Peter JacksonFBA is a British scholar and historian, specializing in the Crusades, particularly the contacts between the Europeans and the Mongols as well as medieval Muslim India. He is Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at Keele University and editor of The Cambridge History of Iran: The Timurid and Safavid Periods.[1]
His main research interests are on the relations between the Mongols and the Latin West between 1220 and 1410,[2] and he has written extensively on the topic, exploring the concepts of medieval Europe, the Crusades, medieval Russia and the Mongols, especially the clash of cultures, and the interconnectedness of legends such as that of Prester John.
Graduating from St John's College, Cambridge, in 1971, he was awarded a PhD from Cambridge in 1977 for the thesis "The Mongols and India, 1221–1351". In 1979 he was appointed lecturer in history at Keele University, becoming a senior lecturer in 1991. He was awarded a personal chair in medieval history in 2002.[3]
Mongol archers in Compendium of Chronicles of Rashiduldin Hamadani (BnF. MS. Supplément Persan 1113. 1430-1434 AD). Depicted on cover of Mongols and the West by Peter Jackson
His 1999 book The Delhi Sultanate was described by a reviewer as amongst the most distinguished works on the medieval Islamic world in our time [4] and was scheduled for translation into Arabic. In this book, the geographical extent of his scholarship, his linguistic skills, and his extensive knowledge of medieval Islamic geography enabled him to compress into a single volume a nuanced
assessment which was rooted in close textual analysis and a mastery of the linguistic problems
presented by his sources, reminiscent of the research of Simon Digby.[4] His latest book on the Mongols and the Islamic World has been described as a work of great erudition which demonstrates Peter Jackson's life-long understanding of both the Muslim and the European sources for the history of the Mongols.[5]
Jackson also held a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship. In 2011 he retired as Professor Emeritus, and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2012.[6]
