He received his bachelor's degree from
Rutgers University (1960), his M.A. in Political Science from the
University of Chicago (1962), and his Ph.D. in political theory from the
University of London (1965). He started his teaching career in the Department of Economic and Political Studies,
School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London where he taught graduate seminars on political thought and
comparative politics. His seminar on
nonviolence at Barnard related his personal experiences with close associates of Mahatma Gandhi during his years of research in India beginning in 1960 and continuing as a
Fulbright Scholar to South Asia in 1994-1995. Joining a student
hunger strike in 2007 at Barnard/Columbia, advocating a more multi-cultural curriculum, Dalton told a reporter, "I want the core curriculum supplemented by writings on Gandhi,
King,
Malcolm X. I would like some acknowledgement of nonviolence in the Core." Since Dalton's retirement in 2008, Columbia College has added Gandhi to its Core curriculum, assigning Dalton's edition of Gandhi's political writings. Most recently, Dalton has been among a team of five editors of Columbia's
Sources of Indian Traditions (2014) and he has lectured for three years at the
Fromm Institute,
San Francisco University. Dalton is the author of numerous articles and books, including
Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power in Action and
Indian Idea of Freedom. ==Awards==