Akira Iriye is an historian of American diplomatic history especially United States-East Asian relations, and international issues. A graduate of Haverford College and Harvard University, he taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Rochester, and the University of Chicago before accepting an appointment as Professor of History at Harvard University in 1989, where he became Charles Warren Professor of American History in 1991. He was Director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies from 1991 through 1995. He served as President of the American Historical Association in 1988, and has also served as president for the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.