Robert David English (born 1958) is an American academic, author, historian, and international relations scholar who specializes in the history and politics of contemporary Eastern Europe, the USSR, and

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. He is an associate professor of ''International Foreign Policy and Defense Analysis'' at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

(USC) School of International Relations.

Early life

Born in 1958, he received a B.A. in history from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in 1980. He later received an M.P.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 1982 and a Ph.D. in politics from

in 1995.Robert D. English's Biography on the University of Southern California Website
/ref> As part of his doctorate, English completed a Ph.D. dissertation titled "''

views the West: the intellectual and political origins of

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

new thinking''."

Career

He worked in the US Department of Defense from 1982 to 1986 and the Committee for National Security between 1986 and 1988. He taught as an assistant professor at the Bologna Center in the

Johns Hopkins Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was an American merchant, investor, and philanthropist. Born on a plantation, he left his home to start a career at the age of 17, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where he remained for mos ...

School of Advanced International Relations (SAIS) before he became assistant professor in the School of International Relations at the

. In addition, he has received fellowships from places like the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

; the Princeton Society of Fellows; the U.S. Fund for Peace; the International Research & Exchanges Board; and the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...

, where he has a "'Dual Expertise Fellowship' in Soviet/ East European and national security affairs."

Author

He wrote parts of ''Rebirth: A Political History of Europe Since World War II'' with Cyril E. Black, Jonathan E. Helmreich, and A. James McAdams in 1999. In 2000, he co-edited ''My Six Years With Gorbachev: Notes from a Diary'' with Jack F. Matlock, Jr. and Elizabeth Tucker, which is the account of Anatoly S. Chernyaev's time as an aide to

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

. His most notable work is ''Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

'', an intellectual history of the rise to power of Gorbachev and his 'New Thinking' in the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. The book first charts the origins and nature of "Old Thinking," which persisted in the traditional Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the USSR, and he goes on to chart the changes in society and of intellectual class in the history of the USSR under Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev. He is working on a "book-length study," to be called ''Our

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

n Brethren: History, Myth, and the Politics of

n National Identity''. He is writing the entry for ''The Kosovo War'' in the next edition of the ''Oxford Encyclopedia of World Politics''. He is also contributing a chapter, ''The Path(s) not Taken: Contingency and Counterfactual in Analysis of the Cold War's End'', in a book to be edited by William C. Wohlforth, ''Witnesses to the End of the Cold War: Oral History, Analysis, Debates''.

Recognition

In 1996, English won the Harold D. Lasswell Prize from the American Political Science Association (APSA) for the work that he later used in writing ''Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War''. In 2001, he received the Marshall Shulman Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies.

Early life

Career

Author

Recognition

References

Further reading