Odd Arne Westad

Odd Arne Westad
Odd Arne Westad

Odd Arne Westad FBA (born 5 January 1960) is a Norwegian historian specializing in the Cold War and contemporary East Asian history. He is the ST Lee Professor of US-Asia Relations at Harvard University, teaching in the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Westad is also a Senior Scholar at the Harvard Academy of International and Area Studies. Previously he was School Professor of International History at LSE, where he also served as director of LSE IDEAS.

Background

After studying as an undergraduate at the University of Oslo, Westad attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to work on his Ph.D under Professor Michael H. Hunt. He was appointed Director of Research at the Norwegian Nobel Institute and Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Oslo in 1991. In 1998, he left Oslo to join the International History Department at the LSE, where he also worked in the LSE Asia Research Centre before becoming Head of Department in 2003.

While at LSE, Westad set up LSE IDEAS, the LSE's centre for international affairs, diplomacy and strategy, together with Professor Michael Cox in 2008. Westad speaks and writes in a number of languages, including his native Norwegian, English, French, German, Mandarin and Russian. He is a very well known lecturer in several countries, both on history and on contemporary international affairs, especially with regard to China and East Asia.

In 2014 it was announced that Professor Westad would become the inaugural holder of the ST Lee Chair of US-Asia Relations at Harvard University from the summer of 2015 on. Professor Westad is now teaching international affairs and global history at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Work

Westad is particularly known for his re-evaluation of the history of the Cold War. His interpretation emphasizes the role of the conflict on a global scale, and not just in Europe or North America. He also underlines the ideological origins of the Cold War and the long-term effects it had in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The term 'global Cold War' is often associated with Westad's work, and has been taken up by many historians and social scientists.

Westad is also known for his work on Chinese and East Asian history and contemporary international affairs. In his books, he stresses the links between China and the outside world, noting that China's opening to the outside is not a new phenomenon. He often speaks of contemporary China, more than most countries, as a hybrid society, consisting both of Chinese and foreign elements. He has been critical of current Chinese foreign policy, which he sees as too nationalistic, although he is in favor of other countries working with China rather than trying to contain it.

Westad is the editor of the University of North Carolina Press's book series on the Cold War and founding editor of the journal Cold War History.

As well as his work at the London School of Economics, Westad has held Visiting Fellowships at Cambridge University and New York University. He has received major grants for research from the British Arts and Humanities Research Board, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Leverhulme Trust. He also worked as the International Coordinator of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Advisory Group on Declassification and Archival Access. In 2011 he was nominated as one of two candidates for president of the American Historical Association. From 2013 to 2016 Westad also serves as Distinguished Visiting Research Professor at Hong Kong University.

Westad has published fifteen books on international history and contemporary international affairs, including a new version of the Penguin History of the World (2013). He co-edited the three-volume Cambridge History of the Cold War (2010) with Melvyn Leffler. His Restless Empire: China and the World since 1750 (2012), surveys the last 250 years of China's relations with the world.

Awards and distinctions

Westad's book, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times, won the 2006 Bancroft Prize, the Michael Harrington Prize of the American Political Science Association, and the Akira Iriye International History Book Award. It was also shortlisted for the Council on Foreign Relations' Arthur Ross Award for the best book published in the last two years on international affairs. Westad was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 2011. Restless Empire won the Asia Society's Bernard Schwartz Book Award for 2013.

Bibliography

• Westad, O. A., Cold War and Revolution: Soviet-American Rivalry and the Origins of the Chinese Civil War, 1993 (Columbia University Press) ISBN 0-231-07985-0
• Holtsmark, S. G., Neumann, I. B., Westad, O. A. (eds), The Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, 1945-89, 1994 (Palgrave Macmillan) ISBN 0-333-60230-7
• Westad, O. A., The Fall of Détente: Soviet-American Relations During the Carter Years, 1997 (Aschehoug AS) ISBN 82-00-37671-0
• Westad, O. A. (ed), Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-1963, 1998 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press) ISBN 0-8047-3485-2
• Westad, O. A. (ed), Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory, 2000 (Routledge) ISBN 0-7146-8120-2
• Kang, G. H., Moon, C. Y., Westad, O. A. (eds), Ending the Cold War in Korea: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives, 2001 (Seoul: Yonsei University Press) ISBN 89-7141-563-0
• Westad, O. A., Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1945-1950, 2003 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press) ISBN 0-8047-4478-5
• Hanhimäki, J., Westad, O. A., The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, 2003 (Oxford University Press) ISBN 0-19-927280-8
• Westad, O. A., Beginnings of the End: How the Cold War Crumbled, in Pons, S., Romero, F., Reinterpreting the End of the Cold War: Issues, Interpretations, Periodizations, 2005 (London: Frank Cass) ISBN 0-203-00609-7 (hardback) ISBN 0-7146-8486-4 (paperback)
• Westad, O. A., The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times, 2006 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) ISBN 0-521-85364-8 ; French translation: La Guerre froide globale. Le tiers-monde, les Etats-Unis et l'URSS, 1945-1991 (Paris, Payot, 2007)
• Quinn-Judge, S., Westad, O. A. (eds), The Third Indochina War, 2006 (Routledge) ISBN 0-415-39058-3
• Roberts, J., Westad O. A., The New Penguin History of the World, 2007 (Penguin) ISBN 978-0-14-103042-5
• Villaume, P., Westad, O. A. (eds), Perforating the Iron Curtain. European Détente, Transatlantic Relations and the Cold War, 1965-1985 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2010) ISBN 978-87-635-2588-6
• Leffler, M. P., Westad, O.A. (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
• Odd Arne Westad. Restless Empire: China and the World since 1750. (New York: Basic Books, 2012). ISBN 9780465019335.

External links

• Personal webpage
• LSE IDEAS: International Affairs, Diplomacy & Strategy