Smithsonian Journeys Experts

Bill Keylor is Professor of History and International Relations in the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, where he served four consecutive terms as chairman of the Department of History from 1988 to 2000 and currently directs the University’s International History Institute. Bill received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and his M.A. and Ph.D in European History from Columbia University.  He has been the recipient of Fulbright, Woodrow Wilson, and Guggenheim Fellowships and was named Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite by the French Government. He has also received three teaching awards at Boston University.

Bill has lived and worked France, has served as a consultant to the Museum of Peace at Caen, and has been a visiting professor of the Institute of Political Studies of Paris (Sciences-Po). He has lectured on many Smithsonian tours and cruises since the late 1970s. 

Bill’s publications include dozens of articles and book chapters as well as two books on the history of France.  He is also the author of The Twentieth-Century World: An International History (6th edition, Oxford University Press, 2011) and A World of Nations: The International Order since World War II  (2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 2009).