David Aikman Senior Fellow Emeritus

David Aikman, an award-winning print and broadcast journalist and author, is a specialist on Russia, China, East Asia, the Middle East, and religious freedom issues worldwide. During a lengthy career as a foreign correspondent, he reported for Time from five continents and more than 50 countries.

He was a professor of history at Patrick Henry College from 2005 to 2015. In 2018, Aikman was hired as the editor-in-chief of Godspeed Magazine. He is presently writer-in-residence and professor of history at Patrick Henry College. He is the founding chairman and a board member of Gegrapha, a global fellowship of journalists, and was a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. He has written columns for Christianity Today and Provocations, in addition to extensive freelance writing for such publications as The American Spectator and The Weekly Standard. He is a regular commentator and host on the Voice of America and has been a commentator on NBC, ABC, CNN, Fox News, and the BBC.

Dr. Aikman has written and edited numerous books, including Gorbachev: An Intimate Biography, Massacre in Beijing: China’s Struggle for Democracy, When the Almond Tree Blossoms, Hope: The Heart’s Great Quest, and Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power. His collection of mini-biographies of prominent figures, Great Souls: Six Who Changed the Century has also been released as a documentary by PBS. He has written two novels and interviewed a number of major world figures, including Mother Teresa, Manuel Noriega, Boris Yeltsin, Pham Van Dong, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Raised and educated in England, he earned his B.A. at Worcester College, Oxford, and his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Washington at Seattle. He speaks a number of languages, including Russian, Chinese, French, and German. A naturalized U.S. citizen, David lives in Virginia and has two grown daughters.

Related Trinity Forum Readings

“On Being Human” by Woodrow Wilson, featuring an original introduction by David Aikman

Selected Publications