Your September 2025 reads
This month’s featured titles include the latest by a National Book Award winner and a classical history of Jewish resistance to Rome.
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The Department of History thrives on its close relationship with many other departments, centers and area studies programs in the humanities and social sciences at Cornell. The faculty includes more than a dozen prize-winning authors as well as winners of Cornell’s prestigious teaching and advising awards.
History Events
Sep
29
Monday
12:15 PM
Oct
09
Thursday
05:00 PM
Mobilizing Ghosts for the Chinese Communist Revolution
Goldwin Smith Hall
G64
Nov
19
Wednesday
05:00 PM
Get to know history at Cornell
Department of History News
Politics gets personal for China scholar
Historian Peidong Sun began her new book “Unfiltered Regard for China: French Perspectives from Mao to Xi” amid profound personal upheaval: An exit ban from China and a move to France.
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Siblings turn their love for dishing on media into a podcast
Tune in to the recent grads behind Sisters Who Watch—which covers everything from reality TV to the Super Bowl and beyond: A&S graduate Shelby Holland '18 and her sister Laura Holland ’22.
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Einaudi welcomes SWANA Program
The Einaudi Center welcomes the Southwest Asia and North Africa Program and four new program directors this fall.
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'Thoughtful, gracious and humble': Remembering Ken Dryden '69
The co-author of Forever Faithful reminisces about the star goalie as a player, a writer, a sports-safety activist, and a man.
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Hockey legend Ken Dryden ’69 dies at 78
Ken Dryden ’69, the legendary Cornell men’s hockey goaltender who still holds the program record for career wins (76) and backstopped the Big Red to its first national championship in 1967, died of cancer Sept. 5.
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China’s parade signals power shift, cold war parallels, says Cornell expert
The massive display of new military power by the Chinese this week served several purposes, says military historian David Silbey.
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Dual-campus visit highlights A.D. White Professors-at-Large lineup
Best-selling writer and technology blogger Cory Doctorow will make the A.D. White Professor-at-Large program’s second dual-campus visit, ending his week at Cornell Tech in New York City. Four other professors will visit Cornell this fall.
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Academic Pursuits
Undergraduate Study
History is valuable as preparation for graduate, professional, or law school and for any career that requires critical thinking and good writing; the reputation of the faculty for scholarship, teaching, and advising; and most of all, the intrinsic interest of the discipline.
Graduate Program
Cornell's Department of History has a topnotch faculty covering a wide range time periods, geographic regions and methodologies. As a student in our program, you will also be able to work with members of the wider Graduate Field of History, which includes scholars whose main appointment is in other colleges and programs at Cornell but who are able to supervise dissertations of Ph.D. students in History.
Connections through history
Public History Initiative
The Cornell Public History Initiative (CPHI) works to stimulate and deepen dialogue among undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff, and their wider communities about the sedimented histories that shape our contemporary world.