Robert W. Strayer (PhD, University of Wisconsin) taught African, Soviet, and world history for many years at SUNY College at Brockport, where he received Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching and for Excellence in Scholarship. In 1998 he was visiting professor of world and Soviet history at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Since 2002, he has taught world history at the University of California, Santa Cruz; California State University, Monterey Bay; and Cabrillo College. His scholarship includes work in African history (Kenya: Focus on Nationalism, 1975; The Making of Mission Communities in East Africa, 1978); Soviet history (Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?,1998; The Communist Experiment, 2007) and World History (The Making of the Modern World, 1988, 1995; Ways of the World, 2009, 2011). He is a long-time member of the World History Association and served on its Executive Committee.