Project on Global History

Global history is one of the leading new approaches in recent years that has helped to transform the study of the past. The contemporary trends summarized under the term “globalization” have lent urgency to research that examines historical processes, networks, identities, and events across the boundaries of the nation-states that traditionally served as the privileged framework for much of the discipline. Historians worldwide have contributed to exciting research on the trends that so many societies have undergone together—whether economic and demographic, religious and cultural, or political and military. In the process, global history has drawn on the expertise of political scientists, sociologists, art historians, economists, anthropologists, and others.

Our group was the first of Weatherhead's original “research clusters” designed to build on and focus its Faculty Associates’ leadership in new directions for international study. As cochairs, Professors Beckert and Maier organized a steering committee among the many faculty in history, social sciences, and from the professional schools, including the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The project has received additional funding from the Volkswagen Foundation and other University programs, as well.

In 2026–2027, we continue the popular global history seminar and welcome an international cohort of postdoctoral scholars and visiting fellows. We have negotiated strategic partnerships with leading centers for global history abroad: the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar in Senegal, East China Normal University in Shanghai, University of Delhi in India, and University of São Paulo in Brazil. Embedding the project in a network of like-minded institutions around the globe inserts Harvard students and scholars into the networks of research on global history and provides bases for their research sojourns abroad. Global history is a global activity, and with us serving as a cohesive hub, Harvard can play a key role in helping shape this cooperative endeavor.