Odd Arne Westad

Who is Odd Arne Westad?

Odd Arne Westad FBA is a Norwegian historian specialising in the Cold War and contemporary East Asian history. He is a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

After studying as an undergraduate at the University of Oslo, Westad attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to work on his Ph.D under Professor Michael H. Hunt. He was appointed Director of Research at the Norwegian Nobel Institute and Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Oslo in 1991. In 1998, he left Oslo to join the International History Department at the LSE, where he also worked in the LSE Asia Research Centre before becoming Head of Department in 2003.

Westad is currently Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Director of LSE IDEAS, the LSE's centre for international affairs, diplomacy and strategy, which he set up together with Professor Michael Cox in 2008. Westad speaks and writes in a number of languages, including his native Norwegian, English, French, German, Mandarin and Russian. He is a very well known lecturer in several countries, both on history and on contemporary international affairs, especially with regard to China and East Asia.