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Speaker: Avi Shlaim, Professor of International Relations, St. Anthony's College, Oxford University

Avi Shlaim is a Fellow of St Antony's College and a Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford. He was the Alastair Buchan Reader in International Relations from 1987 to 1996. He was the Director of Graduate Studies in International Relations in 1993-1995 and 1998-2001. In 1995-1997 he held a British Academy Research Readership.

He was born in Baghdad on 31 October 1945 and grew up in Israel where he did national service in 1964-1966. He read History at Jesus College, Cambridge, 1966-1969 and did the M.Sc. (Econ.) in International Relations at the London School of Economics, 1969-1970. He was a Lecturer and then Reader in Politics at the University of Reading from 1970 to 1987 when he moved to Oxford.

Avi Shlaim is based at the Middle East Centre at St Antony's College and his main research interest is the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is author of British Foreign Secretaries since 1945 (joint author, 1977); The United States and the Berlin Blockade, 1948-49: A Study in Crisis Decision Making (1983); Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine (1988); The Politics of Partition (1990 and 1998); War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History (1995); and The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (2000). He is co-editor of The Cold War and the Middle East (1997); and of The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 (2001).

Professor Shlaim is a frequent contributor to the newspapers and commentator on radio and television on Middle Eastern affairs.

Related Readings:
Israeli historian calls for U.S. to broker peace, Yale Daily News, November 12, 2001