Morris Rossabi

Morris Rossabi (b. 5 Dec. 1941, Alexandria, Egypt) is an American historian specializing in Central Asia, Mongol and Chinese History, a professor at City University of New York and an associate professor at Columbia University., New York City, USA.

His Yemenite Jewish family moved to Egypt in the 1830s, and to the US during WWII. Familiar with Arab culture, young Rossabi chose to focuse on Chinese studies, and on the contact and friction points between Chinese and Muslim spheres. 

A Distinguished Professor of History at Queens College, Prof. Rossabi gave the W. Allyn Rickett-endowed lecture at University of Pennsylvania about Mongol influence on Ming China, and was distinguished by the National University of Mongolia with a 2009 honorary doctorate, and with the Certificate of Merit of the Mongolian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2021.

Along with spouse Mary Jane Rossabi (née Hermann), an independent researcher in Russian and Mongolian studies, they conducted numerous field studies in China, Inner and Central Asia, in particular in oral history of 20^th and 21^st century of Mongolia.

Author or editor of 25 books, numerous articles and speeches, Prof. Rossabi has helped organize several exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, and was on the advisory board of the Project on Central Eurasia and Chair of the Arts and Culture Committee of the Soros Foundation.

Selected Publications

• China and Inner Asia From 1368 to the Present Day, London, Thames and Hudson, 1975.
• The Jurchens in the Yüan and Ming, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1982.
• China Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Equals 10^th-14^th centuries, Berkeley/​London, University of California Press, 1983; repub. 2023, Kindle. ISBN 0−520−04383−9 AACR2.
• Rossabi, Morris. China Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10^th-14^th Centuries (p. 5). University of California Press. Kindle Edition. 
• Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1988.
• Voyager from Xanadu: Rabban Sauma and the First Journey from China to the West, Kodansha USA, 1992; Berkeley, University of California Press, 2010.
• [ed.] Governing China’s Multiethnic Frontiers, Seattle/​London, University of Seattle Press, 2004.
• Modern Mongolia: From Khans to Commissars to Capitalists, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2005.
• Herder to Statesman, New York, Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.
• The Mongols and Global History, New York, W.W. Norton Company, 2010.
• [with Mary Rossabi] Socialist Devotees and Dissenters; A Herder, a Trader, and a Lawyer, Osaka, National Museum of Ethnology, 2010, 2011.
• [with Mary Rossabi] The Practice of Buddhism in Kharkhorin and its Revival, Osaka, National Museum of Ethnology, 2012, 2013.
• [ed. with alt.] The Travels of Marco Polo: Illustrated Editions, New York, Union Square & Co., 2012. ISBN13 978 – 1402796302.
• A History of China, Hoboken, Wiley-Blackewll, 1^st ed 2013.
• China and the Uyghurs: A Concise Introduction, Rowman & Littlefield, 2022. ISBN13 978 – 1538162972.