Douglas Smith is an award-winning historian and translator, and the author of Rasputin, Former People (a Sunday Times bestseller) and The City Without Jews. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he has written for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and has appeared in documentaries with the BBC, National Geographic and Netflix. Before becoming a historian, he worked for the US State Department in the Soviet Union and as a Russian affairs analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He lives in Seattle.