Understanding history — the record of what people have thought, said, and done — is essential in understanding the world of today. Undergraduate and graduate students explore not only events of the past, but their meaning and implications for our own lives.

For undergraduates, the department focuses on the broad relevance of history to a variety of careers — given the discipline’s emphasis on research, writing, and critical thinking. All students complete an original research project, either through the required senior research seminar or the BA with Distinction. Our active chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society, plans field trips and hosts graduate school and career workshops. Undergraduate majors have gone on to careers in law, politics, education, journalism, business, and medicine.

Our graduate program is characterized by close intellectual and working relationships between students and faculty. Recent graduates have received appointments on college and university faculties, in libraries and archives, and in federal and state government agencies.

The department includes 25 current and 11 emeritus faculty members, and many have received national and international recognition for their work. The faculty includes historians of the United States, Europe, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and the Ancient World.  In addition to geographic and chronological focuses, our colleagues teach in fields such as political, social, military, and cultural history, with particular interest in political violence, empire, religion, law, women, gender and sexuality, labor, race and ethnicity, and intellectual history.

The History Department is one of the oldest departments in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, having granted its first Ph.D. in 1883.