Stephen Kotkin

Stephen Kotkin

Stephen Kotkin

  • Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
  • Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall
Stanford,  CA  94305-6055

Biography

Stephen Kotkin is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Within FSI, Kotkin is based at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and is affiliated with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and The Europe Center. He is also the Birkelund Professor in History and International Affairs emeritus at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School), where he taught for 33 years. He earned his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley and has been conducting research in the Hoover Library & Archives for more than three decades.

Kotkin’s research encompasses geopolitics and authoritarian regimes in history and in the present. His publications include Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 (Penguin, 2017) and Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928 (Penguin, 2014), two parts of a planned three-volume history of Russian power in the world and of Stalin’s power in Russia. He has also written a history of the Stalin system’s rise from a street-level perspective, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (University of California 1995); and a trilogy analyzing Communism’s demise, of which two volumes have appeared thus far: Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse 1970–2000 (Oxford, 2001; rev. ed. 2008) and Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment, with a contribution by Jan T. Gross (Modern Library, 2009). The third volume will be on the Soviet Union in the third world and Afghanistan. Kotkin’s publications and public lectures also often focus on Communist China.

Kotkin has participated in numerous events of the National Intelligence Council, among other government bodies, and is a consultant in geopolitical risk to Conexus Financial and Mizuho Americas. He served as the lead book reviewer for the New York Times Sunday Business Section for a number of years and continues to write reviews and essays for Foreign Affairsthe Times Literary Supplement, and the Wall Street Journal, among other venues. He has been an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow.

In The News

FSI Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin
News

Video Interview: Stephen Kotkin on Russia's Invasion of Ukraine and U.S.-China Lessons from the Conflict

FSI and APARC Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin joined APARC Visiting Scholar Gita Wirjawan, host of the “Endgame” video podcast, to share his analysis of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, consider the threats posed by autocratic powers, and propose future avenues for the United States to effectively compete with China in a multilateral context.
cover link Video Interview: Stephen Kotkin on Russia's Invasion of Ukraine and U.S.-China Lessons from the Conflict
Stephen Kotkin joins the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies as a senior fellow working at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.
News

Russian History Expert Stephen Kotkin Appointed FSI Senior Fellow

Kotkin’s research interests include authoritarianism, geopolitics, global political economy, and modernism in the arts and politics.
cover link Russian History Expert Stephen Kotkin Appointed FSI Senior Fellow