Robert A. Rosenstone has published works of history, biography, and criticism, along with imaginative forms of writing– a family memoir entitled The Man Who Swam Into History (2002), and a novel, King of Odessa (2003). Author of Romantic Revolutionary: A Biography of John Reed (1975), which was used as the basis of the Academy Award winning film Reds, he has also written Crusade of the Left (1970), an account of the Americans who fought in the Spanish Civil War; Mirror in the Shrine (1988), a multi-voiced narrative about three American sojourners in nineteenth century Japan; and a volume of essays entitled Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History (1995). He also created and edited the film section of the American Historical Review and Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice. He served as a consultant for the dramatic features and documentaries Reds, The Good Fight, Darrow, and Tango of Slaves. He is a professor of history at California Institute of Technology.
