Janet Lippman Abu-Lughod (August 3, 1928 – December 14, 2013) was an Americansociologist who made major contributions toworld-systems theory andurban sociology.^[1][2]

Raised inNewark, New Jersey, United States, she attendedWeequahic High School,^[3] where she was influenced by the works ofLewis Mumford about urbanization.^[4]

Janet Abu-Lughod held graduate degrees from theUniversity of Chicago andUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Her teaching career began at theUniversity of Illinois, took her to theAmerican University in Cairo,Smith College, andNorthwestern University, where she taught for twenty years and directed several urban studies programmes. In 1950–1952 Abu-Lughod was a director of research for the American Society of Planning Officials, in 1954–1957 – research associate at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, consultant and author for theAmerican Council to Improve Our Neighborhoods.^[5] In 1987 she accepted a professorship in sociology and historical studies at the Graduate Faculty of theNew School for Social Research, from which she retired as professor emerita in 1998.^[6] Upon retirement she held visiting short-term teaching appointments atBosphorous University inIstanbul and on the International Honors Program at theUniversity of Cairo.^[5] She published over a hundred articles and thirteen books dealing with urban sociology, the history and dynamics of the World System, and Middle Eastern cities, including an urban history ofCairo that is still considered one of the classic works on that city:Cairo: 1001 Years of the City Victorious.

In 1976 she was awarded a John Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for Sociology.^[7] Abu-Lughod received over a dozen prestigious national government fellowships and grants to research in the areas ofdemography,urban sociology, urban planning, economic and social development, world systems, andurbanization in the United States, theMiddle East and the Third World.^[5]

She was especially well known for her monographBefore European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350 wherein she argued that a pre-modern world system extending across Eurasia existed in the 13th century, prior to the formation of the modern world-system identified byImmanuel Wallerstein. Among a variety of factors, Abu-Lughod emphasized the role ofChampagne fairs, theMongol Empire, theMamluk Sultanate, and the history of theIndian subcontinent in shaping this previous world system. In addition, she argued that the "rise of the West," beginning with the intrusion of armed Portuguese ships into the relatively peaceful trade networks of the Indian Ocean in the 16th century, was not a result of features internal to Europe, but was made possible by a collapse in the previous world system.^[8]

Abu-Lughod in her works approaches the social and economic development of global cities with the commitment to seeing and acting on possibilities for constructive social change. The span of her works goes from micro-level studies of territoriality and social change, to the analysis of the diffusion of global cities in the Western and Arab world, to historical studies of medieval cities.^[5]

She published several well-received works on American cities includingNew York, Chicago, Los Angeles: America's Global Cities^[9] andRace, Space, and Riots in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.^[10]

She was a member of the Editorial Board forJournal of World-Systems Research.^[11]

She was married in 1951–1991 toIbrahim Abu-Lughod. They had four children;Lila, Mariam, Deena, and Jawad.^[12] Janet's family background isJewish.^[13] She died aged 85 in New York City on December 14, 2013.^[1]

• Cairo: 1001 Years of the City Victorious.Princeton University Press. 1971. pp. 284.ISBN 978-0-691-03085-2.
• Rabat, Urban Apartheid in Morocco. Princeton Studies on the Near East. Princeton University Press. 1981. p. 374.ISBN 978-0-691-10098-2.
• Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350. US: Oxford University Press. 1991. pp. 464.ISBN 978-0-19-506774-3.
• Changing Cities: Urban Sociology. Harpercollins College Div. 1991. p. 441.ISBN 978-0-06-040138-2.
• New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: America's Global Cities. University of Minnesota Press. 2000. p. 580.ISBN 978-0-8166-3336-4.
• Race, Space, and Riots in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. US: Oxford University Press. 2007. p. 360.ISBN 978-0-19-532875-2.

• Ayşe Zarakol
• John Darwin (historian)

• 1928 births
• 2013 deaths
• Weequahic High School alumni
• People from Newark, New Jersey
• University of Chicago alumni
• University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty
• Academic staff of The American University in Cairo
• Smith College faculty
• Northwestern University faculty
• World system scholars
• American women academics
• American women historians
• American women sociologists
• American expatriates in Egypt
• Historians from New Jersey
• Jewish American historians
• Urban sociologists

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