Rate My Professor John W.I. Lee

John W.I. Lee is Professor of History in the Department of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1999. His scholarly work centers on the history of ancient West Asia, with particular emphasis on war, society, and culture in the Greek and Achaemenid worlds from circa 650 to 330 BC. Lee also examines receptions, interpretations, and representations of antiquity in the United States, especially among African American classical scholars during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Greek history, ancient world history, and the history of warfare, including seminars on insurgencies, rebellions, and guerrilla warfare. Lee has directed archaeological field schools and travel-study programs in Greece and Turkey, serving as Field School Co-Director for the Mitrou Archaeological Project in 2005 and excavation staff for the Cornell Halai and East Lokris Project from 1999 to 2004.

Lee's major publications include A Greek Army on the March: Soldiers and Survival in Xenophon’s Anabasis (Cambridge University Press, 2007), nominated for the 2008 Runciman Award; The First Black Archaeologist: A Life of John Wesley Gilbert (Oxford University Press, 2022); and The Persian Empire, a 24-lecture series from The Great Courses (2012). He has contributed chapters to edited volumes such as The Cambridge Companion to Xenophon (Cambridge University Press, 2016), New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare (Wiley Blackwell, 2020), and The Landmark Xenophon’s Anabasis (Pantheon Books, 2021), and co-edited Globalizing Borderlands Studies in Europe and North America (University of Nebraska Press, 2016). His awards include the Harold J. Plous Award from UCSB in 2005-2006 and the Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award in 2003-2004. Lee serves on the Managing Committee of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, as Vice President of the Santa Barbara Society of the Archaeological Institute of America (2003-2019, 2023-2026), chairs the UCSB Ancient Mediterranean Studies Ph.D. Emphasis, and co-organizes the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group. He is faculty advisor for the UCSB Chapter of the Student Veterans of America.