Ian Morris
Jean and Rebecca Willard Endowed Professor of Classics
Department
Classics
CV Link
PhD, Cambridge University, Classical archaeology (1986)
BA, Birmingham University, Ancient History and Archaeology (1981)
Email
Office
Building 110, Room 115
Ian Morris is Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and a Fellow of the Archaeology Center at Stanford University. He has published fourteen books, many of them focusing on the big patterns in world history and possible future trends, and he has directed archaeological excavations in Greece and Italy. His books have been translated into fifteen languages, and his 2010 work Why the West Rules—For Now won literary awards in the United States, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, and China as well as being named as a book of the year by the New York Times, The Economist, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Newsweek, Nature, and the London Evening Standard. Princeton University Press published his latest book, Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve, in April 2015.
Morris grew up in Britain and studied at Birmingham and Cambridge Universities. He moved to the University of Chicago in 1987, and on to Stanford University in 1995. He directed Stanford’s archaeological excavations at Monte Polizzo in Sicily between 2000 and 2007 and has served as Senior Associate Dean of Humanities and Sciences, Chair of the Classics department, Director of the Archaeology Center, and Director of the Social Science History Institute.
Outside Stanford, Morris is a contributing editor at the strategic consulting firm Stratfor and has served as a visiting professor at the University of Zürich’s Business School, He has also delivered the Tanner Lectures in Human Values at Princeton University and a Darwin Lecture at Cambridge University, and in 2015/16 will deliver the Philippe Roman Lectures in International Relations and History at the London School of Economics. He has advised the US National Intelligence Council, the Special Autonomous Regional Government of Hong Kong, the Henry Jackson Committee of the British Parliament, and the President of the Dominican Republic. His academic honors include an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fellowship in the British Academy, a Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and two honorary doctorates.
Morris grew up in Britain and studied at Birmingham and Cambridge Universities. He moved to the University of Chicago in 1987, and on to Stanford University in 1995. He directed Stanford’s archaeological excavations at Monte Polizzo in Sicily between 2000 and 2007 and has served as Senior Associate Dean of Humanities and Sciences, Chair of the Classics department, Director of the Archaeology Center, and Director of the Social Science History Institute.
Outside Stanford, Morris is a contributing editor at the strategic consulting firm Stratfor and has served as a visiting professor at the University of Zürich’s Business School, He has also delivered the Tanner Lectures in Human Values at Princeton University and a Darwin Lecture at Cambridge University, and in 2015/16 will deliver the Philippe Roman Lectures in International Relations and History at the London School of Economics. He has advised the US National Intelligence Council, the Special Autonomous Regional Government of Hong Kong, the Henry Jackson Committee of the British Parliament, and the President of the Dominican Republic. His academic honors include an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fellowship in the British Academy, a Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and two honorary doctorates.
