The George Washington University
Left: The Confirmed Drunkard, 1826, Folger Shakespeare Library | Right: Hondius Map of Venezuela, 1630, Library of Congress Geography




Ronald H. Spector

Professor of History and International Affairs

801 22nd St. NW #323 Phone: (202) 994-6425
Washington, D.C. 20052 Email: spector@gwu.edu

Professor Ronald SpectorRonald Spector is an award-winning scholar of modern military history and has taught at the National War College and the U.S. Army War College. He is currently working on a study of the "hot wars" of the Asian Cold War in China, Indochina, Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines during 1949-54. He has taught as a visiting professor in universities around the world. (Complete C.V.)

Selected Publications

In the Ruins Of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia. New York: Random House, 2007.

  • "Editor's Choice," New York Times Book Review; History Book Club Main selection.

At War at Sea: Sailors and Naval Warfare in the Twentieth Century. New York: Viking Press, 2001.

  • Winner, 2002 Distinguished Book Award of the Society for Military History.
  • Named one of the "Best Books of 2001" by The Washington Post.

Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan. New York: Free Press and Macmillan, 1984.

  • Winner, 1986, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Prize For Naval History.
  • Named one of the "Best Books of 1984" by the American Library Association and "Editor's Choice" by the New York Times Book Review.

After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1993.

  • Named a "Main Selection" by the History Book Club and "Featured Alternate" by the Book-of-the-Month Club.

The Oxford Companion to American Military History. New York: Oxford University Press: 1999. Co-edited with Fred Anderson, John W. Chambers, Lynn Eden and Joseph Glathaar.

  • Winner, 2001 "Distinguished Reference Book Award" of the Society for Military History.

"Teetering On the Brink Of Respectability." Journal of American History 93, no. 4 (March 2007): 1159-60.

"After Hiroshima: Allied Military Occupations and the Fate of Japan's Asian Empire 1945-1947." The Journal of Military History, 69, no. 4 (October 2005): 1121-1136.

Courses Taught

Hist 126: The United States and the Wars in Indochina, 1945-1975
Hist 129: War and the Military in American Society from the Revolution to the Gulf War
Hist 228: Topics in Modern Military and Naval History (20th c. U.S. and Europe)
Hist 229: World War II
Hist 230: Strategy and Policy
Hist 231: The Age of the Battleship: An Introduction to Modern Naval History

Education

Ph.D., Yale University, 1967.

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