Richard Bulliet

Richard W. Bulliet (born 1940) is a professor of history at Columbia University who specializes in the history of Islamic society and institutions, the history of technology, and the history of the role of animals in human society.
Early life and education.
Bulliet grew up in Illinois. He attended Harvard, from which he received a BA in 1962 and a PhD in 1967. He is the grandson of Clarence Joseph ("C.J.") Bulliet, an art critic and journalist.
Work.
Several of his books focus on Iran but deal also with the larger Muslim world, including ' (1972), ' (1979), and ' (1994). His books on a broader view of Islamic history and society include ' (1994) and "The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization" (2004). His book "The Camel and the Wheel" (1975) brings together his interest in the histories of technology, animal domestication, and the Middle East, dealing for example with the significant military advantage early Muslim armies gained from a slight improvement in the design of cloth camel saddles. He would return to the history of animal domestication with his "" (2005).
"Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers: The Past and Future of Human-Animal Relationships" presents the four stages of human-animal relationship history: separation (when humans began to consider themselves as fundamentally separate from animals), pre-domestication (rich in symbolic expression of animals), domestication (exploiting and taming animals for human use), and post-domestication (our current industrialized consumption and separation from domestic animals).
He is the writer and editor of books of more general interest as well, including "The Columbia History of the Twentieth Century" (editor, 1998), "The Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East" (co-editor, 1996), and "" (co-author, 1997). He has also written several novels which draw on his knowledge of international politics and the Middle East, and is a promoter of the validity of comics as an art form.
His first fiction book, "Kicked to Death by a Camel" (1973), was nominated for an Edgar for "Best First Mystery". His other fiction includes "Tomb of the Twelfth Imam" (1979), "The Gulf Scenario" (1984), "The Sufi Fiddle" (1991), and "The One-Donkey Solution" (2011).
Bulliet's commentaries and opinion pieces on the Middle East have appeared in such newspapers "The Guardian", New York Times International, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.
According to an interview in "Columbia" magazine's Fall 2007 edition, Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger credits Bulliet with the idea for inviting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on campus on September 24, 2007.
References.
7. Richard W. Bulliet, Methodists and Muslims: My Life as an Orientalist (Cambridge MA, 2020)
8. Richard W. Bulliet, “Field Notes: Confessions of a Middle East Specialist,” Middle East Law and Governance, vol. 9 issue 2, 23 Aug 2017