The Naval Institute Press is proud to present the long-awaited oral history of Admiral James G. Stavridis, USN (Ret.). Admiral Stavridis, who recently retired as Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, is a native of Florida. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and spent over thirty years in the Navy, rising to the rank of four-star-admiral. Among his many commands were four years as Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, where he oversaw operations in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, the Balkans, and counter piracy off the coast of Africa. He also commanded U.S. Southern Command charged with military operations through Latin America. In the course of his career in the Navy, Admiral Stavridis served as senior military assistant to the Secretary of Defense. He led the Navy's premier operational think tank for innovation, Deep Blue, immediately after the 9/11 attacks. He won the Battenberg Cup for commanding the top ship in the Atlantic Fleet and the Navy League John Paul Jones Award for Inspirational leadership, along with more than 40 U.S. and international medals and decorations. He earned a PhD from the Fletcher School at Tufts, winning the Gullion prize as outstanding student in his class, as well as academic honors from the National and Naval War Colleges as a distinguished student. He is also the recipient of fifty medals, including 28 from foreign nations. A popular author for the Naval Institute Press, Admiral Stavridis has published eight books on leadership, Latin America, shiphandling, and innovation, as well as more than 500 articles in leading journals (including a recent cover story for Time magazine). An active user of social networks, he has thousands of followers on Twitter and friends on Facebook. His TED talk on 21st-century security in 2012 has had over 1,000,000 views. Admiral Stavridis is currently an operating executive of the Carlyle Group. He is also Chair of the Board of the U.S. Naval Institute, and has won both the Proceedings and Naval Institute Press Author of the Year Awards (1995 and 2010, respectively).

As told by: James G. Stavridis