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| Janet Abu-Lughod | |
|---|---|
| Name | Janet Abu-Lughod |
| Birth date | 1928 |
| Death date | 2013 |
| Occupation | Historian, Sociologist |
| Notable works | Cities and Civilizations; Before European Hegemony |
| Alma mater | Brooklyn College; Columbia University |
Janet Abu-Lughod Janet Abu-Lughod was an AmericanNew York City-born historian and sociologist noted for comparative studies of urban history, world-systems analysis, and the medieval Indian Ocean and Mediterranean worlds. She taught at major institutions including New York University and contributed influential books and articles that engaged scholars of Fernand Braudel, Immanuel Wallerstein, Eric Hobsbawm, Braudelian historical geography, and the emerging field of global history.
Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1928, she attended Brooklyn College where she studied under faculty connected to the intellectual milieu of Columbia University and the New School for Social Research. She pursued graduate study at Columbia University, completing doctoral work that connected historical methods common to scholars associated with Annales School, Fernand Braudel, and comparative historians influenced by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre.
Her early appointments included roles at City College of New York and later a long-term professorship at New York University, where she held appointments in departments linked to urban studies and sociology alongside colleagues from Department of Sociology, NYU and centers related to International Studies and Global History. She was a visiting scholar at institutions such as University of Chicago, Harvard University, University of California, Berkeley, and lectured at international venues including SOAS and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her collaborations intersected with scholars from World-systems Theory circles including Immanuel Wallerstein and urbanists associated with Manuel Castells.
Abu-Lughod authored several seminal books, most notably "Before European Hegemony" and "Cities and Civilizations", which engaged debates involving Immanuel Wallerstein, Fernand Braudel, Eric Hobsbawm, Philip Curtin, and Marshall Sahlins. Her arguments challenged teleological narratives popularized by historians like Jared Diamond and economists influenced by Adam Smith-centered historiography, proposing instead polycentric models echoing elements from Braudel's longue durée and World-systems approaches. She drew on sources and comparative frameworks employed by scholars of Mediterranean history, Indian Ocean maritime networks, and historians influenced by Carlo Ginzburg and Homi K. Bhabha.
Her research reinterpreted medieval and early modern interregional networks spanning the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean, engaging island and port studies linked to Venice, Alexandria, Cairo, Aden, Calicut, and Quanzhou. In "Before European Hegemony" she mapped trade, manufacturing, and urban hierarchies in a manner conversant with the analyses of Immanuel Wallerstein and critics in World-systems Theory debates, while dialoguing with work by Fernand Braudel on the Mediterranean and by Philip Curtin on African and Atlantic commerce. Her urban history work influenced urbanists such as Lewis Mumford scholars and informed comparative studies connecting London, Paris, Istanbul, Damascus, Cairo, and Fez. She engaged archaeological findings from projects associated with UNESCO, maritime archaeology teams tied to British Museum collaborations, and demographic reconstructions comparable to those used by Angus Maddison and E. A. Wrigley.
Throughout her career she received fellowships and honors from organizations including the Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Council of Learned Societies, and research grants from agencies such as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Social Science Research Council. Her work was cited across fields by historians like Arjun Appadurai, Seymour Drescher, Peter Linebaugh, and urban theorists connected to Manuel Castells and Saskia Sassen.
She was married into the prominent Abu-Lughod family of Palestine origin and maintained links with scholars and activists across Jerusalem, Cairo, and Beirut. Her students and interlocutors include figures associated with World-systems scholarship, urban studies programs at New York University, and comparative history departments at Columbia University and Harvard University. Her legacy endures in contemporary debates on globalization, comparative urbanism, and premodern interregional networks, informing research by historians such as Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Gloria Steinem-era feminist historians, and global historians in centers at SOAS, Oxford University, and Cambridge University.
Category:Historians Category:Urban historians Category:World historians