Brief Resume Revised: October 2005  

Peter N. Kirstein is professor of history, St. Xavier University (Chicago). He attended Flynn Park School, Mary Institute-St. Louis Country Day School; Washington University in St. Louis; A.B. in Government from Boston University; M.A. in Political Science and Ph.D. in History from Saint Louis University.

Academic Specialization
American Foreign Policy: Wars and WMD
The Atomic Bomb and World War II
The Vietnam War

Kirstein published a monograph, Anglo Over Bracero, on Mexican immigration but has concentrated in recent years on the nuclear age. Publications have appeared in The Historian, Situation Analysis, Journal of Mexican American History, American Diplomacy, Art in America, New Ground, History News Network and Continuum. He contributed a book review in the American Historical Review on the nuclear age and Cold War culture. He lectured twice on the Cold War and Atomic bomb at NATO's Army-Russian Institute in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

Professor Kirstein is a nationally known advocate for peace and justice, and as progressive critic of American foreign policy. He has appeared frequently on PBS in Chicago. Commentary on American foreign policy has appeared in The New York Times, The Weekly Standard and The New Criterion. Op-ed pieces have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Arab News (Saudi Arabia) and Gulf News (Dubai). He debated Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, on “Bush’s Decision to go to War” on David Horowitz’s, FrontPageMagazine.com. The Wall Street Journal devoted two editorials to Kirstein’s approach to antiwar dissent. Professor Kirstein was suspended on Veterans Day, November 11, 2002 for an impassioned, vitriolic antiwar e-mail  response to a Spam flyer from an Air Force Academy cadet. Following this national controversy, he has written extensively and lectured on college campuses throughout the United States on the Iraq war, dissent and the meaning of academic freedom.

See his article: "Academic Freedom and the New McCarthyism," Situation Analysis, University of Nottingham (UK). He has lectured in the School of Public Affairs' Leadership Program at American University, Valparaiso University, Ohio Wesleyan University, Illinois State University, McKendree College, University of St Francis, East-West University, the Korean War Veterans Roundtable of Wilmette, Illinois (twice), Real History Conference (Hebron, Kentucky), Open University of the Left (Chicago) and Universal Muslim High School, Bridgeview, Ill.

Kirstein received the St Xavier University Teaching Excellence Award, and has served on the American Association of University Professors’ Committee on Membership. He was elected to the Illinois-AAUP Council (2004-2007) and has been president of the SXU chapter and serves ex officio on its Executive Committee. Conservative Andrew Sullivan ironically presented the “Sontag Awards" named after the late-essayist Susan Sontag. Kirstein received Honourable Mention.

Howard Zinn was his advisor at Boston University. He is a veteran of the United States Army Reserves and is a pacifist.

Back to Home Page