Snyder mainly studies the history of the 20th century (nationalism, totalitarianism and the Holocaust).

He is an active member of the Taras Shevchenko-America Scientific Society; speaks the Ukrainian language, which he mastered within one year.

Snyder graduated from Centerville High School and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and political science at Brown University.

He studied at Brown University in 1987-1991, and at Oxford University in 1991-1995, where he received PhD in 1997.

During 1994-1995, he worked at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS, France), as well as at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna (Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen).

Snyder was a fellow at the National Research Center in Paris 1994-1995, the Institute for Higher Education in Vienna in 1996, the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University in 1997; and he was also an Academy Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University 1998-2001.

His works have been published in English, Polish, German, Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, French, Slovak, Belarusian and Spanish.

Snyder published his works

• in the following scientific journals: “Osteuropa”, “Transit”, “Past & Present”, “East European Politics and Societies[en]”, “Polin”, “Revue des Etudes Slaves”, “Kritika”, “Nationalism and Ethnic Politics”, “Contemporary European History”, “Yad Vashem Studies”, “Nations and Nationalism”, “Nowa Europa Wschodnia”, “Il Mestiere di Storico”;
• and in the following magazines: “International New York Times”, “Times Literary Supplement”, “The New York Review of Books”, “The New Republic”, “Eurozine”, “Tygodnik Powszechny”, “Prospect”, “The Nation “, “The Boston Globe”, “Chicago Tribune”, “Christian Science Monitor”

In the monograph “Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin”, Snyder substantiated the thesis that the Nazi and Soviet regimes killed about 14 million people in the territory of Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, the Baltic countries and in the western regions of Russia.

In 2020, “The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America”, a fundamental work designed to help understand Ukraine and its role in modern geopolitics, was translated into Ukrainian.

In 2014, in the very first days of Russian aggression against Ukraine, he condemned it. In June 2018, he joined the open letter of cultural figures, politicians and human rights activists calling on world leaders to defend the Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov and other political prisoners jailed in Russia.

On November 2, 2022, Timothy became the 10th ambassador of UNITED24. He is raising funds for the system to counter UAVs, which Russia uses to constantly attack critical infrastructure facilities in Ukraine.

Timothy Snyder agreed to be the Ambassador of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University to defend the interests of the university community and to cooperate in joint scientific and educational projects.