History


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History

Do you think of history as a list of names and dates, battles and treaties, inventors and emperors? Be ready for a revelation. At Hamilton, history is a living, vibrant discipline. Whether you are tracing the spread of Buddhism from India to Japan or exploring the African diaspora in the U.S. today, the study of history is about building a perspective on other cultures, times and places. History students develop sophisticated writing and speaking skills, they learn to conduct research, and they hone the ability to think critically about complex issues and events of other times, and gain a historically informed understanding of the present.

That makes the study of history valuable to all students, not just history majors. The discipline offers a broad grounding in the liberal arts and provides a foundation for a wide range of professions and scholarly pursuits. From the history program at Hamilton, graduates have moved on to careers in teaching, law, medicine, journalism, public policy and many other fields.

In your first courses you may explore the Western legal tradition from Rome to the Middle Ages or be surprised by the diversity of the rise of nationalism in modern India. In intermediate courses you may turn to the upheavals of the 1960s, the writings of American conservatives from the Founding Fathers to the New Right, and even the emergence of Marxism and Darwinism in modern Europe. In more advanced courses you’ll find yourself in small, intense discussion-based classes. There you’ll investigate everything from the ancient Silk Route from China to Baghdad to the nationalist historiography of the Irish Republican Army.

History majors at Hamilton take 10 courses in the field from among any three of these geographical regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Russia, and the United States. Minors take five courses in history. With its broad liberal-arts focus and training in scholarly research, history is also popular at Hamilton as a double major.