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Sir Christopher Bayly died of a heart attack in Chicago in April 2015 at the ageof only sixty-nine. A gifted Oxbridge historian of enormous intellect and erudition,he was credited with taking an Asian-centred view of the British Empire andwith helping to establish global history as a scholarly discipline. He was on recordas saying that "historical analysis in the Marxist tradition is the only socialtheory which displays a rigorous interest in explaining historical change". Baylyregarded his 2007 knighthood "not only as a great personal honour but, as ahistorian of India, as recognition of the growing importance of the history of thenon-Western world" (THES online, 22 June 2007). A member of the Reform Cluband a trustee of the British Museum, he was a devotee of the arts (in particularItalian opera) and a great admirer of Venice. In 1981 he married Susan Kaufmann,a distinguished anthropologist.
The "guru of global historians" had a remarkable academic career, culminatingas Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the Universityof Cambridge from 1992 until his retirement in 2013, and then as professoremeritus until his death. He was concomitantly director of the university's Centreof South Asian Studies between 2006 and 2014. A...