Michael A. Barry

Who is Michael A. Barry?

Michael A. Barry is a Princeton University professor and historian of the greater Middle East and Islamic world. Since 2004 he has taught as Lecturer in Islamic Culture in Princeton's Department of Near Eastern Studies, in addition to serving as consultative chairman of the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and special consultant to the Aga Khan Trust for Culture since 2009. An established authority on Islamic art and the history and culture of Afghanistan, on which subjects he has written extensively in both French and English, Barry's works include a standard French-language history of Afghanistan, a biography of the late commander of the Afghan Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Massoud, which won France's Prix Femina in 2002, and an interpretive history of medieval Islamic figurative painting from the 15th to the 16th centuries.

His most recent work is Kabul's Long Shadows, published in 2011 by Princeton University's Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination. This monograph, which summarizes Barry's views on Afghanistan for the first time in English, addresses current U.S. policy toward Afghanistan in light of the country's political and cultural history, its tribal dynamics and the strategic concerns of the surrounding region.