McMeekin, Sean A. 1974-

views updated

McMEEKIN, Sean A. 1974-
(Sean Alexander McMeekin)

PERSONAL:

Born 1974. Education: Stanford University, A.B., 1996; University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D., 2001.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of International Relations, Bilkent University, Faculty of Economics, Administrative, and Social Sciences, Bilkent, Ankara 06800, Turkey. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, assistant professor of international relations.

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

WRITINGS:

The Red Millionaire: A Political Biography of Willi Münzenberg, Moscow's Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Reason.

SIDELIGHTS:

Sean A. McMeekin is an assistant professor of international relations at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. He is also a founding faculty member of the university's Centre for Russian Studies. McMeekin's first book, The Red Millionaire: A Political Biography of Willi Münzenberg, Moscow's Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West, covers the life of the communist author of the Brown Book, the book that first alerted the world about the earliest consolidation of power of the newly elected Hitler. German-born Münzenberg, who also worked in filmmaking, helped to spread political connections from Soviet Russia to the Socialists of Europe before his expulsion from the Communist Party and the Comintern.

Library Journal reviewer Harry Willems called the writing in The Red Millionaire "somewhat labored," but conceded that "this book fills a gap in our knowledge." Nation contributor Russell Jacoby proposed that McMeekin had only negative commentary on his subject. He stated: "McMeekin comes up with little to justify his perpetual outrage. Indeed, for McMeekin, Münzenberg can do no right." John Laughland, writing in the Spectator, noted: "Although I have enjoyed other accounts of Münzenberg's life better than this one, Sean McMeekin is scholarly, reliable and highly detailed." R.J. Stove also reviewed The Red Millionaire in the National Observer—Australia and World Affairs. Simply stated, Stove considered it a "splendid new book."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, January, 2004, Harry Willems, review of The Red Millionaire: A Political Biography of Willi Münzenberg, Moscow's Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West, p. 132.

Nation, February 16, 2004, Russell Jacoby, review of The Red Millionaire, p. 26.

National Observer—Australia and World Affairs, July, 2004, R.J. Stove, review of The Red Millionaire, p. 67.

News Weekly, August 14, 2004, R.J. Stove, review of The Red Millionaire.

Spectator, January 17, 2004, John Laughland, review of The Red Millionaire, p. 37.