Melvyn Paul Leffler (born May 31, 1945)[1] is an American historian and educator, currently Edward Stettinius Professor of History at the University of Virginia.

[2] He is the winner of numerous awards, including the Bancroft Prize for his book A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration and the Cold War, and the American Historical Association’s George Louis Beer Prize for his book For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War.

Books he has authored or edited include the following: Safeguarding Democratic Capitalism: U.S. Foreign Policy and National Security, 1920-2015 (Princeton University Press, 2017); The Cambridge History of the Cold War (3 vols.

The Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations honored him in 2012 with its Laura and Norman Graebner Award for lifetime achievement and service.

Leffler has served on advisory committees to the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, particularly concerning the declassification of documents.