Bio
John Brady Kiesling is an ancient historian, archaeologist and digital humanist raised in Silicon Valley, USA. He returned to scholarship after a twenty-year detour as a US diplomat when, in February 2003, he resigned as chief of the Political Section at U.S. Embassy Athens to protest the impending blunder of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He served in Israel, Morocco, Greece, and Armenia, as well as the State Department in Washington. He now lives in Athens, Greece.
His 2006 book Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower draws on his foreign policy work, including as senior desk officer for India, to argue that global power cannot be projected effectively and affordably except when legitimized through international law and transnational institutions.
Greek Urban Warriors: Resistance and Terrorism 1967-2014 (2014) is a detailed reconstruction of the origins, political and operational history, and defeat of Greece’s famous 17N Maoist terror cell, with lessons from a failed 27-year pursuit by the CIA as well as Greek services.
Rediscovering Armenia (2003) is an archaeological and touristic gazetteer serving the needs of off-the-beaten-track travelers and history enthusiasts. Written during Kiesling’s posting in Yerevan and drawing on Armenian sources, it is the first in-depth inventory in English of the villages, monuments, and historical sites of Armenia.
Kiesling’s current interests include ancient Greek religion and Greek topography. His ongoing major contribution to scholarship is the ToposText.org mobile app and website. He has assembled, indexed and mapped thousands of ancient places, persons and concepts from 850 key ancient texts from Greek and Roman antiquity, to create a primary source reference for travelers and scholars interested in the broader ancient Mediterranean world.
His daughter Lydia is a successful novelist in Portland, Oregon.
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