LAQUEUR, WALTER ZE'EV

LAQUEUR, WALTER ZE'EV (1921– ), Middle East expert and political scientist. Born in Breslau, Germany, Laqueur went to Palestine in 1938, and from 1944 to 1953 served as a political journalist for several Israel newspapers. In 1955 Laqueur moved to London, where he became editor of Survey, a quarterly political journal specializing in East European affairs. In 1964 he was appointed director of the Wiener Library Institute of Contemporary History, and in 1966 he founded and became coeditor of the periodical Contemporary History. Laqueur taught at the University of Reading in England and at Brandeis University in the United States. In 1970 he was appointed professor of history at the University of Tel Aviv. Subsequently he became director of the Institute of Contemporary History in London and an associate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. He also served as a co-chairman at CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies). He was founder and editor of the Journal of Contemporary History, chairman of the board of editors of the Washington Quarterly, and editor of the Washington Papers monograph series. A specialist in Soviet foreign policy and in the politics of the Middle East, his books include The Middle East in Transition (1958), The Soviet Union and the Middle East (1959), The Fate of the Revolution: Interpretations of Soviet History (1967), The Road to Jerusalem: The Origins of the Arab-Israel Conflict 1967 (1968), Weimar: A Cultural History (1976), Guerilla: A Historical and Critical Study (1976), A Continent Astray: Europe 1970–1978 (1979), and two novels, The Missing Years (1980) and The Terrible Secret (1980). More recent books are The Dream That Failed: Reflections on the Soviet Union (1994), Fascism: Past, Present, and Future (1996), A History of Zionism (1997), and Weimar: A Cultural History (2000). His work appeared regularly in Commentary, the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, Encounter, and the New Republic.

[Lawrence H. Feigenbaum]