Uploaded June 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Foreign Affairs invites you to listen to its podcast, the Foreign Affairs Interview. This episode with Stephen Kotkin and Orville Schell was originally published on June 30, 2023.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin loom over geopolitics in a way that few leaders have in decades. Not even Mao and Stalin drove global events the way Xi and Putin do today. Who they are, how they view the world, and what they want are some of the most important and pressing questions in foreign policy and international affairs.
Stephen Kotkin and Orville Schell are two of the best scholars to explore these issues. Kotkin is the author of seminal scholarship on Russia, the Soviet Union, and global history, including an acclaimed three-volume biography of Stalin. He is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Schell is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society. He is the author of 15 books, ten of them about China. He is also a former professor and dean at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
In part one of our conversation, we discuss the early lives of Putin and Xi and how history has shaped their worldviews.
Part two of this interview can be found here:
youtu.be/RrQoNQ1Y6fU
SOURCES FOR THIS EPISODE
“Prigozhin’s Rebellion, Putin’s Fate, and Russia’s Future”: A Conversation With Stephen Kotkin
foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/prigozhin-rebellion-putin-fate-russia-future-stephen-kotkin
“Russia’s Perpetual Geopolitics” by Stephen Kotkin
foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/redeem/Og7QZKS1HyA
“Life of the Party” by Orville Schell
foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/redeem/E02DHSwP_x0
“China’s Cover-Up” by Orville Schell
foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/redeem/P5wVPtwKkLw
Foreign Affairs invites you to listen to its podcast, the Foreign Affairs Interview. This episode with Stephen Kotkin and Orville Schell was originally published on June 30, 2023.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin loom over geopolitics in a way that few leaders have in decades. Not even Mao and Stalin drove global events the way Xi and Putin do today. Who they are, how they view the world, and what they want are some of the most important and pressing questions in foreign policy and international affairs.
Stephen Kotkin and Orville Schell are two of the best scholars to explore these issues. Kotkin is the author of seminal scholarship on Russia, the Soviet Union, and global history, including an acclaimed three-volume biography of Stalin. He is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Schell is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society. He is the author of 15 books, ten of them about China. He is also a former professor and dean at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
In part one of our conversation, we discuss the early lives of Putin and Xi and how history has shaped their worldviews.
Part two of this interview can be found here:
youtu.be/RrQoNQ1Y6fU
SOURCES FOR THIS EPISODE
“Prigozhin’s Rebellion, Putin’s Fate, and Russia’s Future”: A Conversation With Stephen Kotkin
foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/prigozhin-rebellion-putin-fate-russia-future-stephen-kotkin
“Russia’s Perpetual Geopolitics” by Stephen Kotkin
foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/redeem/Og7QZKS1HyA
“Life of the Party” by Orville Schell
foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/redeem/E02DHSwP_x0
“China’s Cover-Up” by Orville Schell
foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/redeem/P5wVPtwKkLw
