Stephen F. Jones
Associate Member at Harvard University
Professor of Georgian Modern History at Ilia State University (Georgia)
Emeritus at Mount Holyoke College
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
2:00pm US EDT / 10:00pm Tbilisi
Zoom Webinar: https://bit.ly/40LyZoL
Book orders* can be placed at https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/37MFZ6VJV5ARE
Proceeds from the book sale will go towards ARISC’s future programs and operations
Georgia was the first social democratic state in Europe (in contrast to social democratic coalitions in Sweden, Belgium and elsewhere) in an impoverished corner of the Russian empire where 90% of the population was peasant. The republic embodied an anti-colonial movement, but it was also pro-Western. Before the October revolution, Georgian social democrats envisaged being part of a large Russian democratic federation, but that changed when the social democrats came to power and started building a state. The government remained socialist in orientation but combined it with a commitment to national sovereignty. It was socialist and national, liberal and pluralist. It was an unusual example of democracy in a region where dictatorial states (Bolshevik Russia and the Turkish republic) were new models of governance.
Professor Stephen Jones received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. His books include Socialism in Georgian Colors: The European Road to Social Democracy, 1883-1917 (Harvard University, 2005), and Georgia: A Political History Since Independence (I.B. Tauris, 2012). More recently he edited with Neil MacFarlane, Georgia from Autocracy to Democracy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020). Professor Jones is a Foreign Member of the Georgian Academy of Sciences and the founding Director of the Program on Georgian Studies at the Davis Center, Harvard University. He is currently an Associate Member at the Davis Center, Harvard, and Professor of Georgian Modern History at Ilia State University in Georgia.
This talk is free and open to all, and is a part of ARISC’s 20th Anniversary celebrations.
* ARISC will take book orders until 11:59pm Pacific May 13, 2026. Books will be mailed via USPS to addresses in the United States only. Books will be mailed out approximately one week after the book talk, and should arrive within 4-6 weeks.
For questions, email info@arisc.org