Robert D. English

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Dr. Robert D. English is an American academic, international relations scholar and historian, specialising in contemporary East European and Russian history and politics. He is currently an Assistant Professor in International Foreign Policy and Defense Analysis in the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California.

English gained a B.A. in History from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1980. He received an M.P.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, where he also received a Ph.D. in Politics in 1995[1]. He worked in the U.S. Department of Defense from 1982 to 1986, before moving onto the U.S. Committee for National Security between 1986 and 1988. He has taught as an Assistant Professor at the Bologna Center in the School of Advanced International Relations, Johns Hopkins University, before becoming Assistant Professor in the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California[1].

As an author, English 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. During 2000, he co-edited My Six Years With Gorbachev: Notes from a Diary with Jack F. Matlock Jr. and Elizabeth Tucker, which is the the account of Anatoly S. Chernyaev's time as an aide to Mikhail Gorbachev[1].

His most notable work is Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War, an "intellectual history" of the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev and his 'New Thinking' to power in the USSR. The book first charts the origins and nature of 'Old Thinking', which persisted in the traditional Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the Soviet Union. It goes on to chart the changes in society and the class of intellectuals during the 'Cultural Thaw' of the Khrushchev era, their engagement with the rest of the world and the Prague Spring, before examining the "advance and retreat" of 'New Thinking' in Brezhnev's 'Era of Stagnation' and the transition crises of the early 1980s. It concludes with an account of the continuing development of 'New Thinking' whilst Gorbachev and his intellectual allies were in power. English argues that 'New Thinking' originated in the Khrushchev era amongst intellectuals and, during the Brezhnev era, gained a political leader in Gorbachev, who brought the ideas of 'New Thinking' and his power-base of cosmopolitan intellectuals to power with him in 1985. English uses numerous primary and secondary sources, including memoirs and personal interviews with the major figures detailed in the book[2].

In 1996, English won the Harold D. Lasswell Prize from the American Political Science Association for the work that he later used to write Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War. He received the Marshal Shulman Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies during 2001. In addition, he has received fellowships from, amongst others, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Princeton Society of Fellows, the U.S. Fund for Peace, the International Research and Exchanges Board, and the Ford Foundation, where he has "'Dual Expertise Fellowship' in Soviet/East European and national security affairs"[1].

Currently, English is reportedly working on a "book-length study" called Our Serbian Brethren: History, Myth, and the Politics of Russian 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, entitled The Path(s) not Taken: Contingency and Counterfactual in Analysis of the Cold War's End in a book edited by William C. Wohlforth to be called Witnesses to the End of the Cold War: Oral History, Analysis, Debates[1].

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e Robert D. English's Biography on the University of Southern California Website
  2. ^ English, R. D., Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War, 2000 (Columbia University Press)

[edit] References

  • Black, C. E., English, R. D., Helmreich, J. E., McAdams, A. J., Rebirth: A Political History of Europe Since World War II, 1999 (Westview Press Inc.)
  • Chernyaev, A. S., English, R. D., Matlock, J. F. Jr., Tucker, E., My Six Years With Gorbachev: Notes from a Diary, 2000 (Penn State University Press)
  • English, R. D., Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War, 2000 (Columbia University Press)
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