Robert Jervis was Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics at Columbia University. He wrote many books, including Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War (Cornell University Press 2010). His book System Effects: Complexity in Political Life (Princeton University Press 1997) was a co-winner of the APSA’s Psychology Section Best Book Award, and The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution (Cornell University Press 1989) won the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He was also the author of Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton University Press 1976), The Logic of Images in International Relations (Princeton University Press 1970; 2d ed., Columbia University Press 1989), The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Cornell University Press 1984), and American Foreign Policy in a New Era (Routledge 2005).
Professor Jervis was President of the American Political Science Association in 2000–2001 and received career achievement awards from the International Society of Political Psychology and ISA’s Security Studies Section. In 2006 he received the National Academy of Science’s tri-annual award for behavioral sciences contributions to avoiding nuclear war. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1978–1979 and was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He chaired the Historical Review Panel for CIA and was a National Intelligence Council associate. His research included the nature of beliefs, international relations theory and the Cold War, and the links between signaling and perception.
