[2] He quit in 1972 to travel the world (supporting himself through jobs such as carpentry), then enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley (1974) where he completed a BA in Near Eastern Studies in 1977.
He retired in 2018 to Guemes Island in Washington State[4] with his wife Klaudia Maria Englund and was active in the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI).
His analysis of the economic and administrative history of the Ur III empire (c. 2100 - 2000 BC) are foundational, and the period was his scholarly passion.His writings are often punctuated by social commentary.
[9] Englund was a principal investigator of the project Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI), Los Angeles/Oxford/Berlin, with a concentration on Proto-Cuneiform texts from late 4th millennium BC Mesopotamia.
Giving regular lectures on the history and civilizations of the Ancient Near East, Englund also taught Sumerian and Akkadian and numerous seminars on diverse topics.
"Frühe Schrift und Techniken der Wirtschaftsverwaltung im alten Vorderen Orient"[15] and its translation to English "Archaic Bookkeeping,"[16] are widely used as textbooks in undergraduate and graduate programs in universities across the world.