On January 18, 1984, Malcolm Kerr, president of the American University of Beirut, was assassinated by a pair of gunmen outside his office. His murder, in the wake of the bombing of the US Marines’ barracks, Palestinian guerrilla warfare, and the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, was just one more shocking headline in a city ravaged by the chaos of nine years of war. There was no investigation. Four decades later, the question of who killed Malcolm and why still haunts Kerr’s family, including his son Steve, a world-famous basketball player and NBA coach.
In The Best Kind of American, Kim Ghattas embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of Kerr’s assassination, weaving together the family’s story with that of Lebanon’s warlords and peacemakers, Hezbollah hostage takers and Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and American presidents from Reagan to Trump. She also tells the definitive story of how Beirut came to be the point of origin for the policies and people who went on to shape the Middle East for decades, from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was then assassinated in a joint US-Israeli strike in the opening salvo of their 2026 war against the Islamic Republic. With the nuance, clarity, and storytelling that made Black Wave an era-defining work on the Middle East, Ghattas delivers a riveting, deeply human saga—a must-read for understanding why this conflict continues to shape today’s world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kim Ghattas is a Middle East expert, author, and Emmy-award-winning journalist. She’s a contributing writer for The Atlantic magazine, a contributing editor for The Financial Times, and a regular guest on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. She was a Distinguished Inaugural Fellow at the Columbia University Institute for Global Politics. She previously reported for the BBC from the Middle East and Washington, DC. She is the author of Black Wave, a New York Times notable book on the Saudi-Iran rivalry, and of The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power, a New York Times bestseller. She splits her time between her hometown in Beirut and writing desks around the world.
ABOUT THE DISCUSSANTS
Ann Zwicker Kerr, a native of Southern California, has spent more than fifteen years living, studying and teaching in the Middle East. She was educated at Occidental College, the American University of Beirut and the American University of Cairo and taught at the latter two institutions for a number of years.
She is currently at the University of California in Los Angeles where she coordinates the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Enrichment Program for southern California. Ann is an emerita member of the Board of Trustees of the American University of Beirut, the American University of Kuwait, the President’s Advisory Council of EARTH University in Costa Rica and a current member of the Advisory Board of the Rand Center for Middle East Public Policy and the Council on Foreign Relations. She helped to form the Leadership Council for Churches for Middle East Peace, a Washington based group representing main line churches which support a balanced view for Arab-Israeli peace. She is the author of two books on the region, Come with Me from Lebanon and Painting the Middle East.
Her late husband, Malcolm Kerr, was the president of the American University of Beirut and was assassinated in office in 1984. She is the mother of four adult children and grandmother of eight.
Kal Raustiala is the Promise Institute Distinguished Professor of Comparative and International Law at UCLA Law School and Professor at the UCLA International Institute. He currently serves as Director of the UCLA Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations and Director of the International and Comparative Law Program. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he is a Senior Fellow at the Pacific Council for International Policy
ORDER THE BOOK IN ADVANCE (it will also be available for purchase at the event)
The Best Kind of American is available via Macmillan Publishers.
Sponsor(s): Burkle Center for International Relations, Center for Near Eastern Studies