The historian who redefined the USSR as an 'affirmative action empire' rather than a 'prison of nations'
The 15 countries that emerged from the USSR largely didn't exist in 1917; they were a consequence of the Soviet organization of the country on national principles.
A Canadian-born historian who reshaped the study of Soviet nationality policy. His 2001 book The Affirmative Action Empire recast the early USSR not as a 'prison of nations' that suppressed its minorities, as the Pipes school had argued, but as the world's first state to systematically practice mass affirmative action for non-Russian peoples: a thesis that has become the most influential English-language framework on the subject. The George F. Baker III Professor of Russian Studies at Harvard, he also directs the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI).
Career Timeline
- 1985A.B. in History and Literature, Harvard College
- 1996Ph.D. in History, University of Chicago
- 2001Published The Affirmative Action Empire (Cornell UP)
- 2001Co-edited A State of Nations with Ronald Suny (Oxford UP)
- 2006Tenured as Professor of History, Harvard University
- 현재George F. Baker III Professor of Russian Studies; Director, HURI