Department
School
Expertise
Michael Kimmage specializes in the history of the Cold War, in twentieth-century U.S. diplomatic and intellectual history, and in U.S.-Russian relations since 1991. From 2014 to 2016, he served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. Professor Kimmage is currently on leave from Catholic University while he serves as Director of the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is the author of five books: The Conservative Turn: Lionel Trilling, Whittaker Chambers and the Lessons of Anti-Communism (Harvard University Press, 2009); In History’s Grip: Philip Roth's Newark Trilogy (Stanford University Press, 2012); Wolfgang Koeppen’s Journey through America (Berghahn, 2012), a German-language travelogue published in 1959 and translated by Professor Kimmage; The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy (Basic Books, 2020); and Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability (Oxford University Press, 2024). From 2014 to 2016, he served on the Secretary's Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. Professor Kimmage is a prolific commentator in forums about public policy and has written articles and books reviews for the New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Jewish Review of Books and Los Angeles Review of Books. He has been a visiting professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and at Vilnius University in Lithuania.
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Selected Publications
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The Abandonment of the West
Michael C. Kimmage,The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy (New York: Basic Books, 2020).
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Journey through America
Wolfgang Koeppen, Journey through America, translated and with an introduction by Michael C. Kimmage (Berghahn Books, 2012)
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In History’s Grip
Michael C. Kimmage, In History’s Grip: Philip Roth’s Newark Trilogy (Stanford University Press, 2012)
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The Conservative Turn
Michael C. Kimmage, The Conservative Turn: Lionel Trilling, Whittaker Chambers and the Lessons of Anti-Communism (Harvard University Press, 2009)
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