Reagan sitting with people from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in February 1983

Michael A. Barry (born 1948, in New York) is a

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

professor and historian of the greater Middle East and Islamic world. Since 2004 he has taught as lecturer in Islamic Culture in Princeton's Department of Near Eastern Studies, in addition to serving as consultative chairman of the Department of Islamic Art at the

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(2005-2009) and special consultant to the Aga Khan Trust for Culture since 2009. An established authority on Islamic art and the history and culture of Afghanistan, on which subjects he has written extensively in both French and English, Barry's works include a standard French-language history of Afghanistan (''Le Royaume de l'insolence''), a biography of the late commander of the Afghan Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Massoud (''Massoud: de l’islamisme à la liberté''), which won France's

Prix Femina The Prix Femina is a French List of literary awards, literary prize awarded each year by an exclusively female jury. The prize, which was established in 1904, is awarded to French-language works written in prose or Verse (poetry), verse by male ...

in 2002, and an interpretive history of medieval Islamic figurative painting from the 15th to the 16th centuries (''Figurative Art in Medieval Islam and the Riddle of Bihzâd of Herât (1465-1535)''). His most recent work is ''Kabul's Long Shadows'' published in 2011 by Princeton University's Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD). This monograph, which summarizes Barry's views on Afghanistan for the first time in English, addresses current U.S. policy toward Afghanistan in light of the country's political and cultural history, its tribal dynamics and the strategic concerns of the surrounding region. Prior to coming to Princeton, Barry spent many years in Afghanistan with the International Federation for Human Rights, Médecins du Monde and the

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, working in often perilous conditions to provide and coordinate humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people from 1979 to 2001. He holds an A.B. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University, post-graduate degree in anthropology from

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, M.A. from

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

and Ph.D. from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris.

References

Michael Barry's biography at Princeton University

External links

''Kabul's Long Shadows''
2011.
Interview with Michael Barry
in the Nassau Weekly, 2009.
Article on Michael Barry
in the Daily Princetonian, 2005. {{DEFAULTSORT:Barry, Michael A. 1948 births Princeton University alumni Princeton University faculty Middle Eastern studies in the United States Prix Femina essai winners Living people McGill University alumni