Dr Klaus Larres has been the Richard M Krasno Distinguished Professor of History & International Affairs at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, USA, since 2012. At UNC Larres is also the Director of the Krasno Global Affairs & Business Council/Krasno Global Events Series.
From 2023 to 2025 Larres also was a Global Europe & Kissinger China Institute Fellow and then a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Previously he held the Henry A Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and he also was a Visiting Scholar at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University.
Larres served as a Counselor and Senior Policy Adviser at the German Embassy in Beijing, China (2018). Previously he also worked as a Fellow at Germany's leading think tank, the Institute of International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin where he dealt with Germany's security and China policy. He also held full-time professorships at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland and at the University of London, UK.
Larres writes a regular column entitled "Understanding America" for the German daily newspaper Koelner Stadtanzeiger. He frequently gives interviews to the global media and is often consulted by media organizations & think tanks and international businesses.
Larres’ research, writing and lecturing expertise includes the following: 1. Current economic, security and geopolitical relations US-China-EU/Germany; 2. Transatl. relations, NATO & US, German, British, Russian & EU foreign policies; 3. The Global Cold War & 20th century international history. He is also greatly interested in global governance and leadership questions & current geopolitics & geo-economic issues, incl global trade & investment policies.
Recent books: At present Larres works on a monograph with the working title "China as a Factor in Transatlantic Relations from the 1980s to the Present." In 2022 he published Uncertain Allies: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Threat of a United Europe (Yale UP); and also the Oxford Handbook of German Politics (co-ed., OUP, 2022); Dictators and Autocrats: Securing Power Across Global Politics (ed., Routledge, 2022) and Terrorism and Transatlantic Relations (co-ed., Palgrave/Macmillan, 2022). His best known book is probably Churchill's Cold War: The Politics of Personal Diplomacy (Yale UP, 2002).
Previously Klaus Larres also was a Member (Fellow) of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, NJ.; a Visiting Professor at Schwarzman College/Tsinghua University in Beijing, a visiting professor at the Beijing Culture and Foreign Languages University and Tongji University in Shanghai. Larres also was the Clifford Hackett Visiting Professor in European History at Yale University and a Visiting Professor of European Politics at Johns Hopkins University/School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC. He has also lectured at Renmin University (RUC) in Beijing, at the University of Milan in Italy, the University of Innsbruck in Austria and he is a Fellow at the China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU) in Beijing. He also was a Fellow at St. John's College, Oxford University and at the American-German Institute (AGI) in Washington, DC.
Born in Germany, Larres was educated at the University of Cologne and the London School of Economics (LSE) in the UK. He has published widely on all of his above research themes.
For his many book and article publications, please click on the taps below or above.
Klaus Larres likes to travel and explore the world.
He is keen on swimming, conversing, cultural things & putting the world to rights.
Klaus Larres grew up in the German Rhineland near Cologne and has two wonderful daughters who live in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
He can be approached for speaking & consulting engagements.
He is happy to answer your messages - please email me on "[email protected]"
The pictures above display the locations where I spent a significant period of time in my life: Olef, Cologne, London, Belfast, Washington, DC, Chapel Hill, Berlin, Beijing --