Abraham Ascher

Abraham Ascher (born August 26, 1928) is an American historian and professor of history at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. A highly respected scholar, he is the recipient of numerous awards and the author of around ten books and over thirty articles. He specialized in Russian history; his two-volume The Revolution of 1905 is a study on this subject.

Ascher was born on August 26, 1928, in Wrocław, Poland, to Jakob Ascher, a store owner, and his wife Feiga Ascher. In July 1939, he and his mother fled Wrocław and emigrated to London, United Kingdom, and in 1943, they emigrated to New York, United States, joining his father, who had moved there earlier. 

Ascher graduated with a bachelor's degree in history from City College (now of the City University of New York), in 1950. The same year, he became a naturalized US citizen. He then attended Columbia University, New York, and earned a Master's degree and Ph.D. in 1951 and 1957, respectively.

In his early career, Ascher worked as a freelance writer of radio scripts for Voice of America (1952.) In 1953, he became an instructor at Brooklyn College (now part of the City University of New York). In 1956-57, he was an instructor at Rutgers University, Jersey City, New Jersey, and in 1958-60, served as an assistant professor of history at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. 

In 1960, Ascher returned to Brooklyn College as an assistant professor (1960-64). He was then promoted to associate professor (1965-70), and finally to full professor in 1970. In 1974-76, he served as the chairman of the department.

In 1957-58, Ascher worked as a research analyst of international Communism for the U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC.

Ascher has written several books. In 1905, he published a two-volume book series The Revolution of 1905. In the first volume titled Russia in Disarray, he profiles the circumstances surrounding Russian Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin's leadership of a coup d'etat against his political opponents, a move that proved to be critical as it led to Russia's temporary move away from communism and toward a parliamentary form of government. In the second volume Authority Restored, "Ascher offers a sophisticated and nuanced explanation of why constitutionalism failed to take hold in Russia during 1905-1907," according to Robert Weinberg in the Journal of Social History.

Selected books

• Pavel Axelrod and the Development of Menshevism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972.
• The Revolution of 1905: Russia in Disarray. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988.
• The Revolution of 1905: Authority Restored. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992.
• P. A. Stolypin: The Search for Stability in Late Imperial Russia. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000. This book is the first English-language biography written about Pyotr Stolypin, who served for only five years.
• Russia: A Short History. Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications, 2002
• The Revolution of 1905: A Short History.: Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004.
• A Community under Siege: The Jews of Breslau under Nazism. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007. (Translated into Polish and published by Via Nova, 2009.)

• Rockefeller Foundation fellow, 1963-64
• Hoover Institution grants, summers, 1965-66
• Friedrich Ebert stiftung, 1966
• American Council of Learned Societies fellow, 1968-69
• Harvard University Russian Research Center fellow, 1968-69
• American Philosophical Society grant, 1973
• City University of New York grant, 1973
• National Endowment for the Humanities senior fellow, 1974-75
• Earhart Foundation research grants, 1998, 2000, 2001.

Ascher got married on June 29, 1958. He has three children: Deborah, Rachel, and Stephen.