Russell Jacoby (born April 23, 1945) is a professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), an author and a critic of academic culture. His fields of interest are twentieth-century European and American intellectual and cultural history, specifically the history of intellectuals and education. He was born in New York City and educated at the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He received a doctorate in 1974 from the University of Rochester.