During World War II, Allworth served as a platoon leader, second lieutenant, and adjutant, in the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division of the US Army, in the Normandy Invasion and the division's battles thereafter through the Allied World War II victory in Northern Europe.
In 1984, he established the Department of Middle East Languages and Cultures to focus on the study of contemporary Central Asia.
He was founding director at Columbia of both the Program on Soviet Nationality Problems (1970) and the Center for the Study of Central Asia (1984).
Doctoral student Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh remembered: Professor Allworth always defended cultural history during the Cold War when the tendency was to study strategy and weapons, as well as during the post-Soviet period when the focus was on democracy building and economic transition models.
When the Central Asian countries gained independence in the early 1990s, while some students dropped out of the Ph.D. track to follow the appeal of rapid lucrative employment in oil companies, governments and radio stations beaming propaganda to the region, he kept a handful of us at bay and steeped us in the writings of the early 20th century reformist writer Abdalrauf Fitrat [sic], and the study of Chagatay, the 15th century pre-Uzbek language.