Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Distinguished Professor & Irving and Jean Stone Endowed Chair in Social Sciences
Email: subrahma@history.ucla.edu
Office: 9347 Bunche Hall
Class WebsiteBiography
Sanjay Subrahmanyam is Distinguished Professor of History and Irving & Jean Stone Chair in Social Sciences at UCLA. A specialist of the early modern period (15th-18th centuries), he is the author of numerous books, essays, and edited volumes, ranging between studies of India and the Indian Ocean, the early modern European empires, and reflections on global history as a field of research.
In 2023-24, Sanjay Subrahmanyam gave lectures and seminars at the Ecole Normale Superieure (PSL) in Paris, as well as the 2024 Lisbon Lecture in the Humanities.
Subrahmanyam joined UCLA in 2004 from Oxford. Educated at the Delhi School of Economics, the first decade of his working career was spent (with brief interruptions in Philadelphia and Cambridge) teaching economic history and comparative economic development at the same institution, where he was eventually named Professor of Economic History (1993-95). Thereafter, Subrahmanyam taught from 1995 to 2002 as Directeur d’études in the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), where his position was on the economic and social history of early modern India and the Indian Ocean world. In 2002, Subrahmanyam was appointed as the first holder of the newly created Chair in Indian History and Culture at the University of Oxford, a position he held for two years.
After joining UCLA, Subrahmanyam served from 2005 to 2011 as founding Director of UCLA’s Center for India and South Asia. He teaches courses on medieval and early modern South Asian and Indian Ocean history, the history of European expansion, the comparative history of early modern empires, and various aspects of world history and historical method. He continues to advise graduate students on Indian history, the history of the Iberian empires, and more generally on forms of “connected histories” (a term that goes back to his 1997 Modern Asian Studies essay). Subrahmanyam was Joint Managing Editor of the Indian Economic and Social History Review for over a decade, besides serving on the boards of a number of other journals in the US, UK, France, Portugal, and elsewhere. He was also one of the founding editors of the “South Asia Across the Disciplines (SAAD)” monograph series.
In 2013, Sanjay Subrahmanyam was elected to a Chair in Early Modern Global History at the Collège de France in Paris, and delivered a full series of lectures there over the year 2013-14. From 2014 to 2021, he lectured there as visiting professor. Subrahmanyam also has a regular media presence in France: TV interviews appear for example on MediaPart (May 2014), on France Info (April 2015), and France 24 (May 2018).
Sanjay Subrahmanyam has made contributions to several distinct fields within the early modern period. His first books such as The Political Economy of Commerce (1990), remain in print as fundamental contributions to the history of the Indian Ocean. Together with Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman, he has authored two books, Symbols of Substance (1992), and Textures of Time (2001), which are considered significant interventions in redefining South Indian cultural and political history; another aspect of the same project is addressed in his Penumbral Visions (2001), largely dealing with the eighteenth century. With Muzaffar Alam, he has written Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discoveries (2007), and Writing the Mughal World (2011), both of which helped reinvent the historiography of the Mughal Empire, and the early modern Islamic empires, in several ways. Subrahmanyam is also a well-known presence in the historiography of the Iberian empires, on account of works such as Improvising Empire (1990), The Portuguese Empire in Asia (1993), and The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (1997), which have been widely translated. His wide-ranging experiments in “connected histories” are brought together in the two-volume Explorations in Connected History (2005). Subrahmanyam’s most recent works paint on a wide geographical canvas, but with close attention paid to written and visual sources: these include books such as Three Ways to be Alien (2011), and Courtly Encounters (2012), both based on prestigious series of public lectures.
Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s book Europe’s India: Words, People, Empires, 1500-1800, appeared in 2017 from Harvard University Press, and in a French translation in 2018, which was awarded a prestigious prize in France. Another book, Empires Between Islam and Christianity, 1500-1800, has appeared in 2018 in the Indian edition (Permanent Black) and the US edition from SUNY Press in 2019. Since then he has published Faut-il universaliser l’histoire? (2020), a reflection on debates regarding history, nationalism and identity (translated into Italian and Spanish), as well as an edition of an album of sixteenth-century paintings on Portuguese Asia: Les Peuples de l’Orient au milieu du XVIe siècle: Le Codex Casanatense 1889 (Paris, 2022).
The University of Barcelona Press has brought together a collection of Subrahmanyam’s essays on imperial history (with particular emphasis on the Iberian empires) as Imperios Entrelazados en los origenes del mundo moderno (2024).
In 2024, he published a work of maritime history to inaugurate a series on “connected histories”: Across the Green Sea: Histories from the Western Indian Ocean, 1440-1640 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2024), with UK and Indian editions. Subrahmanyam and his frequent co-author Muzaffar Alam have recently completed Mirrors of Empire, a book on “ego-documents” and first-person narratives in the Mughal empire, to appear from Permanent Black in India.
In 2012, Sanjay Subrahmanyam received the inaugural Infosys Prize in Humanities. In February 2019, Subrahmanyam was awarded the Dan David Prize for History (jointly with Kenneth Pomeranz, Chicago). In 2020, he was awarded the Prix International de l’Histoire by the International Committee of Historical Sciences (the ceremony was held in August 2022 in Poznan).
Additional Videolinks:
UC Louvain honorary doctorate
Dan David Award (2019)
Conversation with Carlo Ginzburg
Interview with Brazilian historians (2020)
CISH Prize Ceremony (Poznan)
Publications
1. The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India, 1500-1650, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
2. (Ed.) Merchants, Markets and the State in Early Modern India, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990.
3. Improvising Empire: Portuguese Trade and Settlement in the Bay of Bengal, 1500-1700, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990; revised Portuguese translation: Comércio e Conflito: A Presença Portuguesa no Golfo de Bengala, 1500-1700, Lisbon: Edições 70, 1994.
4. (with V. Narayana Rao and David Shulman), Symbols of Substance: Court and State in Nayaka-period Tamil Nadu, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992 (2nd edn. Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2023).
5. The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500-1700: A Political and Economic History, London and New York: Longman, 1993; 2nd edn. Wiley-Blackwell, 2012; Portuguese translation: O Império Asiático Português, 1500-1700: Uma História Política e Económica, Lisbon: DIFEL Editora, 1996; Chinese translation Putaoya diguo zai yazhou, 1500-1700: Zhengzhi he jingji shi, Macau: Comissão Territorial de Macau para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1997; French translation, L’Empire portugais d’Asie, 1500-1700: Histoire économique et politique, Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1999; 2nd edn. Paris: Le Seuil, 2013. Recipient of the Prémio D. João de Castro, Portugal, 1994.
6. (Ed.) Money and the Market in India, 1100-1700, Delhi: Oxford University Press, (Series: Themes in Indian History), 1994.
7. (Ed.) Merchant Networks in the Early Modern World (Series: An Expanding World, Vol. 8), Aldershot: Variorum Books, 1996.
8. (Ed. with Kaushik Basu) Unravelling the Nation: Sectarian Conflict and India’s Secular Identity, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1996.
9. (Ed. with Burton Stein) Institutions and Economic Change in South Asia, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996.
10. The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997; Spanish translation, Vasco de Gama, Barcelona: Crítica, 1998; Portuguese translation, A Carreira e a Lenda de Vasco da Gama, Lisbon: CNCDP, 1998; 2nd edn. Lisbon: Saída de Emergência, 2024; French translation,Vasco de Gama, Paris: Editions Alma, 2012; 2nd edn. Paris: Le Seuil, 2014; 3rd edn. Paris: Chandeigne, 2023; Italian translation, Vita e Leggenda di Vasco da Gama, Rome: Carocci, 2016.
11. (Ed. with Muzaffar Alam) The Mughal State, 1526-1750, Delhi: Oxford University Press (Series: Themes in Indian History), 1998.
12. (Ed.) Sinners and Saints: The Successors of Vasco da Gama, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.
13. Penumbral Visions: Making Polities in Early Modern South India, Delhi/Ann Arbor: Oxford University Press/University of Michigan Press, 2001.
14. (with Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman) Textures of Time: Writing History in South India, 1600-1800, New Delhi/New York, Permanent Black/Other Books, 2001/2003; French translation, Textures du temps: Ecrire l’histoire en Inde, Paris: Le Seuil, 2004.
15. (ed. with Claude Markovits and Jacques Pouchepadass) Society and Circulation: Mobile People and Itinerant Cultures in South Asia, 1750-1950, New Delhi, Permanent Black, 2003.
16. (ed.) Land, Politics and Trade in South Asia, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004.
17. Explorations in Connected History: From the Tagus to the Ganges, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005.
18. Explorations in Connected History: Mughals and Franks, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005; Japanese translation: Setsuzoku sareta rekishi, Nagoya: University of Nagoya Press, 2009.
19. (ed. with Kenneth McPherson) From Biography to History: Essays in the History of Portuguese Asia (1500-1800), New Delhi: TransBooks, 2006.
20. (with Muzaffar Alam) Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discoveries, 1400-1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007 (Turkish translation: .Keşifler Çağında Hint-İran Seyahatleri, 1400-1800, Istanbul: Albaraka, 2021).
21. (Ed. with David Armitage) The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760-1840, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
22. (with Muzaffar Alam) Writing the Mughal World, Ranikhet/New York: Permanent Black/Columbia University Press, 2011.
23. Three Ways to be Alien: Travails and Encounters in the Early Modern World, (Menahem Stern Jerusalem Lectures), Waltham (Mass.): Brandeis University Press, 2011; French translation: Comment être un étranger: Goa – Ispahan – Venise, XVIe-XVIIIe siècles, Paris: Editions Alma, 2013.
24. Courtly Encounters: Translating Courtliness and Violence in Early Modern Eurasia (Mary Flexner Lectures), Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012; French translation: L’éléphant, le canon et le pinceau : Histoires connectées des cours d’Europe et d’Asie, 1500-1750, Paris: Alma Editeur, 2016 (reprint, Paris: Nuvis, 2023).
25. Impérios em Concorrência: Histórias Conectadas nos Séculos XVI e XVII, Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2012.
26. Is ‘Indian Civilization’ a Myth?: Fictions and Histories, Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2013 (Revised French version: Leçons indiennes: Itinéraires d’un historien, Paris: Editions Alma, 2015). Revised edition: Connected History: Essays and Arguments, London: Verso, 2022.
27. Aux origines de l’histoire globale (Leçon inaugurale au Collège de France), Paris: Fayard, 2014. Italian translation, Alle origini della storia globale, Pisa, Edizioni della Normale, 2016.
28. Mondi connessi: La storia oltre l’eurocentrismo, sec. XVI-XVIII, Rome: Carocci, 2014.
29. (Co-editor) The Cambridge World History, Vol. VI: The Construction of a Global World, 1400-1800 CE, Books 1 & 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
30. (Ed. with Henning Trüper and Dipesh Chakrabarty) Historical Teleologies in the Modern World, London: Bloomsbury, 2015.
31. Europe’s India: Words, People, Empires, 1500-1800, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2017; French translation, L’Inde sous les yeux de l’Europe: Mots, peuples, empires, Paris: Alma Editeur, 2018.
32. Empires Between Islam and Christianity, 1500-1800, Ranikhet: Permanent Black/Albany: SUNY Press, 2018; French translation, Empires entre Islam et Chrétienté, 1500-1800, Paris: Buchet Chastel, 2021: Turkish translation, İslam ve Hıristiyanlık Arasında İmparatorluklar, Istanbul: Babil Kitap, 2022.
33. Faut-il universaliser l’histoire ?: Entre dérives nationalistes et identitaires, Paris: CNRS Editions, 2020 (Italian translation: Le derive della storia: Identità, nazionalismi, universalismi, Rome: Officina Libraria Editore, 2023; Spanish translation: ¿Deberíamos universalizar la historia? Entre derivas nacionalistas e identitarias, Santiago de Chile: Fondo de Cultura Económica Chile, 2024).
34. (Ed.) Les Peuples de l’Orient au milieu du XVIe siècle: Le Codex Casanatense 1889, Paris: Editions Chandeigne, 2022.
35. Imperios Entrelazados. En los origenes del mundo moderno, Barcelona: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2024.
36. Across the Green Sea: Histories from the Western Indian Ocean, 1440-1640, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2024.
Awards & Grants
- A.D. White Professor-at-Large, Cornell University, 2002-2008.
- Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2009.
- John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, 2011-12.
- Infosys Humanities Prize, 2012.
- Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South, Library of Congress, 2013
- Professor of Early Modern Global History, Collège de France, 2013-14
- Elected Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, 2016
- Dan David Prize for History (“Macrohistory”), 2019.
- Prix International de l’Histoire, ICHS, 2020 (awarded 2022).
Graduate Students
- José Alberto Tavim, PhD, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (joint advisee) (completed 2002)
- Corinne Lefèvre, PhD, EHESS, Paris (completed 2005)
- Jyoti Gulati Balachandran (completed 2012)
- Rajashree Mazumder (completed 2013)
- Nir Shafir (Middle East; joint advisee) (completed 2016)
- Subah Dayal (completed 2016)
- Cenan Pirani (completed 2016)
- Naveena Naqvi (joint advisee) (completed 2018)
- Naveen Kanalu Ramamurthy (completed 2021)
Collaborators
- Muzaffar Alam, University of Chicago
- David Shulman, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Velcheru Narayana Rao, emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Madison
