Mark Beissinger is the Henry W. Putnam Professor in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. He previously served on the faculties of University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard University. His areas of interest are social movements, revolutions, nationalism, state-building, and imperialism, with particular reference to the former Soviet Union and its successor states. His 2002 book Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State won multiple awards, including the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award presented by the American Political Science Association for the best book published in the United States in the fields of government, politics, or international affairs. His 2022 book The Revolutionary City received the Gregory Luebbert Award presented by the Comparative Politics Section of the American Political Science Association for the best book in comparative politics published over the previous two years. Beissinger was selected as a Guggenheim Fellow in 2017, and in 2024 he was recognized by Princeton's Department of Politics with a Stanley Kelley Jr. Award for Excellence in Teaching.