Professor Ben Kiernan

Ben Kiernan (BA (Hons) 1975, PhD 1983) is the Whitney Griswold Professor of History, Professor of International and Area Studies, and Director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University.

At Yale, he founded the Cambodian Genocide Program in 1994, and the Genocide Studies Program in 1998.

Before starting at Yale in 1990 Professor Kiernan taught at the University of NSW and the University of Wollongong.

Professor Kiernan is author of many books including:

• Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur (Yale University Press, 2007)
• Genocide and Resistance in Southeast Asia: Documentation, Denial and Justice in Cambodia and East Timor (Transaction Publishers, 2008)
• The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979 (Yale University Press, 1996 and 2008) 
• How Pol Pot Came to Power: Colonialism, Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, 1930-1975 (1985 and 2004).

He has also published more than 100 scholarly articles on Southeast Asia and the global history of genocide.

In 1998 Professor Kiernan's book, Le Génocide au Cambodge, 1975-1979: Race, idéologie et pouvoir was published by Gallimard in its distinguished series, Nouvelle Revue Française. His book Blood and Soil, translated into several languages, won the Independent Publishers' 2008 gold medal for best book in the History category.

He is a member of the editorial boards of Critical Asian Studies, Human Rights Review, Zeitschrift für Genozidforschung, and Genocide Studies and Prevention.