James H. Billington "In the course of a career devoted to humanistic scholarship Billington also taught history at Harvard and Princeton universities, contributed to popular magazines as well as learned journals, and wrote illuminating and provocative books on Russia and on revolutionary tradition. The comments in the New York Times Book Review of the political scientist Marshall Berman on The Icon and the Axe apply also to Billington's other books: 'His writing at its best is both novelistic, bringing dozens of characters beautifully to life, and poetic, following images into their depths....'"* He graduated from Princeton and Oxford Universities. After graduation he taught history first at Harvard and then at his alma mater, Princeton. He left Princeton in 1973 to become director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., which was created by law as a part of the Smithsonian Institution in 1968 to support scholarship on issues of international concern. There he created eight new programs, including the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies and the Wilson Quarterly, a journal devoted to scholarship and ideas. In 1987 he was appointed Librarian of Congress by Ronald Reagan. Under Billington's administration the Library of Congress has moved into the digital age, notably initiating the American Memory project, an effort to make some of the vast wealth of the library available to the public on the Web. Another online project hosted by the Library of Congress and sponsored by James Billington is the Meeting of Frontiers, a bilingual site which tells the parallel and interacting stories of America's West and Russia's East through digitized images and texts of original source materials.
Selected Publications:
"In a Haze of Information, Finding Truth." Civilization 7 (Apr/May 2000): 53-54.
King Library Periodicals (shelved by title)

The Face of Russia. Chicago: Home Vision Select, 1998.
King IMC Video Cassette, NX556.A1 F231 1998 (3 parts)
PBS Face of Russia companion webpage

The Face of Russia: Anguish, Aspiration, and Achievement in Russian Culture. New York: TV Books, 1998.

"Ignorance of Religion Strikes Again." American Enterprise 9 (Jul/Aug 1998): 17.
King Library Periodicals (shelved by title)

"The West's Stake in Russia's Future." Orbis 41 (1997): 545-553.
King Library Periodicals (shelved by title)

"Maps and Panoramas, on Paper and the Web." Civilization 4 (June/July 1997): 95.
King Library Periodicals (shelved by title)

"Enriching the Internet." Civilization 4 (April/May 1997): 93.
King Library Periodicals (shelved by title)

"Libraries, the Library of Congress, and the Information Age." Daedalus 125 (1996): 35-54.
King Library Periodicals (shelved by title)

"A Technological Flood Requires Human Navigators." American Libraries 27 (June 1996), 39-40.
King Library Periodicals (shelved by title)

Russia Transformed: Breakthrough to Hope: Moscow, August 1991. New York: Free Press, 1992.
King Library, DK292 .B55 1992

"The Soviet Drama: 1. Russia's Quest for Identity." Washington Post January 21, 1990.
King IMC Microfilm Newspaper (shelved by title)

"The Soviet Drama: 2. Looking to the Past." Washington Post January 22, 1990.
King IMC Microfilm Newspaper (shelved by title)

"Realism and Vision in American Foreign Policy." Foreign Affairs 65 (1987): 630.
King Library Periodicals (shelved by title)

"Soviet Power and the Unity of Industrial Democracies." Atlantic Community Quarterly 24 (1986): 231.
Southwest Depository, (ask at circulation desk)

"Revolution: Fire in the Minds of Men." Wilson Quarterly 4 (Fall 1981): 96-111.
King Library Periodicals (shelved by title)

Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith. New York: Basic Books, 1980.
King Library, HM283 .B54

"The Spirit of Russian Art: An Essay." In The Horizon Book of the Arts of Russia, ed. Richard M. Ketchum, et al., 7-31. New York: Horizon Magazine, 1970.
Art Architecture folio, NX 556 .A1 H6 1970

"Six Views of the Russian Revolution." World Politics 18 (1966): 452-473.
Available online through JSTOR

The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture. New York: Knopf, 1966.
King Library, DK32.7 .B5 1967

"The Intelligentsia and the Religion of Humanity." American Historical Review 65 (1960): 807-821.
Available online through JSTOR

Mikhailovsky and Russian Populism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958.
SW Depository, 335 B496

Sources of biographical information:
"James H(adley) Billington." Contemporary Authors Online. Updated 6/6/2000. Gale Group. (5 March 2001).

"James Billington" 1998. www.pbs.org/weta/faceofrussia/public_html/series/billington.html (27 February 2001).

"James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress" Updated 6/94. www.nclis.gov/what/bios/billingt.html (27 February 2001).

*"Billington, James H(adley)." In Current Biography Yearbook 1989, 47-51. New York: Wilson, 1990.
King Reference, CT 100 .C8 1989

Nomination of James H. Billington to be Librarian of Congress: Hearing Before the Committee on Rules and Administration, United States Senate, One Hundredth congress, First Session ... July 14, 1987. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1988.
Documents Y 4.R 86/2:S.hrg.100-808