Ajay Kumar at 19:29, 5 September 2023

2023-09-05T19:29:02Z

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{{short description|American historian}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2015}}
'''John F. Richards''' (November 3, 1938 – August 23, 2007) was a historian of [[South Asia]] and in particular of the [[Mughal Empire]]. He was Professor of History at [[Duke University]], [[North Carolina]], and a recipient in 2007 of the Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies Award. He participated in and encouraged a multi-disciplinary, multi-regional approach to studies.<ref name="gilmartin" />

== Life ==
John Richards was born on November 3, 1938 in [[Exeter, New Hampshire]]. His parents, Frank F. Richards and Ella Higgins Richards, subsequently had two more children.<ref name="herald">{{cite web |title=History Professor John Richards Dies at Age 68 |date=August 30, 2007 |publisher=Durham Herald-Sun |via=DukeToday |url=https://today.duke.edu/2007/08/richards.html |access-date=2015-05-02}}</ref>

Richards graduated from the [[University of New Hampshire]] as [[valedictorian]] in 1961 and on the same day he married his high school sweetheart, Ann Berry. The couple moved to California and, in 1968, to [[Madison, Wisconsin|Madison]] when he received an appointment at the [[University of Wisconsin]].<ref name="herald" /> He was awarded a PhD in History by the [[University of California at Berkeley]] in 1970. His thesis, later published at ''Mughal Administration in Golconda'' (1975), was written under the direction of [[Thomas R. Metcalf]]. This established him as "one of the leading historians of the Mughal Empire in the United States", according to [[David Gilmartin]], and he went on to write a volume of ''[[The New Cambridge History of India]]'' titled ''The Mughal Empire (1993).<ref name="gilmartin">{{cite web |title=About John F. Richards |first=David |last=Gilmartin |others=Guha, Sumit; Bhagavan, Manu |publisher=Society for Advancing the History of South Asia |url=http://sahsa.uchicago.edu/node/19 |access-date=2015-05-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304090541/http://sahsa.uchicago.edu/node/19 |archive-date=March 4, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Other works by Richards on the Mughal period include ''The Imperial Monetary System of Mughal India'' (1987) and ''Kingship and Authority in South Asia'' (1998). The impact of the Mughal empire on world events caused him to consider the Mughals to be an "early modern" empire, rather than the medieval one that most commentators believed it to be. It was this belief that led him into studies of world trade and state finances, as well as early modern world environmental history. In 2003, he published ''The Unending Frontier: Environmental History of the Early Modern World'' (2003).<ref name="gilmartin" />

Richards had worked at Duke University since 1977.<ref name="herald" /> He was heavily involved with administration of the [[Council of American Overseas Research Centers]] and in reforming the troubled [[American Institute of Pakistan Studies]]. He was also in the vanguard of establishing the [[American Institute of Afghanistan Studies]], the first meeting of which took place at Duke University in 2003<ref name="gilmartin" /> and of which he was the founding president.<ref name="aha" />

Richards died of cancer at home in [[Durham, North Carolina]], on August 23, 2007, days before he was due to retire. He had two children.<ref name="herald" />

A ''[[festschrift]]'' titled ''Expanding Frontiers in South Asian and World History: Essays in Honour of John F. Richards'' was published in 2013, edited by [[Richard M. Eaton]], [[Munis D. Faruqui]], Gilmartin and Sunil Kumar.

In 2011, the [[American Historical Association]] inaugurated a prize named in his honor. This is awarded for the best book on South Asian history published during each year.<ref name="aha">{{cite web |title=John F. Richards Prize for South Asian History to Be Launched |first=Robert B. |last=Townsend |date=January 2011 |publisher=American Historical Association |url=http://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2011/john-f-richards-prize-for-south-asian-history-to-be-launched |access-date=2015-05-02}}</ref>

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== Further reading ==
*{{cite journal |title=John F. Richards: A Brief Memoir |first=Sanjay |last=Subrahmanyam |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |volume=42 |issue=37 |date=September 2007 |pages=3700–3702 |jstor=40276381 }}

== External links ==
*{{cite web |title=John F. Richards Prize Recipients |publisher=American Historical Association |url=http://www.historians.org/awards-and-grants/past-recipients/john-f-richards-prize-recipients}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Richards, John F.}}
[[Category:1938 births]]
[[Category:2007 deaths]]
[[Category:University of New Hampshire alumni]]
[[Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni]]
[[Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty]]
[[Category:Duke University faculty]]
[[Category:Historians of South Asia]]
[[Category:People from Exeter, New Hampshire]]
[[Category:Writers from Durham, North Carolina]]
[[Category:History awards]]
[[Category:20th-century American historians]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:Presidents of the American Society for Environmental History]]
[[Category:American male non-fiction writers]]

John F. Richards - Revision history

Ajay Kumar at 19:29, 5 September 2023