In Praise of Sage Chapel, East Hill’s beloved house of worship
Built in an era when the University was under fire for being nonsectarian, it offers respite from a bustling campus.
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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.
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Department of History News
Tensions with China give Japanese PM an opening for snap elections
Prof. Kristin Roebuck comments on the plans of Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to dissolve parliament next week and call a snap election.
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Women in exile shaped South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement
Women played a major role in debates surrounding the fight against apartheid in South Africa, Rachel Sandwell writes in a new book, “National Liberation and the Political Life of Exile: Sex, Gender, and Nation in the Struggle against Apartheid.”
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Europe has little leverage to push back if Trump moves to take Greenland
A Cornell historian and military expert doubts a NATO military response to the US annexation of Greenland would not happen, Despite tough talk from European leaders.
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In Bukovina, European empires built new worlds out of inherited materials
The region never fit easily among its neighbors, as regimes including the Habsburg Empire and the Soviet Union tried to remake it in their image.
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‘Songs In Flight,’ inspired by Cornell-based project, earns Grammy nod
Based on poems by A&S alumna Tsitsi Ella Jaji, M.A. ’06, Ph.D. ’08, the songs by Shawn Okpebholo bring to life individual stories preserved by the Cornell-based Freedom on the Move project.
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Your December 2025 reads
This month’s featured titles include fiction from A&S alum Thomas Pynchon ’59, an award-winning poetry collection and a study of a small town.
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Cornell Center for Social Sciences awards fall grants targeting $50M in external research support
The Cornell Center for Social Sciences offers multiple grants to help Cornell faculty maximize their research impact. These awards help seed ambitious projects and provide support to teams of faculty applying to major external funding and collaboration opportunities.
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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.