'Engelsberg Annual Lecture in Applied History' with Prof Bruce Hoffman

The Centre for Statecraft and National Security is excited to host Prof Bruce Hoffman for a lecture on 'Lessons Learned, Lessons Forgotten: Reflections on How 9/11 Shaped the Current and Future Terrorist Threat'.

The Engelsberg Annual Lecture in Applied History was established in 2019 with the intention of bringing prominent historians, political scientists and policymakers to King’s College London for reflections on the ways that historical study shapes contemporary foreign policy. Supported by the Ax:son Johnson Foundation, the Annual Lecture is delivered to King’s undergraduates, postgraduates, faculty, and other colleagues from around the United Kingdom. Past lecturers have included Prof Margaret MacMillan, Prof Rana Mitter, Dr Kori Schake, and ProfFrancis Gavin.

This year’s lecture will be delivered by Prof Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University. He will examine the immediate consequences and ongoing repercussions of the 9/11 attacks and the U.S.- led global war on terror that followed. It will assess how terrorism and counterterrorism have evolved since 9/11 and the lessons both learned and unlearned in countering terrorism over the past quarter century.

About the Speaker:

Prof Bruce Hoffman has been studying terrorism and insurgency for fifty years. He is a professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and the former director of both its Center for Jewish Civilization and Center for Security Studies. Hoffman is currently also the Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W. Davis Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security at the Council on Foreign Relations. He previously was the George H. Gilmour Senior Fellow at the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center and also held the Corporate Chair in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation where he was director of RAND’s Washington, D.C. Office as well as vice president for external affairs and acting director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy. Hoffman is Emeritus Professor of Terrorism Studies at St Andrews University, Scotland, where he co-founded and directed the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence.

He was appointed by the U.S. Congress to serve as a commissioner on the 9/11 Review Commission of the FBI and by Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin as a commissioner on the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Commission to Combat Antisemitism. Hoffman has been Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency; adviser on counterterrorism to the Office of National Security Affairs, Coalition Provisional Authority, Baghdad, Iraq; and, adviser on counterinsurgency to the Strategy, Plans, and Analysis Office at Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters, Baghdad. The Director of Central Intelligence awarded him the United States Intelligence Community Seal Medallion the highest level of commendation given to a non-government employee, which recognises sustained superior performance of high value that distinctly benefits the interests and national security of the United States.

Among Hoffman's books are Inside Terrorism (4th edition forthcoming in August 2027), cited as one of the 25 most notable books published by Columbia University Press on the occasion of its 125^th anniversary; The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat (2014); and, his award-winning book, Anonymous Soldiers (2015). Hoffman’s most recent book, God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America (2024), was awarded The Neave Book Prize, which honors "the work of non-fiction which [has] made the most significant, original, relevant, and practically valuable contribution to the understanding of terrorism." Hoffman is Editor-in-Chief of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, the leading scholarly journal in the field; and, also editor of the Columbia University Press Series on Terrorism and Irregular Warfare.

He holds degrees in government, history, and international relations. He received his doctorate from Oxford University and was awarded an honorary doctorate from St Andrews University.