He was appointed to the post of assistant professor at the University of Texas in 1940 but soon received an assignment to the Office of Strategic Services (which later became the CIA) to work as a social science analyst after the United States entered the Second World War.
It was at Pennsylvania that he formed a close working relationship with W. Norman Brown and significantly contributed to the building of a program for studying the Indian subcontinent.
This volume documented the period between July 1782 and June 1789 during which Burke's constructive interest in Indian affairs yielded to an "implacable determination" to defeat Hastings in the latter's impeachment trial.
Furber interpreted these letters as re-enforcement for the "view held in India today" that Burke was a "champion of Bengal's downtrodden millions."
In retirement, he published his ambitious survey, Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient 1600–1800, which applied the themes elucidated in John Company at Work back to earlier times.