William Ratliff is a research fellow and former curator of the Americas Collection at the Hoover Institution and a research fellow at the Independent Institute. His BA is from Oberlin College and his MA (Chinese history) and PhD (Chinese/Latin American histories) from the University of Washington.

He has written and lectured on the politics of Asia and Latin America and how traditional cultures and institutions influence modern conditions and prospects for political and economic development. Within these regions he has focused on China, Vietnam, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, Cuba, and Nicaragua. He also writes on Chinese relations with Latin America and on US foreign policy.

Ratliff’s studies include “Development with Chinese Characteristics: Asia’s Sinic Revolutions in Global Historical Perspective” (forthcoming), China and Latin America: What Sort of Future (2012), Vietnam Rising: Culture and Change in Asia’s Tiger Cub (2008), Doing It Wrong and Doing It Right: Education in Latin America and Asia (2003), and Law and Economics in Developing Countries (2000) with E. Buscaglia. He has coauthored studies of US policy toward Cuba and Latin America with R. Fontaine and on Juan Peron with S. Amaral. He is coauthor of The Civil War in Nicaragua (1993) with R. Miranda and Inside the Cuban Interior Ministry (1994) with Juan Antonio Rodriguez Menier and was an area editor of the Yearbook on International Communist Affairs. Many of his writings have been published in Chinese and Spanish editions.

Ratliff has lived and traveled widely in Asia and Latin America, published commentaries in all major American and many foreign newspapers and been interviewed on CNN, NPR, PBS, BBC, Voice of America, and China Radio International. On the Internet, he has written for “The Online NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” and with D. Oppenheimer for MSNBC’s “Opinion” section. His has taught and lectured for nongovernmental organizations and at Stanford University, Tunghai University (Taiwan), the Austrian Defense Academy (Vienna), and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Beijing). He has testified before the US Congress and other US government agencies and for two decades wrote classical music reviews and features for the Los Angeles Times and the Metropolitan Opera's Opera News.

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