Archie Brown
Encyclopedia
Archibald Haworth Brown CMG
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....

, FBA
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...

, commonly known as Archie Brown (born 10 May 1938), is a British political scientist and historian. In 2005, he became Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford University and an Emeritus Fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford, where he was a Professor of Politics and Director of St. Antony's Russian and East European Centre. He has written widely on Soviet and Russian politics, Communist politics more generally, the Cold War, and political leadership.

Brown was born in Annan, Scotland, and educated at Annan Academy
Annan Academy
Annan Academy is a secondary school in Annan, in Dumfries and Galloway, formerly Dumfriesshire, Scotland. The present school is the result of an amalgamation in 1921 of the original Annan Academy and Greenknowe Public School, although its history goes back to the 17th century.Behind the buildings...

 and Dumfries Academy
Dumfries Academy
Dumfries Academy is one of four secondary schools in the town of Dumfries in South West Scotland.-History:Dumfries Academy has existed in its present form, though not in the buildings it currently occupies, since 1804...

, before studying at both undergraduate and postgraduate level at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

 (LSE). He taught at Glasgow University from 1964 to 1971, during which time he was a British Council
British Council
The British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...

 exchange scholar at Moscow State University
Moscow State University
Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...

 for a year between 1967 and 1968.

He has been Visiting Professor of Political Science at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, the University of Connecticut
University of Connecticut
The admission rate to the University of Connecticut is about 50% and has been steadily decreasing, with about 28,000 prospective students applying for admission to the freshman class in recent years. Approximately 40,000 prospective students tour the main campus in Storrs annually...

 and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. He was also a Visiting Professor and holder of the Frank C. Erwin, Jr. Centennial Chair of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition, he spent the Fall semester of 1998 as the Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...

.

At Oxford University, Brown was University Lecturer in Soviet Institutions from 1971 until 1989 when he became Professor of Politics. He held that position from 1989 to 2005. Concurrently, he was a Sub-Warden of St Antony's College
St Antony's College, Oxford
St Antony's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.St Antony's is the most international of the seven all-graduate colleges of the University of Oxford, specialising in international relations, economics, politics, and history of particular parts of the...

 between 1995 and 1997 and Director of the Russian and East European Centre twice (from 1991 to 1994, and again from 1998 to 2001). He was Director of Graduate Studies in Politics for Oxford University between 2001 and 2003.

Elected a Fellow of the British Academy
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...

 in 1991, Brown was Chair of the Academy's Political Studies Section from 1999 to 2002. In 1999 he was chosen as a founding member of the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences
Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences
The Academy of Social Sciences is a research body in the UK. , the Academy was composed of over 450 Academicians and 32 Learned Societies. Academicians are distinguished scholars and practitioners from academia and the public and private sectors...

, before being elected as a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

 in 2003. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....

 (CMG) in the Queen's Birthday Honours
Queen's Birthday Honours
The Queen's Birthday Honours is a part of the British honours system, being a civic occasion on the celebration of the Queen's Official Birthday in which new members of most Commonwealth Realms honours are named. The awards are presented by the reigning monarch or head of state, currently Queen...

 list in 2005 "for services to UK-Russian relations and to the study of political science and international affairs". In 2010 he was one of three scholars to receive the Diamond Jubilee Award for Lifetime Achievement in Political Studies. The award was made by the Political Studies Association of the UK to mark the sixtieth anniversary of its foundation.

Brown has written and edited numerous books on Soviet and Communist politics, and his articles have embraced a wide range of subjects, including the end of the Cold War, British politics, post-Soviet Russian politics, political leadership, political culture, and eighteenth century political and social thought. Two of his major books deal with the Soviet perestroika and the role of Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...

 in the transformation of the Soviet system and the ending of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

. They focus on both the power of ideas and the power of institutions, putting Gorbachev’s innovative leadership in its political context. For the first of these books, The Gorbachev Factor (1996), Brown was awarded the W.J.M. Mackenzie Prize of the Political Studies Association of the UK for “best political science book of the year”. That book also shared the Alec Nove Prize of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies for “best book or article in any discipline on Russia, Communism or Postcommunism”. In a more recent work, Seven Years that Changed the World: Perestroika in Perspective (2007; paperback 2008), Brown returned to these themes, making use of new and extensive archival material, including the records of Soviet Politburo meetings.

Archie Brown’s most recent book, The Rise and Fall of Communism (2009; UK paperback 2010; US paperback 2011) is concerned with Communism worldwide – from its nineteenth century origins to the fall of Communism in Europe in 1989 and its adaptation and mutation in China. This book earned Brown the 2010 Mackenzie Prize of the Political Studies Association, making him the recipient of “best political science book of the year” award for a second time. It also won the Nove Prize awarded by the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies. In addition to its American, British and Canadian editions, the work has been (or is being) published in translation in eight other countries.

External links

  • Interview on The Rise and Fall of Communism at the Pritzker Military Library
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