“Bipartisanship in Congress is dead. But the unceasing indulgence of competitive passions in the zero-sum game of electoral politics, where one party’s gain is necessarily the other's loss, is a luxury our nation can’t afford once elections are decided. When the ballots are counted, governing should begin.”

Drawing on his deep background at the highest levels of government, Christopher Cox's magisterial new biography, Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn (Simon & Schuster, November 2024) has brought to life for 21st century audiences the remarkable events of a century ago that underlie conflicts of today ranging from war in the Middle East to the battles for race and gender equity. Today's debates over freedom of speech, censorship, civil liberties, and government's influence on media all have their roots in Wilson's eight years in the White House. Jane Harman, president emerita of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, praises Cox's Wilson biography for "putting the fight for women's rights alongside World War I as the great events of the Wilson era.”

Cox's career highlights include service as a White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan; seventeen years in Congress, where he was the fifth-ranking leader of the US House of Representatives; and four years as Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). His government experience complements his deep knowledge of the private sector, gained during more than two decades as a practicing lawyer. In addition, he taught federal income tax as a member of the faculty at Harvard Business School, and founded a company that, during the Cold War, translated the Soviet Union’s daily newspaper, Pravda, into English for customers in 26 nations around the world.

As Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee in Congress after 9/11, Cox played a key role in the creation of the third-largest cabinet department in the federal government. His legislative achievements spanned both domestic and foreign policy, with notable laws including the Support for Eastern European Democracy (SEED) Act and the Internet Tax Freedom Act. Cox is also credited with pioneering legislation that limits liability for user-generated content on the internet, a law that the Washington Post credits with creating "a trillion or so dollars of value." This groundbreaking legislation is the subject of cybersecurity professor Jeff Kosseff's book, The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet, published by Cornell University Press.

Exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau, Christopher Cox speaks on the most important challenges Americans face today, interpreting them through the long lens of history. The complex regulatory environment of the 21st century, the rapidly multiplying threats to international order, and the persistent injustices centered on race, gender, and income inequality, he explains, can best be understood in the context of what has come before.

An Accomplished Writer and Scholar. Christopher Cox is a Senior Scholar in Residence at the University of California, Irvine, a Life Trustee of the University of Southern California, Chair of the Rhodes Scholarship selection committee for Southern California and the Pacific, and a member of several nonprofit and for-profit boards. Cox received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a JD from Harvard Law School, where he was an Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He has written for dozens of publications including Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Forbes, the Detroit News, the Denver Post, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.

More About Christopher Cox. When Congress established the Bipartisan Study Group on Enhancing Multilateral Export Controls through federal legislation in 1999, Cox was tapped as co-chairman. The group published a unanimous report in 2001 recommending wholesale modernization of U.S. export controls. In 1994, Cox was appointed by President Clinton to the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, which published its unanimous report in 1995 concluding that the current path of entitlement spending is unsustainable.

Continue Reading »