Bicentennial reappraisals of Sir William Jones's Asiatic Society in various disciplines in the 1980s concluded that his fame and influence have not returned to the exalted worldwide levels reached just prior to the Victorian cultural and literary reappraisals of Asia, and that they may never do so. They also determined that his scholarship in anthropology, botany, history, and religion is chiefly of historical interest, and that it was not ultimately as lasting as was once anticipated. But the reappraisals verified that three of his poems are minor classics in Oriental Romanticism; that the quality of his literary translations and Asiatic scholarship permanently changed the whole Middle Eastern and Indian image in Western eyes; that he inspired an Indian renaissance that is still valued in India, especially through his Asiatic Society; and that his language-family theory is one of the enduring contributions to the history of ideas.

He was...