Westad, Odd Arne 1960–

PERSONAL:

Born 1960, in Norway; married Ingunn Bjornson (a neurologist and general medical practitioner); children: two. Education: Attended University of Oslo; University of North Carolina, Ph.D., 1990.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Cambridge, England. Office—London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton St., London WC2A 2AE, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Historian, political scientist, educator, and writer. International aid worker in Southern Africa and Pakistan, c. 1980s; London School of Economics and Political Science, London, England, professor of international history and codirector of the Cold War Studies Centre, beginning 1998, head of the Department of International History, 2004-07, sabbatical 2007-08; has also taught at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, and at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD; Norwegian Nobel Institute, Oslo, Norway, director of research for eight years. Visiting fellow, Cambridge University, Hong Kong University, and New York University.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Bernath Lecture Prize, Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations, 2000; Akira Iriye International History Book Award, Pacific Quest, 2005, Bancroft Prize, 2006, and Michael Harrington Award, American Political Science Association, c. 2007, all for The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times; recipient of grants, including from the John D. and Catharine T. MacArthur Foundation and the British Arts and Humanities Research Council.

WRITINGS:

Cold War and Revolution: Soviet-American Rivalry and the Origins of the Chinese Civil War, 1944-1946, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1993.

Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2003.

The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Cold War and Revolution was translated into Chinese.

EDITOR

(With Geir Lundestad) Beyond the Cold War: New Dimensions in International Relations, Scandinavian University Press (Oslo, Norway), 1993.

(With Sven Holtsmark and Iver B. Neumann) The Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, 1945-89, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1994.

The Fall of Détente: Soviet-American Relations during the Carter Years, Scandinavian University Press (Boston, MA), 1997.

Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-1963, Woodrow Wilson Center Press (Washington, DC), 1998.

Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, and Theory, F. Cass (Portland, OR), 2000.

(With Chung-in Moon and Gyoo-hyoung Kahng) Ending the Cold War in Korea: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives, Yonsei University Press (Seoul, Korea), 2001.

(With Jussi Hanhimaki) The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2003.

(With Sophie Quinn-Judge) The Third Indochina War: Conflict between China, Vietnam and Cambodia, 1972-79, Routledge (New York, NY), 2006.

Editor of the journal Cold War History.

SIDELIGHTS:

Odd Arne Westad is a political scientist and historian whose research interests include twentieth-century international history, the history of East Asia, and the historical origins of contemporary international affairs. One of his main fields of scholarly research is the history of the Cold War. He also conducts research into the history of China in transition from Cultural Revolution to the era of reform, and the 1970s with regard to global politics. Westad is the author or editor of numerous books related to these academic interests.

In his Cold War and Revolution: Soviet-American Rivalry and the Origins of the Chinese Civil War, 1944-1946, Westad examines the evolution of the Cold War in East Asia. The author primarily focuses on four key aspects of the Cold War: the Chinese Nationalists, the Chinese Communists, Russia during the Josef Stalin years, and America under the leadership of President Harry S. Truman. ‘This volume is an impressive piece of historical scholarship,’ attested Donald Zagoria in Foreign Affairs.

Beyond the Cold War: New Dimensions in International Relations, which Westad edited with Geir Lundestad, features papers first presented at the 1991 ninetieth anniversary symposium of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The papers focus primarily on a new world order following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many of the presentations deal with new conflicts that have emerged as fresh alignments were made among countries. Another topic discussed is the use of debt to exploit the Third World. I. William Zartman commented in the American Political Science Review that the work includes some ‘strong contributions … [and] salient insights."

As editor of Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-1963, Westad presents another collection of essays focusing on the new world order following the end of the Cold War. Scholars from various countries contributed to the volume, which includes numerous official documents concerning the Sino-Soviet relationship. Historian contributor Lorraine M. Lees noted that ‘these essays enhance our understanding of a previously little researched but crucial topic."

In Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950, Westad uses Chinese and Russian archival documents to examine the Chinese civil war that would ultimately decide the political future of China. In his historical account, the author includes diary excerpts and segments of various documents and meetings, as well as biographies and nationalistic song lyrics. ‘In this very well written account the author describes clashes of armies, classes, and nations, and battles of memory and its associated mythology, and develops the links between these elements and the evolving political systems that sponsored them,’ according to China Review International contributor Katherine K. Reist. The author's history includes the origins of how the civil war started and also places the war within an international context. Writing in History: Review of New Books, S.M. Chiu noted that the book contains ‘poignant tales of human tragedy played out in cities such as Shanghai before the Communist takeover.’ Library Journal critic Charles W. Hayford felt that the author ‘weaves a grand, sweeping epic of social, cultural, and economic conflict that … goes beyond political and military battles."

Westad edited, with Jussi Hanhimaki, The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts. The book includes a wide range of excerpts from documents focusing on the most important aspects of various topics concerning the Cold War, such as the building of the Berlin Wall, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the arms race, and covert operations. The volume includes numerous illustrations and political cartoons that reflect the issues addressed. ‘Implicit in this objective [examination of the Cold War as a global conflict] is the acknowledgement that there was no single Cold War experience, but rather a wide range of perceptions and experiences, contingent upon individuals' locations, social positions and ideological proclivities,’ wrote Vanessa Walker on the Institute of Historical Research Web site. Walker concluded: ‘This volume seeks, therefore, to provide not only a variety of perspectives, but also the motivations and understandings of Cold War participants."

The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times was called ‘sharply observed and deeply researched’ by Foreign Affairs contributor Lawrence D. Freedman. Here, Westad examines the devastating effects that the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union had on Third World countries. Westad writes about how the ideological commitments of the two superpowers led to interventions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and examines how the ambitions of countries in these regions were central to the struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States. He also shows how interventions by these two powers exacerbated local problems and quarrels, with an emphasis on the most prominent conflicts that developed.

"Covering a highly politicized issue, Westad avoids getting bogged down in endless calculations of moral responsibility, on either side,’ according to Noah Hertz-Bunzl in a review of The Global Cold War for the Harvard Book Review. John Young commented on the Institute of Historical Research Web site: ‘What impresses most about his latest work is the way that it exploits not only a broad array of published documents, memoirs, doctoral theses and other secondary sources, but also a range of archives, from the Russian Federation, China, Serbia and Montenegro, Germany, Italy, the United States and South Africa, often with several archives visited in each. The mix of sources in the endnotes is rich and eclectic.’ Other reviewers also praised the book. ‘The Global Cold War is the most original and pathbreaking work of cold war history to have been published since the end of the cold war,’ asserted William I. Hitchcock in History: Review of New Books.

In The Third Indochina War: Conflict between China, Vietnam and Cambodia, 1972-79, Westad and fellow editor Sophie Quinn-Judge provide eleven papers that look at the causes of the Vietnamese-Cambodian and Sino-Vietnamese wars that took place in the 1970s. These wars represent the first in which communist nations battled each other. Noting that the papers in the volume reveal ‘the links between policies and policy assumption’ that contributed to the wars, a Reference & Research Book News contributor wrote that the papers also examine ‘the national, regional, and international dynamics’ involved.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, April, 1994, Shu Guang Zhang, review of Cold War and Revolution: Soviet-American Rivalry and the Origins of the Chinese Civil War, 1944-1946, p. 529; February, 2000, Michael M. Sheng, review of Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-1963, p. 186; June, 2004, Lee Feigon, review of Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950, p. 883.

American Political Science Review, March, 1995, I. William Zartman, review of Beyond the Cold War: New Dimensions in International Relations, p. 257.

Asian Affairs, February, 1994, J.E. Hoare, review of Cold War and Revolution, p. 99.

China Quarterly, March, 1994, Ralph Smith, review of Cold War and Revolution, p. 240.

China Review International, fall, 2003, Katherine K. Reist, review of Decisive Encounters, p. 470.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, December, 1993, J.G. Richter, review of Beyond the Cold War, p. 668; October, 1994, review of The Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, 1945-89, p. 360; September, 1999, D.L. Wilson, review of Brothers in Arms, p. 209; March, 2001, L.M. Lees, review of Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, and Theory, p. 1322; October, 2003, review of Decisive Encounters, p. 396; May, 2004, A. Theoharis, review of The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, p. 1715.

Contemporary Review, March, 2004, review of The Cold War, p. 191.

Contemporary Sociology, May, 1994, Immanuel Wallerstein, review of Beyond the Cold War, p. 385.

Diplomatic History, summer, 1996, Rosemary Foot, review of Cold War and Revolution, p. 473.

Europe-Asia Studies, November, 2000, Evan Mawadsley, review of Brothers in Arms, p. 1361.

Foreign Affairs, September 1, 1993, Donald Zagoria, review of Cold War and Revolution, p. 176; May-June, 2006, Lawrence D. Freedman, review of The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times.

Harvard Book Review, summer, 2006, Noah Hertz-Bunzl, review of The Global Cold War.

Historian, fall, 2000, Lorraine M. Lees, review of Brothers in Arms.

History: Review of New Books, summer, 2003, S.M. Chiu, review of Decisive Encounters, p. 173; summer, 2006, William I. Hitchcock, review of The Global Cold War, p. 134.

History: The Journal of the Historical Association, February, 1994, Mark Sandle, review of Beyond the Cold War, p. 191; June, 1995, Paul Bailey, review of Cold War and Revolution, p. 266; July, 2000, D.W. Clayton, review of Brothers in Arms, p. 491.

International Affairs, April, 1998, Klaus Larres, review of The Fall of Détente: Soviet-American Relations during the Carter Years, p. 446.

International History Review, December, 2004, Beatrice S. Bartlett, review of Decisive Encounters, p. 900.

International Studies Quarterly, April, 1994, Joseph M. Scolnick, review of Beyond the Cold War, p. 133.

Journal of American History, September, 1994, Thomas A. Breslin, review of Cold War and Revolution, p. 791.

Journal of American-East Asian Relations, winter, 1994, John W. Garver, review of Cold War and Revolution, p. 405.

Journal of Asian Studies, February, 1994, Su-Ya Chang, review of Cold War and Revolution, p. 183; February, 2000, S.C.M. Paine, review of Brothers in Arms, p. 164.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, summer, 2005, Joseph W. Esherick, review of Decisive Encounters, p. 136.

Journal of Military History, October, 2003, Harold M. Tanner, review of Decisive Encounters, p. 1333.

Journal of Peace Research, November, 2002, Per F. Ilsaas Pharo, review of Reviewing the Cold War, p. 761.

Library Journal, May 15, 2003, Charles W. Hayford, review of Decisive Encounters, p. 104.

London Review of Books, November 16, 2006, Anatol Lieven, ‘US/USSR,’ review of The Global Cold War, p. 26.

Pacific Affairs, summer, 2004, Hans van de Ven, review of Decisive Encounters, p. 324.

Reference & Research Book News, November, 1997, review of The Fall of Détente, p. 44; February, 2001, review of Reviewing the Cold War, p. 24; August, 2003, review of Decisive Encounters, p. 51; May, 2006, review of The Global Cold War; November, 2006, review of The Third Indochina War: Conflict between China, Vietnam and Cambodia, 1972-79.

Reviews in American History, September, 1995, Qiang Zhai, review of Cold War and Revolution, p. 516.

Russian Review, January, 2000, Matthew E. Lenoe, review of Brothers in Arms, p. 147; October, 2002, Johanna Granville, review of Reviewing the Cold War, p. 653.

Slavic Review, summer, 1995, Roger E. Kanet, review of The Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, 1945-1989, p. 488; fall, 1995, Kathryn Weathersby, review of Cold War and Revolution, p. 841; spring, 2000, Bruce A. Elleman, review of Brothers in Arms, p. 230.

ONLINE

Columbia News,http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/ (November 10, 2007), ‘Historians Erskine Clarke, Odd Arne Westad, Sean Wilentz to Receive Bancroft Prize."

History in Focus,http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/ (November 10, 2007), John W. Young, review of The Global Cold War.

Institute of Historical Research,http://www.history.ac.uk/ (September 28, 2007), John Young, review of The Global Cold War; Vanessa Walker, review of The Cold War.

London School of Economics and Political Science Web site,http://www.lse.ac.uk/ (November 10, 2007), faculty profile of Odd Arne Westad.

Odd Arne Westad Home Page,http://personal.lse.ac.uk/westad (November 10, 2007).