Laurence Frederic Rushbrook Williams, CBE, FRSA (1890–1978) was a British historian and civil servant who spent part of his working life in India, and had an abiding interest in Eastern culture.
Life and work
Williams was an Examination Fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford, between 1914 and 1921. He built up a school of Mughal studies at the University of Allahabad, where he worked as professor of Modern Indian History between 1914 and 1920. He was briefly Eastern Services Director of the BBC, and also worked on the editorial staff of The Times (London) between 1944 and 1955. He acted as a government advisor on Middle East and Asian affairs, and contributed to publications like the Royal Central Asian Society Journal and the Encyclopædia Britannica.
He became interested in Sufism through his contact with Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah and later edited an anthology of contributions to a symposium in honor of the work of the noted Sufi author, Idries Shah.
Works
Williams wrote several works on India, Asia and the Middle East, among them the following:
- Pakistan Under Challenge
- What About India?
- The State of Israel
- India in 1921-22: A report prepared for presentation to Parliament in accordance with the requirements of the 26th Section of the Government of India Act
- An Empire Builder of the Sixteenth Century: A Summary Account of the Political Career of Zahir-Ud-Din Muhammad, Surnamed Babur (1918)
- Ethnic diversity in India
- The black hills: Kutch in history and legend: a study in Indian local loyalties
- Handbook for Travellers in India, Pakistan and Nepal
- The East Pakistan tragedy
- The State of Pakistan
- Great Men of India
- Inside Both Indias, 1914-1938
Notes
- ^ "Williams, (Laurence Frederic) Rushbrook". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31836. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- Kaul, Chandrika (2004) Reporting the Raj: the British Press and India c. 1880-1922. Manchester University Press. p. 83. ISBN 0-7190-6176-8.
- "Laurence Rushbrook Williams". All Souls College, University of Oxford. Retrieved 11 May 2024.
- ^ Williams, L.F. Rushbrook, editor (1974). Sufi Studies: East and West, E.P.Dutton & Co., p. 259. ISBN 0-525-47368-8.
- McLeod, John (1999). Sovereignty, Power, Control: Politics in the State of Western India, 1916-1947.Brill Academic Publishers. p. 242. ISBN 90-04-11343-6.
- Williams, L.F. Rushbrook, editor (1974). Sufi Studies: East and West, E.P.Dutton & Co., p. 18-19; 259. ISBN 0-525-47368-8.
External links
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