Robert O. Paxton (born 1932) is an American political scientist and historian specializing in Vichy France, fascism and Europe during the World War II era. Paxton is best known for his 1972 book Vichy France, Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944, in which he argued that Vichy collaboration with Germany was a voluntary program entered into by the Vichy government, not forced upon it by German pressure. It is considered one of the path-breaking works on France in the Vichy era. Its thesis has earned respect among both American and French historians. Paxton was the co-writer of Claude Chabrol's The Eye of Vichy.
Paxton was called to testify at the trial of Maurice Papon (1910–2007), who was convicted for crimes against humanity in 1998.
Additionally, Paxton has put forward a definition of fascism:
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Paxton was born in Lexington, Virginia and educated at Washington and Lee University before earning his M.A. at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University.
Paxton taught at the University of California, Berkeley and the State University of New York at Stony Brook before joining the faculty of Columbia University in New York, where he is now Mellon Professor Emeritus of Social Science in the Department of History.
In April, 2009, the French government awarded Paxton the Legion d'honneur.