Syrus Solo Jin served as assistant to the editor of the American Historical Review from 2020–25. He is currently the Elihu Rose Scholar of Modern Military History at New York University. Before coming to NYU, he earned his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2025 and holds a bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis. His first book is a study of US military-building in early Cold War Asia. It illustrates the origins of a global U.S. security infrastructure through the grassroots histories of American military advisors and their Asian counterparts. Situated at the intersection between the history of empire, global military history, and the Cold War, this project investigates the ambition of worldmaking, the impact of racial formation, and the transformation of cultural forms which complicated and yet made possible the creation of an American defense perimeter along the Asian continent. His peer-reviewed research has been published in Diplomatic History and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He previously worked with the American Historical Review and was a producer for its podcast, History in Focus. In addition, he has written about US foreign policy, the military, war, East Asia, and TV shows for places such as Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, Time Magazine, the US Institute of Peace, and elsewhere. His first short story appeared in the Saturday Evening Post.
A Martian lands on Earth, heads to the nearest university’s history department, and asks the question, “What is Asia?” What...