Cornell historians, undergraduates, and graduates research the World. Our expertise stretches across the globe and through the centuries, illuminating the present.

Faculty Research

Durba Ghosh's new book, Gentlemanly Terrorists, focuses on an underground radical political movement in early and mid-twentieth century India and the ways in which political violence against the British colonial state became an important, but historically underemphasized, form of protest. While Gandhi's nonviolent protest movements are often seen to be the hallmark of anticolonial protest, the book follows how the colonial state invested in security and emergency legislation to contain what they felt was an active terrorist threat.

An article about Professor Ghosh's book appeared recently in the Cornell Chronicle.

Undergraduate Research

Ezra's Archives is a publication put forth annually by the Cornell Historical Society. The Cornell Historical Society (CHS) is an undergraduate organization at Cornell University founded in 2010. CHS educates and fosters appreciation for historical topics and methodology with the undergraduate student population and the community at large. This journal, launched in the Spring of 2011, showcases stellar examples of undergraduate research in the field of history. In 2015, Ezra's Archives was published online and articles can be read on e-Commons.

History teaches us that, "in times like these, there have always been times like these." A liberal education and a history background make one able to analyze the whole world, going 'way back. The point of your Cornell education is that your history background will help you solve any problem.

— Richard T. 1957