Meet Dr. David Rainbow
Degrees and Experience
- Ph.D. (New York University)
- M.A. (Drew University)
- B.A. (Fresno Pacific University)
Biography and Professional Achievements
David Rainbow is a historian of modern Europe and Russia. Originally from California, Dr. Rainbow came to CCU from Texas, where he was an Associate Professor of History in the Honors College at the University of Houston. He taught courses on Russian history and literature, European intellectual history, and Great Books from antiquity to the 20th century. He received several teaching awards in Houston, including the University Provost's Teaching Excellence Award. At CCU, Dr. Rainbow teaches classes on the history of Europe, Russia, the United States, and Western Civilization. He also teaches in the Augustine Honors Program.
Dr. Rainbow’s research, which took him to dusty historical archives across Russia and the United States, relates to the Russian Empire and early Soviet Union (1850-1930). He’s published work on the Russian Revolution and Civil War, the history of race in Russia and the USSR, and Siberian regionalism. He holds degrees from New York University (PhD), Drew University (MA), and Fresno Pacific University (BA), and also studied at several Russian universities. His work has been supported by fellowships and grants from Columbia University’s Harriman Institute (postdoc), the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia, Fulbright, the U.S. Department of State, and a few other institutions.
Before becoming a professor, he lived in St. Petersburg, Russia, Siberia, and Germany, worked for two years on a cattle ranch in North Dakota, and sailed around the Pacific Rim as an engineer aboard a merchant ship.
Faith and Learning
CCU is an institution committed to rebuilding the compromised foundations of our culture, which is not true of every university. It does so through cultivating excellence grounded on Christianity. Whether you are a business major, a musician, or an engineer, you will learn from faculty whose purpose is to educate you to recognize, and eventually to produce, that which is good, true, and beautiful in a given domain. Christians, and the civilization they built, have been committed to this kind of work for two thousand years. CCU can help you cultivate the Christian virtues necessary to contribute to that legacy.