Introduction to Dr. Habeck’s talk
Associate Professor of Strategic Studies,
The Johns Hopkins University Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Center for Security Studies
Adjunct Professorial Lecturer, American University
We are pleased to have Dr. Mary Habeck speak to us on the reasons for the polarization of American society. Her talk will follow the development of today’s polarization and ask whether we can heal the chasm that divides America today. She has led a class on this topic for Yale Alumni College and will lead two sessions of a class on “Wars in the Head: Vietnam and Afghanistan” this fall. (One session is already sold out, but another that runs from October 11-November 15 has just been added.)
Dr. Habeck taught American and European military history in Yale’s history department from 1994 to 2005. She received her PhD in history from Yale in 1996 and an MA in international relations from Yale in 1989. Classmates may remember that she spoke to our class on Jihadism at a mini-reunion in New Haven in 2004. She currently teaches at Johns Hopkins, Georgetown and American University.
About Mary Habeck
Mary Habeck is a strategic planner and an expert on military matters, Islam, and extremism. She teaches on these issues at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Georgetown, and American University. Dr. Habeck is also a Senior Fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute. From 2005-2013 she was an Associate Professor in Strategic Studies at SAIS, teaching courses on extremism, military history, and strategic thought. Before moving to SAIS, Dr. Habeck taught American and European military history in Yale’s history department, 1994-2005. She received her PhD in history from Yale in 1996, an MA in international relations from Yale in 1989, and a BA in international studies, Russian, and Spanish from Ohio State in 1987.
Dr. Habeck was appointed by President Bush to the Council on the Humanities at the National Endowment for the Humanities (2006-2013), and in 2008-2009 she was the Special Advisor for Strategic Planning on the National Security Council staff, where she worked on extremism.
In addition to books and articles on doctrine, World War I, the Spanish Civil War, and al-Qa’ida, her publications include Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (Yale, 2005) and three forthcoming sequels on extremist military and political strategies and on the United States in the ongoing war on terror. She is also finishing up an intellectual history on the problem of polarization in America today.