Westad, O A


Professor O A Westad  

Department

Position held

Asia Research Centre

Department of International History

Professor of International History

LSE IDEAS

Co-Director

Non LSE positions held

Department

Position held

British Academy

Fellow

Experience keywords:

Russian foreign policy history; East Asian international history; Chinese Communist Party; cold war; third world revolutions; Chinese foreign policy

Research summary > [Click to expand]

Arne Westad is professor of international history and an expert on contemporary international affairs. He is the general editor of the three-volume Cambridge History of the Cold War and an editor of the journal Cold War History. His latest book is Restless Empire: China and the World since 1750. His previous book, The Global Cold War, won the Bancroft Prize, the Harrington Award of the American Political Science Association, and the Akira Iriye International History Award. It was listed by the Council on Foreign Relations as one of the five most important books on international affairs for 2005/06. It has been translated into fourteen languages.

Since 2007 Professor Westad has helped build LSE IDEAS, the LSE’s centre for the study of international affairs, diplomacy and strategy, of which he is now co-director. The centre is the hub for nine separate research programmes, ranging from Transatlantic Relations to African International Affairs and Cold War Studies. It also helps run the LSE’s double Masters degree in International Affairs with Peking University, and has set up an executive Masters degree in Strategy and Diplomacy. In addition to its research and teaching, LSE IDEAS works with several foreign ministries on matters of policy planning and development.

Professor Westad often lectures to general audiences in different parts of the world on key issues in international affairs, such as China’s foreign policy and the situations in Korea, Afghanistan, and Iran.

Professor Westad is now working on an international history of the Cold War.

Countries and regions to which research relates:

China; East Asia; Asia

Languages:

Russian [Spoken: Basic, Written: Intermediate]; German [Spoken: Intermediate, Written: Fluent]; Chinese [Spoken: Intermediate, Written: Intermediate]; Norwegian [Spoken: Fluent, Written: Fluent]; French [Spoken: Intermediate, Written: Fluent]

Media experience:

RadioTV

Contact Points

LSE phone number:

+44 (0)20 7955 7252

Publications

The following references are sourced from LSE Research Online|. References that are linked lead to the full text.

2012

Westad, O. A. (2012) China and the world: the origins of Chinese global power from 1750 to today. The Bodley Head, London, UK. ISBN 9781847921970

Leffler, Melvyn P. and Westad, O.A, (eds.) (2012) Crises and détente. Cambridge University Press , Cambridge, UK. ISBN 9781107602304

Leffler, Melvyn P. and Westad, O.A, (eds.) (2012) Endings. Cambridge University Press , Cambridge, UK. ISBN 9781107602311

Leffler, Melvyn P. and Westad, O.A, (eds.) (2012) Origins. Cambridge University Press , Cambridge, UK. ISBN 9781107602298

Roberts, J. M. and Westad, O.A (2012) The new Penguin history of the world. Penguin Books Ltd, London, UK.

Westad, O.A (2012) Restless empire: China and the world since 1750. Basic Books, London, UK. ISBN 9780465019335

Westad, Odd. Arne and Chubarian, Alexandr and Pechatnov, Vladimir and Rajak, Svetozar, (eds.) (2012) British – Soviet relations in the Cold War, 1945-1964. British Academy/ Russian Academy, London, UK; Moscow, Russia.

2011

Westad, O.A. (2011) Struggles for modernity: the golden years of the Sino-Soviet alliance. In: Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi, (ed.) The cold war in East Asia 1945-1991. Stanford University Press, Chicago, USA, pp. 35-62. ISBN 9780804773317

2010

Westad, O.A. (2010) The cold war and the international history of the twentieth century. In: Leffler, Melvyn P. and Westad, O.A., (eds.) The Cambridge history of the cold war. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 1-19. ISBN 9780521837194

Westad, O.A. (2010) The great transformation: China in the long 1970s. In: Ferguson, Niall and Maier, Charles S. and Manela, Erez and Sargent, Daniel J., (eds.) The shock of the global: the 1970s in perspective. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674049048

2009

Westad, O.A and Shea, Jamie and Giustozzi, Antonio and Pothier, Fabrice and Misra, Amalendu (2009) Afghanistan: now you see me? LSE IDEAS, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

Westad, O.A (2009) Afghanistan: now you see me?: introduction - addressing Afghanistan. LSE IDEAS, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

2006

Westad, Odd A and Quinn-Judge, S, (eds.) (2006) The third Indochina War: Conflict between China, Vietnam and Cambodia, 1972-79. Routledge, London, UK. ISBN 9780415390583

2005

Westad, O.A (2005) The global cold war: third world interventions and the making of our times. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. ISBN 9780521853644

Westad, Odd. Arne (2005) Beginnings of the end: how the Cold War crumbled. In: Pons, Silvio and Romero, Federico, (eds.) Reinterpreting the end of the Cold War: issues, interpretations, periodizations. Frank Cass, London; New York, pp. 68-81. ISBN 9780714656953

2003

Hanhimäki, Jussi M. and Westad, Odd Arne, (eds.) (2003) The Cold War: a history in documents and eyewitness accounts. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. ISBN 9780198208624

Westad, O.A and Hanhimäki, Jussi M, (eds.) (2003) The Cold War: a history in documents and eyewitness accounts. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. ISBN 0198208626

Westad, Odd A, (ed.) (2003) Decisive Encounters: the Chinese civil war, 1946-1950. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. ISBN 080474484X pb 0804744785 hb

2001

Westad, O.A and Moon, Chung-In, (eds.) (2001) Ending the Cold War in Korea: theoretical and historical perspectives. Yonsei University Press. ISBN 9788971415634

2000

Westad, O.A, (ed.) (2000) Reviewing the Cold War: approaches, interpretations, theory. Frank Cass, London, UK. ISBN 0714681202

1998

Westad, O.A and Jian, C and Tonnesson, S and Tungand, Nguyen Vu and Hershberg, J (1998) 77 conversations between Chinese and foreign leaders on the wars in Indochina, 1964-1977. Working Paper No.22. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, USA

Westad, O.A (1998) Brothers in arms: the rise and fall of the Sino-Soviet alliance, 1945-1963. Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington, USA. ISBN 0804734852

1994

Westad, O.A and Holtsmark, Sven G and Neumann, Iver B, (eds.) (1994) The Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, 1945-89. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. ISBN 0333602307

1993

Westad, O.A (1993) Cold War and revolution: Soviet-American rivalry and the origins of the Chinese Civil War, 1944-1946. Columbia University Press, New York, USA. ISBN 0231079842

Westad, O.A and Lundestad, G, (eds.) (1993) Beyond the Cold War: new dimensions in international relations. Scandinavian University Press, Oslo, Norway. ISBN 8200217124

LSE Research Online is the primary resource for references to publications. For queries or updates please email the LSE Research Online team at lseresearchonline@lse.ac.uk|.

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Short bio >

Born in Norway, Professor Westad studied history, philosophy and modern languages at the University of Oslo and received his PhD in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During the 1980s he worked for several international aid agencies in Southern Africa and South Asia. He has taught at the University of North Carolina and at Johns Hopkins University and served for eight years as Director of Research at the Norwegian Nobel Institute. Since 1998 he has been in the Department of International History at LSE, where he teaches Cold War history and the history of East Asia. He served as Head of Department 2004-07.

Professor Westad has held visiting fellowships at Cambridge University, Hong Kong University, New York University, and the University of Venice. He has been the recipient of major grants from the John D. and Catharine T. MacArthur Foundation and the British Arts and Humanities Research Council. He has served as the international co-ordinator of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Advisory Group on Declassification and Archival Access and has advised several other governments on such issues. He now heads the British Academy’s documentary project on British-Russian relations during the Cold War. He is also widely known as a reviewer, lecturer and external examiner. In 2000, Professor Westad was awarded the Bernath Lecture Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2011.

 

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