James Sheehan is the Dickason Professor in the Humanities at Stanford, a professor of history, and an FSI senior fellow by courtesy. He is an expert on the history of modern Europe. He has written widely on the history of Germany, including four books and many articles. His most recent book on Germany is Museums in the German Art World: From the End of the Old Regime to the Rise of Modernism (Oxford Press, 2000). He has recently written a new book about war and the European state in the 20th century, Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? addressing the transformation of Europe's states from military to cilivian actors, interested primarily in economic growth, prosperity, and security. His other recent publications are chapters on "Democracy" and "Political History," which appear in the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2002), and a chapter on "Germany," which appears in The Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (Oxford University Press, 2002).

Sheehan is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He has many won many grants and awards, including the Officer's Cross of the German Order of Merit. In 2004 he was elected president of the American Historical Association. He received a BA from Stanford (1958) and an MA and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley (1959, 1964).