Thomas Roger Trautmann is an American historian, cultural anthropologist, and Professor Emeritus of History and Anthropology at the University of Michigan.
He is considered a leading expert on the Arthashastra, the ancient Hindu text on statecraft, economic policy, and military strategy, written in Sanskrit.
[2] Trautmann's work in Indology has been credited with illuminating the underlying economic philosophy that governed ancient Indian kinship.
[citation needed] He has served as director of the University of Michigan History Department, as well as head of the Center for South Asian Studies.
Born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin, he completed his undergraduate work at Beloit College and holds a PhD from the University of London,[5] where he wrote his dissertation on the structure and composition of the Sanskrit text Arthasastra (published in book form in 1971).