Jonathan Schneer (born August 9, 1948) is an American historian of modern Britain whose work ranges over labor, political, social, cultural, and diplomatic subjects. He is a professor emeritus at theGeorgia Institute of Technology.^[1]In addition to writing numerous scholarly and popular books, he has written for such publications asThe Washington Post,The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal,The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, andForeign Policy.^[2] His work has been translated into Russian, Estonian, German, Chinese, and Turkish. He has appeared often on American, Canadian, and British media. He has lectured in six countries.

Jonathan Schneer was born on August 9, 1948, inNew York City. His father, Richard Schneer (1919–2004), was a dentist with a practice in New York City, who retired toBerkshire County in northwesternMassachusetts, where he devoted himself to progressive causes.^[3] His mother, Sophie Solomonoff Schneer (1920–2009), was a modern dancer in New York City, who became a choreographer and school teacher inWilliamstown, Massachusetts.^[4] He has one sister, Deborah Schneer, a photographer.^[5]

Schneer spent his first twelve years in New York City, where he attended theLittle Red School House. He attendedMt. Greylock Regional High School inWilliamstown, Massachusetts, from which he graduated in 1966. He earned his B.A. with honors in history fromMcGill University in 1971, and his PhD fromColumbia University in 1978, whereStephen Koss supervised his dissertation.

Schneer's first teaching post was atBoston College in 1976, initially as a teaching assistant for Peter Weiler, then as an Instructor.Yale University hired him as an Assistant Professor in 1979. He became a full professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1989, where he taught until 2018. He was an early member of the editorial board of theRadical History Review and served as an editor for many years, including three as book review editor. His book,London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis, opened his eyes to the possibility of writing for a broad audience. He has been trying to do that ever since, without sacrificing depth of scholarship.

In 1980, Schneer married Margaret Hayman, a lawyer. Upon moving fromNew Haven toAtlanta, she took a position as staff attorney with the Atlanta Legal Aid Society, from which she retired in 2019. They have two sons, Benjamin Hayman Schneer, an Assistant Professor of American Politics at theHarvard Kennedy School^[6] who is married to the journalist and writer Elizabeth Segran,^[7] and Seth Hayman Schneer, an attorney inWashington, D.C., who specializes in health law, and whose wife, Jihyun Lee, is a South Korean diplomat.^[8] Schneer and his wife divide their time between Atlanta and Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Schneer has been a Whiting Fellow and a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies.^[9] In the UK, he has been a Beaufort Scholar atSt. John’s College, Cambridge University,^[10] a Christensen Visiting Fellow atSt. Catherine’s College, Oxford University,^[11] the Helen Cam Visiting Scholar atGirton College, Cambridge and, most recently, the Overbrook Visiting Fellow at University College, Oxford.^[12]

New Statesman andThe Irish Times both choseThe Balfour Declaration as a book of the year.^[13][14] That book also won a 2010National Jewish Book Award.^[15] His book, The Lockhart Plot: Love, Betrayal, Assassination and Counter-Revolution in Lenin’s Russia, was shortlisted for the 2021 Pushkin House Literary Prize. TheBBC History Magazine listed bothThe Balfour Declaration andMinisters of War as a book of the month.^[16]

• Ben Tillett: The Making and Unmaking of a British Labor Militant. US:University of Illinois Press. 1981.ISBN 978-1138331693.
• Labour's Conscience: The Labour Left, 1945–1951.Unwin Hyman. 1988.ISBN 978-1138331761.
• George Lansbury: A Life on the Left.University of Manchester. 1990.ISBN 0-7190-2170-7.
• London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis.Yale University Press. 1999.ISBN 978-0300076257.
• The Thames: England's River. Yale University Press. 2004.ISBN 978-0300107869.
• The Balfour Declaration, The Origins of Arab-Israeli Conflict.Random House. 2009.ISBN 978-1400065325.
• Ministers at War: Winston Churchill's War Cabinet, 1940–45.Basic Books. 2015.ISBN 978-1780746135.
• The Lockhart Plot: Love, Murder, Betrayal and Counter-Revolution in Lenin's Russia.Oxford University Press. 2020.ISBN 978-0198852988.

• Schneer, Jonathan; Cronin, James (1982).Social Conflict and the Political Order in Modern Britain.Croom Helm.ISBN 978-0709907084.
• Schneer, Jonathan; Abelove, Henry; Blackmar, Betsy; Dimmock, Peter (1983).Visions of History.Pantheon.ISBN 978-0394530468.

• Appearances onC-SPAN

• Historians of the British Isles
• 1948 births
• Academics from New York City
• Writers from New York City
• McGill University alumni
• People from Williamstown, Massachusetts
• Columbia University alumni
• Yale University faculty
• Georgia Tech faculty
• Living people
• Historians from New York (state)
• Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge

• Articles with short description
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• Articles with hCards
• People appearing on C-SPAN