Dr. Sudev Sheth is a senior lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, where he holds a joint appointment in the Department of History and the Lauder Institute at the Wharton School. His research and teaching sit at the intersection of economic history, urban studies, and global business, with a particular focus on South Asia.
He received his PhD in history and South Asia studies from the University of Pennsylvania, following an MA from Jawaharlal Nehru University and undergraduate degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining Penn, he was the Harvard-Newcomen Fellow in Business History at Harvard Business School.
Dr. Sheth is the author of Bankrolling Empire: Family Fortunes and Political Transformation in Mughal India (Cambridge University Press, 2024), which examines how merchant families shaped political authority during a period of imperial decline. His broader body of work explores the role of business actors in shaping institutions, governance, and social life across time. His research has appeared in leading journals such as Business History Review, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, and Manuscript Studies. He has also written for public-facing platforms such as Scroll and the Wire.
At Penn, Dr. Sheth teaches courses such as “Global Business through the Humanities” and “The City Paradox: Design, Innovation, and Leadership”, which examine how ideas, markets, and institutions have shaped the modern world. His teaching has been recognized for its interdisciplinary approach and engagement with global perspectives.
Dr. Sheth’s Fulbright-Nehru project, “Ahmedabad’s Architects: Merchant Capitalism and Shaping a City across Seven Centuries”, is investigating how business communities have shaped urban development, governance, and architecture in one of India’s most dynamic cities. Drawing on archival research, oral histories, and analysis of the built environment, the project is tracing how business families developed institutions for credit, governance, and civic life which linked the city of Ahmedabad to regional and global networks. By foregrounding business-led forms of urban transformation, the study is attempting to offer new perspectives on capitalism, development, and the relationship between economic power and civic authority.