Ronald Tiersky is the Joseph B. Eastman Professor of Political Science

Political science

Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

 at Amherst College

Amherst College

Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...

, Amherst, Massachusetts

Amherst, Massachusetts

Amherst is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 37,819, making it the largest community in Hampshire County . The town is home to Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts...

. He has held the position of Director at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies center in Bologna, Italy, and the Institute of Current World Affairs

Institute of Current World Affairs

Founded in 1925 by wealthy American philanthropist Charles R. Crane, the Institute of Current World Affairs is a Washington, D.C-based 5013 which provides fellowships, allowing Americans under age 36 to live in a foreign country for two years. Their observations and research are published in...

. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations

Council on Foreign Relations

The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...

 and is the general editor of the "Europe Today" series at Rowman & Littlefield

Rowman & Littlefield

Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group is an independent publishing house founded in 1949. Under several imprints, the company offers scholarly books and journals for the academic market, as well as trade books. The company also owns a book distributor, National Book Network...

 publishers.

Educated in the U.S. and France, Tiersky has written widely on French and European affairs, and on American foreign policy

Foreign policy

A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...

.

Publications

His books include Francois Mitterrand: A Very French President (2003), Euro-Scepticism (2001), France in the New Europe (1994), Ordinary Stalinism (1985), and French Communism 1920-1972 (1974).

His articles and editorials have appeared in Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs is an American magazine and website on international relations and U.S. foreign policy published since 1922 by the Council on Foreign Relations six times annually...

, the New York Review of Books, The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, the International Herald Tribune

International Herald Tribune

The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...

, Le Monde

Le Monde

Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...

, Le Point

Le Point

Le Point is a French weekly news magazine. It was founded in 1972 by a group of journalists who had, one year earlier, left the editorial team of L'Express, which was then owned by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, a député of the Parti Radical...

, Libération

Libération

Libération is a French daily newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Originally a leftist newspaper, it has undergone a number of shifts during the 1980s and 1990s...

, and the Wall Street Journal (Europe).