Professional Affiliation

Independent scholar

Expert Bio

Michael Coates recently completed a Ph.D. in History at the University of California, Berkeley, with a dissertation titled “The Sources of Soviet Knowledge: A History of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia”.  The project explores the history of that encyclopedia, which aimed to reconstruct all of human knowledge in accordance with the principles of the Marxist philosophies of dialectical and historical materialism, and which became one of the most authoritative sources of knowledge in the Soviet Union.  During his fellowship at the Kennan Institute, Coates will be revising and expanding this dissertation for publication, and continuing work on several side projects.  His research interests include a variety of topics and methodologies in Russian and Soviet history, including the history of science and technology, intellectual history, and the history of knowledge or historical epistemology.