Michael J. Carley is an expert on 20^th-century international relations and the history of Russia and the Soviet Union. His Research interests focus on relations between the Soviet Union and Western Europe and the United States between 1917 and 1945. He has written two books and some thirty papers and essays on French involvement in the Russian Civil War (1917-1921), Soviet relations with the Great Powers between the two world wars, issues of appeasement and the origins and conduct of the Second World War. He has been published in Canada, the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Russia.

Professor Carley is working on two large projects. The first concerns the troubled relations between Soviet Russia/the USSR and the West from 1917 to 1930. His book, Silent Conflict: A Hidden History of Early Soviet-Western Relations, was published in late January 2014 by Rowman & Littlefield, in the US, and is available from Amazon and Indigo. It was recently recognized by the American magazine Choice as the Outstanding Academic Title, 2014 in Central and Eastern European history.

His second project deals with the origins and creation of the "Grand Alliance" against Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Work on this second title is progressing well, and the provisional title is A Near-Run Thing: The Grand Alliance of World War II.

My research interests are as follows:

1. The history of the Soviet Union and the consequences of its dismantlement, in particular the history of science and intellectuals, the transformation of research systems and the de-modernization of post-Soviet societies and socio-economic polarization and other effects on societies outside the post-Soviet space. 
    
2. The contemporary history of Jews and the history of Zionism and the state of Israel, in particular the connections between the Zionist movement and the political right in the West, Jewish opposition to Zionism, the development of the Jewish identity since the turn of the 20^th century and the origins and spread of Christian Zionism.
    
3. Science and higher education as factors in international relations, in particular scientific exchanges, the internationalization of education and the role of scientists in international politics.

The themes of some recently completed and current theses and dissertations:

• History textbooks in three post-Soviet states
• The historiography of some Cold War conflicts
• Franco-Romanian relations: between tradition and necessity (1949-1974)
• Pro-Israeli activities in Canada
• Jewish political and religious opposition to Zionism