Brantly Womack is Professor of Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia, and has been named an honorary professor at Jilin University in Changchun and East China Normal University in Shanghai. He is the author of Foundations of Mao Zedong's Political Thought and Politics in China (with James Townsend), and the editor of a number of books, including Contemporary Chinese Politics in Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 1991). After receiving his BA Magna cum Laude in Politics and Philosophy from the University of Dallas in 1969, Womack began studying Chinese while on a Fulbright Scholarship in Philosophy to the University of Munich. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago, where Tang Tsou was his mentor. After post-doctoral studies at the Contemporary China Center of the University of California, Berkeley, he taught at Northern Illinois University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London before going to the University of Virginia. He has served as Director of the East Asia Center, Chair of the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, and Director of the University's International Activities Planning Commission. He has made frequent visits to China since 1978 and to Vietnam since 1985, and has published articles comparing their politics and exploring their relationship in World Politics, Government and Opposition, the China Journal, Asian Survey, Pacific Affairs, and elsewhere. His articles on asymmetry in international relations have appeared in the Journal of Strategic Studies, the Journal of Contemporary China and Pacific Affairs.