Michael Khodarkovsky grew up in Kyiv, in Ukraine when the country was part of the USSR. In 1979, he immigrated to the US, and seven years later he received his PhD in history from the University of Chicago. His expertise is in the history of the Russian empire. His books have addressed various topics within Russian imperial and Soviet history. He has been a visiting professor at several universities both in the United States and Europe, but since 1991 his permanent academic home has been Loyola University Chicago. He has also been a frequent contributor to the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and numerous other media.