Stephen Jones

Stephen F. Jones is professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies at Mount Holyoke College (Ph.D. London School of Economics, 1984). Specializing in Russia and the Caucasus, Jones is a leading authority on the history and contemporary politics of Georgia, and, more generally, an expert on post-communist societies in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He regularly briefs the US State Department on developments in South and North Caucasia. In addition to more than 70 articles, essays, and official reports, Jones is the author of Socialism in Georgian Colors: The European Road to Social Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2005). He is currently writing two more books: The Georgian Social Democratic Republic: 1918–1921 (to be published by Harvard U.P.) and Georgia and the Struggle for Stability 1989-2005 (to be published by I.B. Tauris).

Jones has traveled to Georgia for the World Bank to examine the impact of economic reform on the lives of ordinary citizens in Caucasia and has acted as a consultant to UNDP (United Nations Development Program) to Abkhazia, a secessionist region in Georgia, to investigate the plight of IDPs. Jones is also leading an ongoing effort to work with officials in Georgia to identify, preserve, and catalogue archival materials and employ contemporary library technologies to support the nation's archival and library systems. In 2003-2004, he directed two programs for Georgians funded by the U.S. State Department. The first was a Georgian Library Professionals program, the second a program on religious tolerance. He works closely with Tbilisi State University and the Center for Social Sciences based in Tbilisi, where he lectures on a regular basis.