Ainslie Thomas Embree

Ainslie T. Embree is Professor of History Emeritus, Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University, and has taught at Indore Christian College, Duke University, and Columbia. While at Columbia he served as Director of Contemporary Civilization, of the undergraduate Asian civilization program; as Chairman of the Middle East Languages and Cultures Department and the History Department; as Director of the Southern Asian Institute; and as Acting Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs. Since his retirement in 1991, he has taught at Columbia, Brown University and Johns Hopkins, SAIS. His current research centers on religion and nationalism in India. He has served as President of the American Association for Asian Studies and of the American Institute for Indian Studies; as Chair of South Asian sections of the American Council of Learned Societies and of the Social Science Research Council. From 1978-80, he served as the Counselor for Cultural Affairs at the American Embassy, New Delhi, and from 1994-95, he served as consultant to American Ambassador in India, Frank Wisner. He is a member of the kashmir Study group, a non-governmental body that seeks to reduce tensions between India and Pakistan. He was editor-in-chief of the four-volume Encyclopedia of Asian History (1989) and editor of the revised Sources of Indian Tradition (1988), Asia in Western and World History (with Carol Gluck, 1997),  and India’s World and U.S. Scholars: 1947-1997 (with others, 1998).