Jussi M. Hanhimäki is Finland's internationally best known historian. He is currently Professor of International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, and previously taught at the London School of Economics (1995-2000). In 2006 he was named Finland Distinguished Professor by the Academy of Finland. Hanhimäki is the recipient of the Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) and has authored or co-authored thirteen books and countless articles and chapters. In addition to English, his work has appeared in Arabic, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Swedish and Turkish. His latest book is Pax Transatlantica: America and Europe in the Post-Cold War Era (2021).

Harvard University Professor Akira Iriye, a doyen of international historians, has described Jussi Hanhimäki as "a superb embodiment of the internationalized scholarship that is a precondition of any study of international relations." Iriye came to this conclusion upon reflecting on Hanhimäki's truly international career path. He left his native Finland in 1987, studied in the United States (Boston University), and spent his early postdoctoral years in Canada (Montreal) and the United States (Harvard University, Ohio University). Hanhimäki then moved to London in 1995 (London School of Economics), before taking up his current post in Geneva in 2000. Among the institutes where he has held fellowships are: the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University; the Contemporary History Institute at Ohio University; the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the United States Institute of Peace.

A specialist of the international history of the Cold War, transatlantic relations, and the role of international institutions, Jussi Hanhimäki's recent publications include: New Perspectives on the End of the Cold War (2018); Neutrality and Neutralism in the Global Cold War (2016); An International History of Terrorism: Western and Non-Western Experiences (2013), The Rise and Fall of Détente: American Foreign Policy and the Transformation of the Cold War (2013). He has previously authored or co-authored: Transatlantic Relations Since 1945: An Introduction (2012); The United Nations: A Very Short Introduction (2008); The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (2004); (with Odd Arne Westad), The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts (2003); and (with A. Best, J. Maiolo and K. Schultze) International History of the Twentieth Century and Beyond (2003, 2008, 2015), and other works.

Hanhimäki is currently working on two books: The Outsiders and the American Century (a joint biography of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski) and Cauldron: Transnational History of Europe's Cold War.