Stephen Cohen

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This article is about the scholar specializing in Russia, not about Stephen P. Cohen who specializes in the Indian Subcontinent and is a fellow at the Brookings Institution. For the internet domain hijacker, see Stephen M. Cohen.

Stephen F. Cohen is a scholar of Russian studies in the USA. His academic work concentrates on developments in Russia since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and the country's relationship with the United States.

Stephen Cohen was born in 1938 in Owensboro, Kentucky and attended Indiana University, where he majored in Economics and Publicy Policy. Through IU, he went on a six-week trip to Russia, where he fell in love with Russian history. After leaving Columbia University with his M.A. & Ph.D., Cohen taught as a visiting professor at Princeton University under the tutelage of renowned Russian scientist Robert Tucker.

Cohen is well known in both Russian and American circles. He is a close personal friend of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, advised former President George H.W. Bush when the Soviet Union collapsed, helped Nikolay Bukharin's widow rehabilitate his name during the Soviet era, and met Stalin's daughter, Svetlana. A funny story goes that Robert Tucker invited Cohen over for dinner only so he could meet Svetlana to teach her golf.

Cohen has been a member of New York University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences , where he teaches a "Russia since 1917" course. He has authored several books; including, Rethinking the Soviet Experience: Politics and History Since 1917, Buhkarin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888-1938, and most recently, Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia.He is also a CBS News Consultant and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Cohen is married to Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the noted left-wing publication, The Nation, where he is also a contributing editor. They have one daughter.