Ben Kiernan is the A. Whitney Griswold Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University. He was the Founding Director of the Cambodian Genocide Program and the Genocide Studies Program, MacMillan Center (1994-2015); Convenor of the Yale East Timor Project (2000-02); Professor of International & Area Studies, MacMillan Center (2005-2021); and is a Faculty Affiliate, International Security Studies at Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs.
In 1979, Kiernan completed his first paper on the subject of the Cambodian genocide, “Pol Pot and Kampuchea’s Eastern Zone: A Final Solution ?,” published in the Netherlands in 1980 as “Genocide in the Eastern Zone”. From 1980 onwards, he worked with Gregory Stanton to bring the Khmer Rouge to international justice. He learned the Khmer language, carried out research in Cambodia and among refugees abroad and has since written many books on the topic. He is considered as a world’s leading authorities on the studies of Cambodian genocide. Kiernan’s scholarship helped the Cambodian government and several international communities document Khmer Rouge abuses.
In addition to the studies in Cambodian genocide, his scholarship has also focused on global genocides. He is a globally recognised scholar on genocides and his other research interests include Southeast Asian studies, Comparative colonialism and Environmental History. His award-winning publications include: How Pol Pot Came to Power: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Communism in Cambodia, 1930-1975 (1985, 2004), The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979 (1996, 2002, 2008), Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur (2007), Genocide and Resistance in Southeast Asia: Documentation, Denial, and Justice in Cambodia and East Timor (2007) and Viet Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present (2017).
Kiernan is also the editor of Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations, and the International Community (1993) and Burchett: Reporting the Other Side of the World, 1939-1983 (1986) and co-editor of Political Violence in Southeast Asia since 1945: Case Studies from Six Countries (2021), Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea (1983), Pol Pot Plans the Future: Confidential Leadership Documents from Democratic Kampuchea, 1976-1977 (1988), and The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective (2003). His newest publication is a three-volume series, The Cambridge World History of Genocide (2023), of which he is the general editor.
He has received several honours/awards for his contributions, namely 2008 gold medal for the best work of history awarded by the Independent Publishers association, Sybil Halpern Milton Memorial Book Prize (2009), Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Research Award among others. He has been elected a Member of the Council of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (1988-90), of the Southeast Asia Council of the U.S. Association for Asian Studies (1993-96) and of the Advisory Council of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (2007-09). He obtained his Ph.D. from Monash University, Australia (1983), under the supervision of David P. Chandler.
He serves as Co-Chair to the vertex of Genocide, Holocaust and Disaster Studies at the Council for Global Cooperation and is a member of the Board of Governors.
