Jeffrey Burton Russell

Jeffrey Burton Russell PhD
Born	1934 California
Nationality	American
Education	PhD (Emory University)
Years active	1965-Present
Employer	University of California, Santa Barbara
Known for	Professor of Medieval History
Notable work	Dissent and Reform in the Early Middle Ages, History of Medieval Christianity, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History, A History of Heaven
Spouse(s)	Pamela Russell, Diana Russell (deceased)
Children	Jennifer Ellen Russell
Parent(s)	Lewis Russell, Aida Raffetto
Awards	Fulbright Fellow, Harvard Junior Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow

Jeffrey Burton Russell (born 1934) is an American historian and religious studies scholar.

Russell received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1955 and his PhD from Emory University in 1960.

He is currently Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has also taught History and Religious Studies at Berkeley, Riverside, Harvard, New Mexico, and Notre Dame.

Russell has published widely, mostly in medieval European history and the history of theology. His first book was Dissent and Reform in the Early Middle Ages (1965). He is most noted for his five-volume history of the concept of the Devil: The Devil (1977), Satan (1981), Lucifer (1984), Mephistopheles (1986) and The Prince of Darkness (1988).

In Inventing the Flat Earth (1991) he argues that 19th century anti-Christians invented and spread the falsehood that educated people in the Middle Ages believed that the earth was flat. As one writer summarizes, "Russell also examined a large selection of textbooks and found those written before 1870 usually included the correct account, but most textbooks written after 1880 uncritically repeated the erroneous claims in Washington Irving, John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. Russell concludes that Irving, Draper and White were the main writers responsible for introducing the erroneous flat-earth myth that is still with us today."

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