After thirty years as Professor of History and Chair for ten years at the University of Pennsylvania, Alfred J. Rieber went to Budapest in 1995 to chair and reorganise the History Department at the Central European University. Since then he has taught hundreds of students from the Eurasian borderlands. His first visit to the Soviet Union came in January 1956 followed by his participation in the first year of the cultural exchange at Moscow State University (1958–9). Over the past fifty years, he has continued his scholarly visits and travels throughout Eurasia, going as far east as the Buryat Mongol Republic. His publications include works on Soviet foreign policy, Russian social history and the comparative history of frontiers. His American and European doctoral students have published widely in the history of the Eurasian borderlands. Professor Rieber”s work on frontiers has been translated into Russian, Polish and Ukrainian and he has won two teaching awards in the USA and two in Hungary, as well as a Prize from the American Philosophical Society. His scholarship has been supported by fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies, National Endowment for the Humanities, St Antony”s College, Oxford and the Inter-University Committee on Travel Grants.