Mark Borthwick

After graduating from Northwestern University, Mark Borthwick served in the US Army in Vietnam. He received a PhD in anthropology from the University of Iowa followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University and a Congressional Science Fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He served on the staff of the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs in the US House of Representatives and became the US Executive Director of the US National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation upon its inauguration by the President and Secretary of State in 1984. Subsequently he was the Director of the United States Asia Pacific Council in Washington, a project of the East-West Center. His book, Pacific Century, accompanied the award-winning, ten-hour PBS television documentary of that name.

A distant relative of Mamah Bouton Borthwick, he is the author of her biography, A Brave and Lovely Woman (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023).