Stanley Wolpert

Stanley Albert Wolpert (December 23, 1927 – February 19, 2019) was an American historian, Indologist, and author. He wrote both fiction and non-fiction on the political and intellectual history of modern India and Pakistan. He taught at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), from 1959 to 2002.

Biography

Early life

Stanley Albert Wolpert was born on December 23, 1927, in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian Jewish parents. While serving as an engineer aboard a U.S. Merchant Marine ship, he arrived in Bombay, India, for the first time on February 12, 1948. Upon arriving, he was both fascinated by the outpouring of grief over the death of Mahatma Gandhi—whom he then knew very little about—two weeks earlier. On returning home, he abandoned his career in marine engineering for the study of Indian history. He received a B.A. from City College of New York in 1953, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955 and 1959, respectively. His dissertation (published as Tilak and Gokhale) was on the revolutionary and reform wings of the Indian National Congress. The dissertation was one of the two books selected for the Watumull Prize of the American Historical Association in 1962, a prize recognizing "the best book on the history of India originally published in the United States."

Career

Wolpert began his academic career in 1959, when he took a job as an instructor in the Department of History at UCLA. He was promoted in 1960 to assistant professor; in 1963 to associate professor; and in 1967 to full professor.