Mary Elise Sarotte
Fellow at the Belfer Center and Center for European Studies at Harvard
Dr Mary Elise Sarotte is a Fellow at the Belfer Center and Center for European Studies at Harvard. After earning her PhD at Yale University, Dr Sarotte went on to earn tenure at the University of Cambridge before returning to the United States to become a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Dean’s Professor of History at the University of Southern California, and, subsequently, the Kravis Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). A former Humboldt Scholar, Dr Sarotte has twice been a Berlin Prize winner at the American Academy. She has written five books and co-edited a sixth, which include Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (2021), The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall (2014), and 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe (2009), which were named The Financial Times Books of the Year (2009 and 2014), The Economist Book of the Year (2014), and Foreign Affairs Book of the Year (2021), among receiving other prizes and awards. The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe remains the only book to win both the Ferrell History Prize for best book on US foreign relations and the Shulman Prize for best book on Soviet foreign relations.
Updated: March 11, 2025
