John Brown

U.S. Department of State (Ret.)

A member of the US Foreign Service for over twenty years (1981-2003), Brown served in London, Prague, Krakow, Kiev, Belgrade and Moscow, focusing on press and cultural affairs. He was promoted into the Senior Foreign Service in 1997.

Together with teaching for Georgetown's Liberal Studies Programs, Brown currently compiles the Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review for the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy. This posting was cited as one of ten "Best Blogs of 06," by David E. Kaplan of the U.S. News & World Report.

Brown's articles have appeared in The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, The Moscow Times, and American Diplomacy.

Brown has given lectures at NYU, University of the Pacific, The University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, George Washington University, The Hillwood Museum, the State University of New York (SUNY), The Ohio State University, and The George Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center, as well as at conferences dealing with public and cultural diplomacy.

Dr. Brown received a Ph.D. in Russian History from Princeton University in 1977. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he worked at the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington, and served as an editor on a joint U.S.-Soviet publication, The Establishment of Russian-American Relations, 1765-1815. He is also the co-author (with S. Grant) of The Russian Empire and the Soviet Union: A Guide to Archival and Manuscript Materials in the United States.

Publication(s):

They're Supersizing the Baghdad Embassy. Big Mistake, Washington Post, 2004