Thomas Cushman is Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Wellesley College. He is the author and editor of many books on topics ranging from counterculture in Russia, genocide, George Orwell, human rights, and the war in Iraq. He is the founder and was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Human Rights. He is a Faculty Associate of the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University and has been visiting professor at Brandeis University, University of London, and the University of the Witwatersrand. His current work focuses on the idea of 'democratic geopolitics.'