Sanjay Subrahmanyam (historian)

Sanjay Subrahmanyam (historian) Biography

Sanjay Subrahmanyam is a leading historian at present. He is a Professor and Irving and Jean Stone Endowed Chair in Social Sciences of University of California, Los Angeles since 2004.  He teaches subjects on medieval and early modern South Asian and Indian Ocean history in UCLA. An author and scholar, he specializes in the early modern period. He won the Infosys Prize for humanities for his "path-breaking contribution to history" in the year 2012. Completed his studies from New Delhi, he is married to French historian, Caroline Ford. His thesis - Trade and the Regional Economy of South India earned him PhD from Delhi School of Economics.

Sanjay Subrahmanyam was born in Delhi on 21 May 1961. He was born into a family of intellectuals. His father K. Subrahmanyam was a prominent international strategic affairs analyst and civil servant, while his brothers - S Jaishankar is a diplomat and S. Vijay Kumar is a bureaucrat. His education was done at Delhi itself. He completed his high school in 1977 from Sardar Patel Vidyalaya. He graduated from the University of Delhi, where he continued him PG studies. He was specialized in Economics and later he completed PhD from Delhi School of Economics. Sanjay started his career as a lecturer at Delhi School of Economics since 1983 and taught at various educational institutions and universities in India and abroad.

He taught economic history and comparative economic development at the Delhi School of Economics (1983-1995), followed by many other colleges and universities. He became a professor of economic history in 1993. He contributed several valuable works in the 1990s. The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India, 1500-1650 – was his first published book, followed by Improvising Empire: Portuguese Trade and Settlement in the Bay of Bengal, 1500-1700; The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500-1700 etc. He co-authored Symbols of Substance: Court and State in Nayaka-period Tamil Nadu aside V. Narayana Rao and David Shulman.

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Updated: March 12, 2016