Distinguished Professor James C. Riley | |||
 Photo by: Paul Martens James C. Riley Professor of History Adjunct Professor of Philanthropic Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, University Graduate School, IU Bloomington; School of Liberal Arts, IUPUI
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In the course of his
27-year career in the IU Bloomington Department of History, James
C. Riley has become world-renowned not only for his scholarship in
the history of public finance, medicine and health, but also for pioneering
a new discipline—the study of morbidity and its impact over historical
time. Riley discovered the field while researching the 1987 article “Sickness in an Early Modern Workplace,” which became the first in a series about the history of morbidity. He had come across the records of a 17th-century sickness benefit fund for the workers of the Plantin Printery in Antwerp, Belgium. By using these records to estimate the frequency and duration of sickness, Riley developed the new area, which resulted in his highly influential work on the history of health. His work illuminated the relationship between health and mortality, showing that increasing longevity did not always result in more years of good health. “In other words, one of the trade-offs for a longer life was a sicker one, at least until well into the 20th century,” said W. Peter Ward, professor of history at the University of British Columbia. Riley first made a name for himself as a public finance historian. His 1980 debut book, International Government Finance and the Amsterdam Capital Market, 1740–1815, examined the emergence of an international capital market and its role of financing political and military competition between states. Throughout his career, Riley has been published by some of the most prestigious and influential presses in the world—Cambridge University Press, Johns Hopkins University Press and St. Martin's Press—while his research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the most distinguished agencies and associations, including the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Riley's 2001 book, Rising Life Expectancy, displays his trademark fresh approach to an important issue. In it, he identifies several tactics that people have used to reduce mortality and extend life expectancy, discussing each with the wealth of knowledge acquired throughout his career.
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Publication date: March 1, 2002
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