Richard Lourie

Richard Lourie (born 1940) is an American historian and foreign-policy expert on Russia–United States relations. He is known for research on USSR and USA policy changes over time (1960-1990).

Life In the mid-1960s, at the University of California, Berkeley, Richard Lourie studied Polish literature with 1980 Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz, participating in seminars on translation of Polish poetry.

As a historian and foreign-policy expert on Russia–United States relations, Lourie consulted for Hillary Clinton in her failed 2008 presidential run, and has served as Mikhail Gorbachev's translator.

Lourie has written a fictional autobiography of Joseph Stalin and a biography of Andrei Sakharov.

He has written a prognosticative biography, Putin: His Downfall and Russia's Coming Crash, which explores the education and ascent of Putin during the dissolution of the USSR and his career as Russia's autocrat in order to estimate his probable future moves, while diagnosing Russia's spiritual ills, "narcissistic injuries", and "utter dependence on the ongoing will to power."

Lourie has translated over 30 books and has published articles and reviews in mainstream US media.

Select bibliography

introduction by Bruno Bettelheim Paperback, 1987.

See also: Tony Wood (historian)