William G. Gray

Promoted to Full Professor
Department of History
wggray@purdue.edu

William G. Gray received his Ph.D from Yale University. He is a leading scholar of German foreign relations history and is interested in approaching modern Europe with a view to economic processes and global interconnections.

He is the author of Germany's Cold War: The Global Campaign to Isolate East Germany, 1949-1969 (University of North Carolina Press, 2003) and Trading Power: West Germany’s Rise to Global Influence, 1963-1975 (Cambridge University Press, 2023). He is also a co-editor of the Encyclopedia of the Cold War (Routledge, 2008) and the German Yearbook of Contemporary History, Vol. 6, Secret Services and the International Arms Trade (2022). In addition, he has published four peer-reviewed articles and six chapters for edited volumes, achieving international standing in the field of German Cold War History. He serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies and has served on a wide range of committees.

Gray is currently pursuing a book-length study of Germany and Brazil during the Cold War, with a special emphasis on the themes of capitalism, democracy, and human rights.