Ronald H. Spector is Professor of History and International Affairs in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He received his B.A. from Johns Hopkins and his MA and Ph.D. from Yale.

He has served in various government positions and on active duty in the Marine Corps from 1967-69 and 1983-84, and was the first civilian to become Director of Naval History and the head of the Naval Historical Center. He has served on the faculties of LSU, Alabama, and Princeton and has been a senior Fulbright lecturer in India and Israel. In 1995-96 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor of Strategy at the National War College and was the Distinguished Guest Professor at Keio University, Tokyo in 2000.

At the Elliott School, he offers undergraduate and graduate courses on US-East Asia Relations, World War II, and the Vietnam War as well as a graduate seminar on Naval history and one on strategy.

His publications include In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia (2007, paperback 2008); Professors of War: The Naval War College and the Development of the Naval Profession (2005); At War At Sea: Sailors and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century (2002); After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam (1994); and Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (1985). At War At Sea received the Distinguished Book Award of the Society for Military History, and Eagle Against the Sun won the Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Prize for Naval History. He is currently working on a study of the immediate aftermath of World War II in China and Southeast Asia.