McGuinn Hall Room 516
Telephone: 617-552-4071
Email: jonathan.kirshner@bc.edu
International Relations, Political Economy, Politics and Film
Jonathan Kirshner is Professor of Political Science and International Studies. His research and teaching interests focus on international relations, political economy (especially macroeconomics and money), and politics and film. His current research includes projects on classical realism, the international political implications of the financial crisis and its aftermath, and the politics of mid-century cinema.
Prior to joining Boston College, Kirshner was the Stephen and Barbara Friedman Professor of International Political Economy in the Department of Government at Cornell University. At Cornell, he also served as director of the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies from 2007 to 2015, and was the recipient of the Provost’s Award for Distinguished Scholarship and the Stephen and Margery Russell Distinguished Teaching Award.
Recent books include American Power after the Financial Crisis, and Hollywood’s Last Golden Age: Politics, Society and the Seventies Film in America. His first book, Currency and Coercion, explored how states manipulate international monetary relations to advance security-related goals. Another book, Appeasing Bankers: Financial Caution on the Road to War, illustrated how financial interests (such as banks) and international financial markets can shape and constrain states’ grand strategies and influence decisions about war and peace. Appeasing Bankers won the best book award from the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association.
Kirshner was the first World Politics Visiting Fellow at Princeton University’s Institute for International and Regional Studies, and was the director of the Economics and National Security Program at the Olin Institute at Harvard University from 2000-04. With Eric Helleiner, he is the co-editor of the multi-disciplinary book series “Cornell Studies in Money,” as well as the books The Great Wall of Money: Power and Politics in China’s International Monetary Relations and The Future of the Dollar.
An Unwritten Future: Realism, Uncertainty, and World Politics (Princeton University Press, 2022)
The Downfall of the American Order? (Cornell University Press, 2022, co-edited with Peter Katzenstein)
American Power After the Financial Crisis (Cornell University Press, 2014)
When the Movies Mattered: The New Hollywood Revisited (Cornell University Press, 2019, co-edited with Jon Lewis)
"Gone but not Forgotten: Trump's Long Shadow and the End of American Credibility," Foreign Affairs (March/April 2021)
“The Keynesian Revolution,” Boston Review, July 13, 2020.
“The Man Who Predicted Nazi Germany,” New York Times, December 7, 2019
“Keynes’s Early Beliefs and Why They Still Matter,” Challenge58:5
“Handle Him with Care: The Importance of Getting Thucydides Right,” Security Studies28:1
“The Economic Sins of IR Theory and the Classical Realist Alternative,” World Politics 67:1
“Who Knew it Could Get Worse? When Nixon Haunted the New Hollywood,” 侱Աٱ43:2
“Same as it Ever Was? Continuity and Change in the International Monetary System,” Review of International Political Economy21:5
“The Tragedy of Offensive Realism: Classical Realism and the Rise of China,” European
Journal of International Relations, 18:1