Dennis L. Bark
Senior Fellow

Expertise: International relations and national security affairs; European politics, with emphasis on the economic, political, and military aspects of the European Community

Dennis L. Bark, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is a historian and political scientist in the field of European studies. He writes and lectures on European affairs and the transatlantic relationship, with special emphasis on France and Germany.

He is an expert on international relations and national security affairs. His current research focuses on the changing nature of European politics, with attention to the economic, political, and military aspects of the European Union.

In October 2001, Bark was presented the Knight's Cross of the Legion of Honor by Count Olivier de Sugny, on behalf of the President of the Republic of France, in recognition of his contributions to French-American relations.

In March 1997, Bark was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Legion of Merit, First Class (Das Bundesverdientskreuz, Erste Klasse, der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) from the President of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of his contributions to German-American relations.

His most recent book (October 2007) on Europe and America is titled: Americans and Europeans–Dancing in the Dark.

Among his recent works are Professor Bark's Amazing Digital Adventure: Five Faces of the Internet (2000), and Reflections on Europe, an edited volume published by Hoover Press in October 1997, to which he contributed the essay "The American-European Relationship: Reflections on Half a Century, 1947/1997." He is also author (with David Gress) of The History of West Germany, vol. 1: From Shadow to Substance, 1945–1963, and vol. 2: Democracy and Discontents, 1963–1991 (Basil Blackwell, 1993).

With Annelise Anderson, he coedited the volume Thinking about America: The United States in the 1990s (Hoover Institution Press, 1989). Anderson and Bark received the George Washington Honor Medal from Freedoms Foundation (Excellence in Category of Public Communications) on the basis of the exceptional quality of that volume.

He is the coauthor, with David Gress, of Histoire de l'Allemagne Depuis 1945 (Robert Laffont, 1992); coeditor, with Owen Harries, of The Red Orchestra: The Case of the Southwest Pacific (Hoover Institution Press, 1989); editor of The Red Orchestra: The Case of Africa (Hoover Institution Press, 1988) and The Red Orchestra: Instruments of Soviet Policy in Latin America and the Caribbean (Hoover Institution Press, 1986); and author of Agreement on Berlin: A Study of the 1970–72 Quadripartite Negotiations (American Enterprise Institute-Hoover Institution, 1974) and Die Berlin-Frage 1949–1955 (Walter de Gruyter, 1972).

Bark was a member of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships from 1981 to 1986 and served as chairman of the United States Coast Guard Academy Advisory Committee from 1981 to 1984.

In December 1985, Bark was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a member of the board of directors of the United States Institute of Peace. He served as a member until January 2001, and at different times served as chairman of the committees on Audit and Finance, on Institutional Planning, and on Administration and Organization.

In 1972, he joined the staff of the Hoover Institution as assistant to the director and a research fellow. In 1973, he was appointed executive secretary of the National, Peace and Public Affairs Fellows Program, a position he held until 1984. He was appointed assistant director and a senior research fellow in 1976 and associate director in 1978. Bark became a senior fellow and deputy director in 1981, resigning from the latter position in 1983 to direct the institution's Program in National Security Affairs (1983–90) and to conduct research on international relations.

During 1966-68, he was an H. B. Earhart Fellow; from 1968 to 1970, a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung; and in 1970–72, a national fellow at the Hoover Institution. During 1974, Bark was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

He is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society. He is also chairman of the board of trustees of the Earhart Foundation.

Bark received an A.B. degree in history from Stanford University in 1964 and a Ph.D. degree in modern European history and political science (summa cum laude) from the Free University of Berlin in 1970. He was also educated at the American Institute for Foreign Trade during 1965–66.