Honorary Foreign Member
The Association has honored foreign scholars since 1885, when the AHA awarded Leopold von Ranke with its first testimonial of honorary membership. See the list of past recipients.
According to the selection criteria, recipients of honorary memberships must be foreign scholars who are distinguished for their work in the field of history and who have markedly assisted the work of American historians in the scholar’s country.
The Committee on Honorary Foreign Members and Awards for Scholarly Distinction will serve as the jury and will recommend an individual for approval by the Council. The committee consists of the president, president-elect, and the immediate past president. The honoree will be announced at the Association's annual meeting.
2021 Honorary Foreign Member
Mahesh Rangarajan, Krea University, India
Mahesh Rangarajan is vice chancellor of Krea University in India. He previously served as director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi (2011–15) and was a professor of history and environmental studies at Ashoka University (2016–21). An enormously productive scholar, he has also been an exemplary member of the scholarly community, collaborating with other historians and providing help and guidance to foreign researchers working in or on India. Foreign scholars have benefited immensely from Rangarajan’s outstanding leadership of the Nehru Memorial Museum. In that post, he was instrumental in opening collections to researchers from all over the world, and in preserving priceless correspondence and archives related to 20th-century India. He is among the most distinguished historians of India of his generation, the leading environmental historian of India at work in the field today, and one of that country’s most prominent intellectuals.