McChesney’s academic focus has been on the history Central Asia, Iran and Afghanistan from the time of the Mongol conquest through the early 20th century. Much of his work has centered on the connection of social history and architecture and the Islamic charitable institutions that supported architecture. He has taken a particular interest in the works of Afghan scholar
Fayz Muhammad, in particular his monumental history of Afghanistan, Sirajul Tawarikh. McChesney has also written a translation of Fayz Muhammad's account of the
1929 Afghan Civil War. He has made frequent contributions to
Encyclopædia Iranica. McChesney is held in high regard by his peers for his meticulous use of
primary sources and fluency in several languages.[2]
McChesney is also the director of the
Afghanistan Digital Library, a project to create an online library of rare books from
Afghanistan. The project began in response to the destruction and looting of many library collections and private book collections during the several decades of
war in Afghanistan in recent decades.
Works by Robert D. McChesney
Note: Works have been published under the names Robert D. McChesney, R. D. McChesney, and R. McChesney.
"Architecture and Narrative: The Khwaja Abu Nasr Shrine."
Muqarnas, vol. 18 (2001) (Part One: Constructing the Complex and Its Meaning, 1469–1696) and vol. 19 (2002) (Part Two: Representing the Complex in Word and Image, 1696-1998).
Fayẓ Muḥammad Kātib Hazārah’s Sirāj al-tawārīkh, The History of Afghanistan. Edited and translated by R.D. McChesney and M.M. Khorrami. Brill, 2016. 11 volumes.
"Reconstructing
Balkh: The Vakfiya of 947/1540." Studies on Central Asian History, ed.
Devin DeWeese (
Bloomington 2001).
Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480-1889. (
Princeton:
Princeton University, 1991.)
"Waqf and public policy: the waqfs of Shāh 'Abbās 1011-23/1602-14"
Asian and African Studies v. 15, no. 2, (July 1981), 165-90
"Zamzam Water on a White Felt Carpet: Adapting Mongol Ways in Muslim Central Asia, 1550-1650," in
Michael Gervers and
Wayne Schlepp, eds., Religion, Customary Law, and Nomadic Technology (
Toronto, 2000).
References
^Directory of Foreign Area Fellows (Foreign Area Fellowship Program, 1973), p. 131.