Professor Levine received his BA from Brandeis University in 1962 and his PhD from Columbia in 1972. He has taught at American University, Columbia University, Duke University, and UNC-Chapel Hill. He was drector of the Carolina Asia Center from 2002-2004. He has a working knowledge of Chinese and Russian. He is the author and co-editor of several books, including Anvil of Victory: The Communist Revolution in Manchuria, and China’s Bitter Victory: The War with Japan, 1937-1945.

Professor Levine is presently co-authoring a book with Dr. Michael H. Hunt of the UNC History Department on America's Wars in the Pacific, collaborating with the prominent Chinese scholar Zi Zhongyun on her autobiography, and translating into English an authoritative biography of Mao Zedong (in Russian) by Alexander Pantsov.

Scholars-in-Residence