Juan Cole is Professor of Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. His books include Roots of North Indian Shiism in Iran and Iraq (1989), Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East (1983), Modernity and the Millennium (1998) and Sacred Space and Holy War (2002). As a result of his weblog on the war on terror and the Iraq war, he has become a public intellectual and has been a frequent commentator on television and radio and in the press. He was recently elected president of the Middle East Studies Association.

He was interviewed by HNN's Rick Shenkman at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association on January 7, 2006.