After compiling more than 100,000 records from the earliest days of the American Republic, Faculty Fellow Peter Kastor seeks to reconstruct and understand the federal government at the moment of its creation. With his book and database project currently underway, he is chronicling how the Founding Fathers faced the daily challenges of running a new and complex government.
The prize is awarded annually to recognize the best book on the history of American law and society.
The fall of Afghanistan is just the latest chapter in a long chronicle of U.S./Afghan entanglement
Douglas Flowe explores the invention of Black criminality in new book.
As members of the Department of History at Washington University, we commit ourselves to identifying and interrupting the mechanisms of power that have enabled this injustice to continue for so long.
We engage our students through the study of the past. We are committed to the idea that the most compelling stories are often the most revealing ones. In addition to teaching students the particular skills of historical inquiry, we provide them with tools that serve them beyond their majors and beyond the university.
The discipline of history poses challenging questions about the ways that human beings have made the worlds they live in. There are many approaches to history. Some historians study politics, whether that means political parties or the ways that people who never held public office nonetheless act to shape public life. Others study the lived experience of everyday Americans or the popular culture that reflects how people understand the world around them. Still others are especially interested in the kinds of stories about the past that we tell ourselves, for those stories reveal a great deal about our own society and about earlier times. While it is not true that history repeats itself, it is true that without knowledge of the past we are unable to understand the present.
Some history majors go on to pursue graduate work in the field and become professional historians, but most find that the knowledge and skills they build through history courses fit them for a wide range of careers. Our graduates have attended law or medical school, and have pursued careers in government, education, research, business, communications, international agencies, publishing, museums and archives, public advocacy and many other fields.
