Archie Brown

Archie Brown is a British political scientist and historian who taught for 34 years at Oxford University where he is now Emeritus Professor of Politics and Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College. His books include The Gorbachev Factor (US and UK: Oxford University Press, 1996) and The Rise and Fall of Communism (UK: The Bodley Head; US: Ecco 2009), both of which won the W.J.M. Mackenzie Prize for best politics book of the year and the Alexander Nove Prize. The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age (UK: The Bodley Head; US: Basic Books) was named by Bill Gates as one of his Best Books of 2016.

Professor Brown has been elected a Fellow of the British Academy (1991), awarded a CGM in the 2005 Queen’s Birthday Honours list, and in November 2010 received a Diamond Jubilee Lifetime Achievement in Political Studies award from the Political Studies Association.

His most recent work is The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War (UK and US: Oxford University Press, 2020). It was awarded the Pushkin House Book Prize 2021 and was described by the Chair of the Panel of Judges, Dr Fiona Hill, as containing ‘a lifetime’s achievement of wisdom and insight’.

Photo courtesy of Rebecca Phillipson