My primary interest is the social and cultural history of pre-modern India (1000-1800). I have published monographs on the social roles of Sufis (Muslim mystics) in the Indian sultanate of Bijapur (1300-1700), on the growth of Islam in Bengal (1204-1760), and on the social history of the Deccan from 1300 to 1761, and on the interplay between memory and art in the Deccan plateau between 1300 and 1600. These four historical monographs employ as analytical tools, respectively, Weberian social thought, Annales School methodology, biography, and architectural history. Most recently, I have published the second volume of the new Penguin history of India, entitled India in the Persianate Age, 1000-1765,which explores the long-term interaction between the Persianate and Sanskritic worlds, between the Iranian Plateau and South Asia, and between Islam and Indian religious traditions.
I am also active in the growing subfield of world history, as well as comparative history. My regularly taught courses include History of Medieval India, History of Modern India and Pakistan, Comparative History, and World History.
Eaton has written and edited several books on India and related topics:
- Sufis of Bijapur, 1300-1700 - Princeton University Preas : 1978[6]
- Islamic History as Global History - American Historical Association,: 1990
- Firuzabad: Palace City of the Deccan - Oxford University Press : 1992
- The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760 - Oxford University Press : 1993
- Essays on Islam and Indian history - Oxford University Press : 2000[7]
- A Social History of the Deccan, 1300-1761 0 Eight Indian Lives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, - published: 2000 (The New Cambridge History of India. I.8,)
- India's Islamic Traditions, 711-1750 (general editor). Oxford University Press: 2003
- Approaches to the Study of Conversion to Islam in India in Religious Movements in South Asia 600-1800 (edited by David N. Lorenzen) - Oxford University Press: 2005
- Temple Desecration and Muslim States in Medieval India - published: 2004
- Slavery and South Asian History (co-editor with Indrani Chatterjee) - Indiana University Press: 2006, ISBN 978-0-253-11671-0
- Power, Memory, Architecture: Contested Sites on India's Deccan Plateau, 1300-1600 - Oxford University Press: 2014
- India in the Persianate Age: 1000-1765 - University of California Press; Penguin: 2019[8][9] co-ed. with Ramya Sreenivasan. The Oxford Handbook of the Mughal World. 2020. (in process, DOI:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190222642.001.0001
The University of Arizona - Professor of History