Announcing the new Eleanor Rathbone Professor of Contemporary European History

Professor Jussi Hanhimäki (Geneva Graduate Institute)

St Antony’s College and the Faculty of History are delighted to announce that Professor Jussi Hanhimäki has been appointed as the incoming Eleanor Rathbone Professor of Contemporary European History.

This appointment has been made possible by a generous gift from Arcadia, the Sigrid Rausing Trust and the Open Society Foundations to ensure that the Chair is endowed in perpetuity.

Jussi M. Hanhimäki has been Professor of International History and Politics at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies since 2000. He is the recipient of the Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) and a former fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Professor Hanhimäki has written or edited fourteen books and is currently completing Cauldron: The Cold War and the Transformation of Europe. He is commencing a major research project on the history and politics of NATO enlargement since the end of the Cold War. In addition to English, his work has appeared in Arabic, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Swedish, and Turkish. He is a life member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.

‘It is a great honour to have been elected to the Eleanor Rathbone Professorship of Contemporary European History. I am very much looking forward to joining the Faculty and St Antony’s College, and to contributing to Oxford’s outstanding community of scholars and students working on modern Europe and international history. The opportunity to pursue research and teaching on Europe’s changing political and security order at such a consequential historical moment is especially exciting’, said Professor Hanhimäki.

The Chair of the History Faculty Board, Professor Martin Conway said ‘The History Faculty is delighted to have been able to make this new appointment, which will provide a new focus for work on the history of Europe since 1989. Jussi Hanhimäki’s innovative scholarship and research leadership make him the ideal candidate to enable the Faculty to make a major contribution to this emerging field of historical research.’

Professor Roger Goodman CBE, Warden of St Antony’s College, stated ‘The endowment of the Eleanor Rathbone Chair is a landmark in the study of contemporary European history at the University of Oxford. St Antony’s is delighted that the Chair will be held at the College and that its first incumbent, the distinguished historian Jussi Hanhimäki, will join our international community of scholars’.

The role will be a key part of the European Studies Centre. Its Director, Professor Paul Betts, said ‘The ESC is thrilled that Jussi will be joining our Centre given his impressive publication profile, wide intellectual range, proven leadership and long-standing ability to work at the crossroads of contemporary history and international relations.’

Professor Hanhimäki will take up his post in January 2027.