Ali A. Allawi is a writer, biographer and former government minister in Iraq. He received his education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Harvard University. He served in the World Bank group for a number of years before founding his own investment firm. Following the changes in Iraq in 2003, he served as the Minister of Trade, and then the first civilian Minister of Defence. In 2005 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly of Iraq and then served as Minister of Finance. In 2007, he left public service to pursue scholarly and academic interests. He has authored four books including The Occupation of Iraq (Yale: 2007) and The Crisis of Islamic Civilisation (Yale: 2009). His book Faisal I of Iraq will be issued in September 2013 (Yale). It will be the first comprehensive biography of this seminal figure set against the formative years of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of the state system in the Middle East. At various times, Ali Allawi has been associated with Oxford University (Senior Associate Member); University of Exeter (Fellow); Princeton University (Fellow); and Harvard University (Fellow). He has made numerous media appearances, and his articles and essays have appeared in major international journals and newspapers. He is the recipient of several public policy and diplomacy awards, and his books have garnered prizes. He is currently working on a book on the economic history of the modern Arab/Islamic worlds.