Philip Zelikow in Japan

Philip Zelikow teaches world history and works on contemporary foreign policy issues from his position as the Botha-Chan Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He has been at Stanford since 2023 and is the emeritus White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia, where he taught for 25 years. Before that, he taught for seven years at Harvard University.

In his scholarship, Zelikow focuses on critical episodes in world history and the challenges of policy design and statecraft. His most recent books of history are The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Turning Point of the Great War, 1916-17 (2021), which reviewers praised as "a masterpiece," and To Build a Better World: Choices to End the Cold War and Create a Global Commonwealth (2019, with Condoleezza Rice). He pioneered the course, The Modern World: Global History since 1760, which has become the most widely viewed and highly rated history course on the Coursera platform.

An attorney and former career diplomat, Zelikow’s government service spanned the five administrations from Reagan through Obama, and as a strategic consultant since 2023. At the White House (1989-91) he took part in the diplomacy to unify Germany and end the Cold War. As Counselor of the Department of State (2005-07) he had deputy-level policy responsibilities on issues around the world, including in east Asia and Japan. He is one of few Americans to have served on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board for presidents from both political parties.

Zelikow has also directed three successful and bipartisan national commissions: the Carter-Ford commission on federal election reform (2001), the 9/11 Commission (2004), and the Covid Crisis Group. That group’s acclaimed report, Lessons from the Covid War, was published in 2023. 

At Stanford, Zelikow leads Hoover’s program of ‘workshops on urgent security choices’ involved in current work on policies with Taiwan and Japan, the war in Ukraine, and the AI revolution. He is part of Hoover’s energy policy working group and Hoover’s ‘legal group’ working with colleagues at the Stanford Law School. He helps lead Hoover’s new project to develop a new ‘economic and security commons.’

During our trip, Zelikow’s lecture program will tell a unique story, marked by wars, trauma, and astonishing achievements, about how, over the last 170 years, Japan has repeatedly reinvented itself to thrive in a changing world. Through his lectures, we will explore how this history both contrasts with and complements the timeless traditions we’ll encounter.