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Examining the Past to
Understand the Future

Studying history through today's lens


Who We Are

 
 
 

With an unparalleled location in the nation's capital, award-winning faculty and access to some of the most important research repositories in the world, the GW Department of History offers an ideal platform from which to explore our past. Undergraduate and graduate students are exposed to a diversity of topics, from the Africa diaspora to the Cold War, from imperialism to urbanization, from the founding of Islam to Jewish history, from race relations to labor, law and politics. Students graduate with the knowledge and analytical tools necessary for success in a wide range of careers.

 


Where We Are

the national mall

The Washington, D.C., area offers a front-row seat to history. Students are immersed in their surroundings through trips to museums, battlefields and historical sites including the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Jamestown Settlement, the Gettysburg Battlefield, the Society of the Cincinnati and George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate.

Through the department's collaborative relationships with institutions throughout the region, students also have extraordinary access to historical documents at the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the National Security Archive and the Smithsonian Institution.

News and Events

 


Max Skidelsky

"Thanks to the History Department, I was able to learn fascinating subjects, conduct important research, conference with knowledgeable and attentive professors, and graduate feeling prepared for the future as a historian."

Max Skidelsky
BA '20


 History by the Numbers

100+ students in the major

 

50+ students in the minor

 

~40 full-time faculty members

 


Our Highlights 

 

Department Headlines

History doctoral candidate and U.S. Marine veteran A.J. Cade.

History Restored: The Untold Story of Black Civil War Soldiers

History Ph.D. candidate and Marine veteran A.J. Cade was inspired by a forgotten Civil War regiment of all-Black soldiers and officers. Now, he’s bringing their legacy to life.

Professor Erin Chapman Headshot

Backlash: Inside Florida’s African American Studies Ban

To history professor Erin D. Chapman, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ restrictions on the AP curriculum is a dangerous precedent—for educators and a divided country.

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Africa's Impact on the African American Experience

How does Africa figure in “real and imagined ways” to the African American experience?

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Failing Grade: Are Americans Flunking History?

History professor Christopher Brick has a lesson plan to raise our humanities IQ.

 

Faculty Books

Book cover of The Tarikh-i Ḥamidi

The Tarikh-i Ḥamidi: A Late-Qing Uyghur History

The Tarikh-i Ḥamidi is an epic and tragic history from the region of Xinjiang in northwest China, the homeland of the Muslim-majority Uyghur people.

Book cover for The Multiracial Promise

The Multiracial Promise: Harold Washington's Chicago and the Democratic Struggle in Reagan's America

Drawing on a rich array of archives and oral history interviews, Gordon K. Mantler offers a bold reexamination of the Harold Washington movement and moment.

Book cover for Merits of the Plague

Merits of the Plague

History's Joel Blecher co-edited the first English translation of the preeminent meditation on plagues and pandemics from the Islamic medieval world.

Book cover of Community Still Matters

Community Still Matters: Uyghur Culture and Society in Central Asian Context

Eric Schluessel presents a multidisciplinary overview of Uyghur studies today, highlighting contributions from Uyghur diaspora and exile scholars.