Ali Raza, Associate Professor, is a historian of South Asia. He received his DPhil from the University of Oxford and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. His research and teaching interests include the social and intellectual history of South Asia, comparative colonialisms, anti-colonialism/decolonization, and post-colonial theory.
Raza is the author of Revolutionary Pasts: Communist Internationalism in Colonial India (Cambridge University Press, 2020). His book narrates the lives, geographies, dreams, and anti-colonial struggles of Indian revolutionaries and how they sought to remake the world. South Asian editions of Revolutionary Pasts appeared in Pakistan and India with Folio Books (2021) and Tulika Books (2022) respectively. The book was also shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society's Gladstone Book Prize and the Karwaan Book Award.
Raza is also the co-editor of The Internationalist Moment: South Asia, Worlds, and World Views, 1917-39 (Sage, 2015). The Internationalist Moment offers a collection of essays that look at South Asia's political, social, and intellectual engagements with the wider world between the Bolshevik Revolution and the onset of the Second World War. In addition, his work has appeared in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East; South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies; Itinerario; South Asian History and Culture; and Contemporary South Asia as well as numerous edited volumes and other publications. His writings can be accessed here.
In addition to his other scholarly and pedagogical commitments, Raza is also the co-founder and co-curator of the LUMS Digital Archive. The archive and its digital history projects can be accessed here.
For the academic year 2022-23, Raza is a Member of the School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
Raza, A. (2020). "Provincializing the International: Communist Print Worlds in Colonial India". History Workshop Journal, 89, 140-153, doi:10.1093/hwj/dbaa011.
Raza, A. (2019). "Dispatches from Havana: The Cold War, Afro-Asian Solidarities, and Culture Wars in Pakistan". Journal of World History, 30 (1-2), doi:10.1353/jwh.2019.0018.
Raza, A. & Roy, F. (2015). Paramilitary Organizations in Interwar India'. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 38 (4), 671-689, doi:10.1080/00856401.2015.1079958.
Raza, A. (2013). 'Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: Meerut and the Creation of Official Communism in India.'. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, 33 (3), 316-333, doi:10.1215/1089201X-2378112.
Raza, A. (2013). 'An Unfulfilled Dream: The Left in Pakistan ca. 1917-50'. South Asian History and Culture, 4 (4), 503-519, doi:10.1080/19472498.2013.824680.
Raza, A. & Zachariah, B. (2012). 'To Take Arms across a Sea of Trouble: The 'Lascar System,' Politics and Agency in the 1920s'. Itinerario, 36 (3), 19-38, doi:10.1017/S016511531300003X.
Raza, A., Akhtar, A. & Amirali, A. (2007). "Reading between the Lines: The Mullah-Military Alliance in Pakistan". Contemporary South Asia, 15 (4), 383-397, doi:10.1080/09584930701329982.
Raza, A. (2017). 'The Illusory Promise of Freedom: Mian Iftikhar-ud-din and the Movement for Pakistan', Published. Ali Usman Qasmi and Megan Eaton Robb (Eds.), Muslims Against the Muslim League, Cambridge University Press.
Raza, A. (2017). 'OUP Pakistan', Published. Keith Robbins (Eds.), The History of Oxford University Press Volume IV (1971 – 2000), Oxford University Press.
Raza, A. (2016). 'An Unfulfilled Dream: The Left in Pakistan ca. 1917-50', Published. Virinder Singh and Shalini Sharma (Eds.), State of Subversion: Radical Politics in Punjab in the 20th Century, Routledge.
Raza, A. (2014). 'Straddling the International and the Regional: The Punjabi Left in the Inter War Period', Published. Ali Raza, Franziska Roy, and Benjamin Zachariah (Eds.), 'The Internationalist Moment: South Asia, Worlds and World Views, 1917-39, Sage Publications.
Raza, A., Roy, F. & Zachariah, B. (2014). 'Introduction', Published. Ali Raza, Franziska Roy, and Benjamin Zachariah (Eds.), The Internationalist Moment: South Asia, Worlds and World Views, 1917-39, Sage Publications.
Raza, A. (2013). 'Pakistan', Published. Wm. Roger Louis (Eds.), The History of Oxford University Press Volume III (1896 – 1970), Oxford University Press.
Raza, A. (2013). 'Looking towards Moscow: The Ghadar Party's Engagement with Communism', Published. J.S. Grewal, Harish K. Puri and Indu Banga (Eds.), Ghadar Movement: Background, Ideology, Action and Legacies, University of Punjab Press.
Raza, A. (2020). Revolutionary Pasts: Communist Internationalism in Colonial India, Cambridge University Press.
Raza, A. (2014). The Internationalist Moment: South Asia, Worlds and World Views, 1917-39, Sage Publications.
Raza, A. (2017). "Congress for Cultural Freedom and Cold War Politics in Pakistan ca. 1950s – 1960s". World History Association, Boston, United States of America.
Raza, A. (2016). "Indian Revolutionaries in the Age of Internationalism". Conference on 'Reconsidering Democracy and the Nation State in a Global Perspective,' University of Leiden, Leiden, Netherlands.
Raza, A. (2016). "Cultural Wars, Afro Asian Solidarities and Cold War Politics in Pakistan, ca. 1950s – 1970s". Conference of Afro-Asian Networks: Transitions in the Global South, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
Raza, A. (2016). "Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi and the Global History of Fascism". Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Madison Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America.
Raza, A. (2015). "Musa say Marx Tak: Sibte Hasan and the Life Worlds of Pakistani Progressives". Conference on 'Life Writing – Writing Lives,' ZMO, Berlin, Germany.
Raza, A. (2014). "Radical Spaces, Spatial Imaginations and the Politics of Revolution". Conference on 'Indians in Berlin during the First Half of the 20th century' Indian Embassy, Berlin, Germany.
Raza, A. (2014). "War and Revolution: An Analysis of Political Radicalism in British India". Conference on 'The Global War Centenary, 1914 – 2014.' LUMS, Lahore, Pakistan.
Raza, A. (2013). "The World War and India Revolutionary Movements". Conference on 'The World During the First World War,' VW-Stiftung, Hanover, Germany.
Raza, A. & Roy, F. (2013). "Playing the Game of Blood: A Study of the Khaksar Movement ca. 1931- 45". Conference on 'South Asia and the Long 1930s: Appropriations and Afterlives,' University of Leiden, Leiden, Netherlands.
Raza, A. (2013). "Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: Meerut and the Creation of Official Communism in India". Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Madison Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America.
Raza, A. (2013). "Looking Eastwards: The Bolshevik Revolution and the Birth of Indian Communism". Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Raza, A. (2013). "The 'Divine Cry' of Communism: A Case Study of the Hijrat Movement, ca. 1919 – 1924". International Convention of Asia Scholars, Macau, China - Macau.
Raza, A. & Roy, F. (2013). "In the Name of Self Defense: The Second World and the Politics of Paramilitary Groups in British India ca. 1939-46". Conference on 'An Imperial World at War: The British Empire, 1939-1945,' Kellogg College, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Raza, A. (2012). "Intellectual and Political Worlds of Indian Lascars, c. 1914–39". Annual Conference of the American Historical Association, Chicago, United States of America.
Raza, A. (2012). "The Sino-Indian War and Pakistan". 50th Anniversary of Sino-Indian Border War, National Archives of India, New Delhi, India.
Raza, A. (2012). "Meerut and its Impact on Regional Politics: A Case Study of the Punjabi Leftist Movement". European Conference on South Asian Studies, Lisbon, Portugal.
Raza, A. (2012). "A Requiem of a Dream: The Left and Pakistan,". Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Madison Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America.
Raza, A. (2012). "Beyond the 'Nation': Leftist Politics in South Asia, ca. 1942 – 1954". Abteilungskolloquium, SAI, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
Raza, A. (2010). "An Uneasy Coexistence: The Muslim League and the Punjabi Left, 1942-48". European Conference on South Asian Studies, Bonn, Germany.
Raza, A. (2010). "Yearning for Revolution: The Case of Itinerant Punjabi Radicals". European Conference on South Asian Studies, Bonn, Germany.
Raza, A. (2009). "At the Margins of the Nation: The Case of the Kirti Kisan Sabha". Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Madison Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America.
Raza, A. (2006). "Reading between the Lines: The Mullah-Military Alliance in Pakistan". British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS), London, United Kingdom.