Germany weighing decision to deliver modern battlefield tanks to Ukraine
Giving the Leopard 2 to Ukraine would give them a substantial quality advantage over the Russian army, says history professor David Silbey.
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Check out HISTORY: Spring 2023!
Department of History
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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A. D. White House
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Check out History
The History Department welcomes undergraduates (majors and non-majors) to view our course flyers as well as details about our courses.
Department of History News
Historian wins NEH grant for work on British-India empire building
Historian Robert Travers is taking a deeper look at the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings.
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Traverso wins Italian literature award for nonfiction
“Rivoluzione 1789-1989” has also been published in English, French and Spanish, with translations to follow in German, Portuguese, Greek, Korean and other languages.
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Mellon grants $1M to deepen and improve Freedom on the Move
Cornell is partnering with multiple institutions to foster a research community around a growing collection of “runaway slave” advertisements published in the 18th and 19th centuries.
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Freedom on the Move project inspires music performances
A Cornell-based database of “runaway ads” placed by enslavers in 18th- and 19th-century U.S. newspapers was the starting point for a new song cycle, “Songs in Flight,” that will premiere Jan. 12 in New York City.
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Paul Hyams, expert on medieval law, dies at 82
Colleagues and former students remember Hyams as an innovative and multidisciplinary scholar who reached from history into literature, law, medieval studies and beyond through a pedagogical approach that combined intellectual rigor with camaraderie.
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Twenty Affinito-Stewart research grants awarded for the 2022-2023 academic year
The President’s Council of Cornell Women (PCCW) awarded Affinito-Stewart research grants totaling $195,166 to 20 Cornell faculty members.
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‘Losing Istanbul’: Personal histories illustrate an empire’s end
Putting biographical details in conversation with global events, Mostafa Minawi gives the reader a street-level understanding of what it was like to live through the final decades of the ailing Ottoman Empire.
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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.