Michael Hamilton Morgan

Michael Morgan is International speaker, nonprofit founder and former U.S. diplomat; Michael
Morgan is also a nonfiction author and novelist.
Since 2007, Morgan has been a keynote speaker at the Arab Business Council,
British Parliament, World Economic Forum, U.S. Treasury, Georgetown
University, UCLA, University of Virginia, the Mohammed bin Rashid Foundation
in Dubai, the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, the Sharjah International
Book Fair, the Asia Society and many other venues.

While certain Western groups stereotype Muslim culture as
universally anti-modern, authoritarian and xenophobic, in fact the
historical record shows that Muslim civilization has unique traditions of
pluralism, diversity and government by consensus. It also has a strong
tradition of enlightened leadership that helped shape the Western concept of
the ideal leader.

Some of the roots of this tradition can be found in the religion itself,
including the Prophet’s last sermon that explicitly rejected racism and
racial superiority in Islam. Other sources can be found in the fact that
Muslim civilization freely incorporated many other traditions, behaviors,
nationalities and even faiths — from Persian, Byzantine, Indian,
Mediterranean and African sources. Early Arab-Muslm philosphers like Al
Kindi explicitly endorsed the inclusion of all traditions and knowledge,
even when from other faiths and nationalities.

The message of Morgan’s 2007 book, Lost History: the Enduring Legacy of
Muslim Scientists, Thinkers and Artists, (National Geographic/Random House,
www.losthistoryonline.com <http://www.losthistoryonline.colm/>) has reached
more than 300 million people worldwide, and was translated into Arabic,
Japanese, Korean, Indonesian and other languages. President Hosni Mubarak
presented Morgan with Egypt’s Presidential Medal for Arts and Sciences in
2009. The book was praised by former President Jimmy Carter, Jordan’s King
Abdullah II and NYU’s Pulitzer Prize winning historian David Levering Lewis.
Morgan’s most recent book is Arabia: In Search of the Golden Ages, released
in 2010 with MacGillivray Freeman’s IMAX film of the same name. Morgan’s
previous books were Collision with History: the Search for John F. Kennedy’s
PT 109 (2002) and Graveyards of the Pacific (2001). On those books he
collaborated with undersea explorer and Titanic discover Robert D. Ballard.
Morgan’s 1991 international thriller The Twilight War (Dutton/Signet) was
set in Eastern Europe, Central America and Washington.

Morgan has appeared on ABC Good Morning America, Al Jazeera (Arabic and
English services), BBC, CBS Evening News, CSpan, Public Radio International,
Voice of America TV and elsewhere. His op-eds and advertorials have appeared
in The New York Times, Time, The Washington Post and The Wall Street
Journal.

As a career diplomat from 1980-87, Morgan was Deputy Staff Director
(1985-87) of the bipartisan White House commission overseeing the Voice of
America and the Fulbright Scholarships. He accompanied commission travel in
Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Cuba. He also served as U.S. spokesman
during the 1983 Grenada crisis, where he dealt with a press corps of 800.
Secretary of State Shultz gave him a Meritorious Honor Award in 1984. As a
diplomat he was assigned to Peru, the Eastern Caribbean and Washington, D.C.
Morgan is also founder and President of New Foundations for Peace
(www.nfpeace.org), a nonprofit created to teach leadership skills, tolerance
and creative thinking to young people worldwide.

Morgan speaks fluent English and Spanish, and has studied French, German and
Norwegian. He has lived or worked on projects in more than 20 countries in
Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and the Americas. He was an Echols
Scholar at the University of Virginia, where he graduated with High
Distinction in 1973.