Sarah B. Snyder

Professor, School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C.

Sarah B. Snyder is a historian who teaches at American University’s School of International Service.  She is the author of two award-winning books, From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy (Columbia University Press, 2018) and Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network (Cambridge University Press, 2011).

More about Sarah B. Snyder

Sarah B. Snyder

Professor, School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C.
Sarah B. Snyder is a historian who teaches at American University’s School of International Service.  She is the author of From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy (Columbia University Press, 2018) and the award-winning Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
More about Sarah B. Snyder
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Books

The CSCE and the End of the Cold War: Diplomacy, Societies and Human Rights, 1972-1990

Bringing together new and innovative research on the CSCE, this volume explores questions key to understanding the Cold War: What role did diplomats play in shaping the 1975 Helsinki Final Act? How did that agreement and the CSCE more broadly shape societies in Europe and North America? And how did the CSCE and activists inspired by the Helsinki Final Act influence the end of the Cold War? (co-editor with Nicolas Badalassi; Berghahn Books, 2018)
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From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy

From Selma to Moscow (Columbia University Press, 2018) explains how transnational connections and 1960s-era social movements inspired Americans to advocate for a new approach to human rights.
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Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network

Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War (Cambridge University Press, 2011) explores how, in the aftermath of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975, a transnational network of activists committed to human rights in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe made human rights a central element of East-West diplomacy.

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Articles

Journal articles, Scholarly chapters, Scholarly essays, Book and article reviews, Commentary
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COMMENTARY

U.S. Human Rights Policy

on The President’s Inbox

How Human Rights Rocked Foreign Policy

on the Texas National Security Review’s Horns of a Dilemma

Reading at Politics & Prose at the Wharf

March 28, 2018

Is the Trump administration abandoning human rights?

The Washington Post, July 2, 2017

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Image credits
Top: President Ronald Reagan visits Danilov Monastery to demonstrate his support for religious freedom. Courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Library.

Selma to Moscow slide: Henry Kissinger in his White House office. Courtesy: The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum (National Archives and Records Administration).

Articles section: Secretary of State George Shultz and United States Ambassador to the Madrid CSCE Review Meeting Max Kampelman discuss the negotiations in Madrid with President Ronald Reagan on July 13, 1983. Courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Library.