Two hundred years of learning is undoubtedly cause for celebration. Yet the charter that Hamilton received in 1812 merely continued a quest for knowledge that had begun two decades earlier with Samuel Kirkland and his Hamilton-Oneida Academy, a secondary school that focused on educating local Iroquois youth. Like so much at Hamilton, the Academy began with a piece of writing: Kirkland’s 1791 “Plan of Education for the Indians,” a 15-page document in which Kirkland outlined his ideas for the new school.

Members of the Archaeology of Hamilton’s Founding course broke ground at a site just off College Hill Road on Thursday, Sept. 1. Selected because of its possible association with key figures in Hamilton’s past, the site will be excavated by the students during the next seven weeks. Local NBC affiliate WKTV taped the first day’s digging for a news broadcast.

Years of dedicated research, writing and design have culminated in the publishing of On the Hill: A Bicentennial History of Hamilton College. On Wednesday, Aug. 24, from 1:30-2:30 p.m., Maurice Isserman, the Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History and the book’s author, will speak briefly about the book and sign copies in the  Burke Library Browsing Room.

Maurice Isserman, the Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History, is the author of an article on communism in a newly released book titled The Concise Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History.

The fourth edition of America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s, written by Maurice Isserman, the Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History, and Georgetown Professor of History Michael Kazin, has been published by Oxford University Press.

A National Post (Toronto) article about a Canadian’s rescue of an abandoned and ill Pakistani porter on a Himalayan mountain included the comments of Maurice Isserman, the James L. Ferguson Professor of History. The co-author of Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes, Isserman discussed the shift in attitudes among some mountain climbers

A book review written by Maurice Isserman, the James L. Ferguson Professor of History, appeared in The New York Times Book Review on June 19. In “Life of a Psychohistorian,” Isserman provided an overview of the life of Robert Jay Lifton and a review of Lifton’s autobiography, A Witness to an Extreme Century.

Over the course of Reunions ’11 Weekend, speakers at 30 Alumni College events informed the more than 1,000 returning alumni and guests on a wide variety of topics, ranging from urban redevelopment to food allergies to healthcare to sustainable investments. Here are brief reports on six of those sessions.

The New York Times’ current entry on the publication’s Civil War blog is the work of James L. Ferguson Professor of History Maurice Isserman. Titled “From the Playing Field to the Battlefield,” the article reveals that during the war, the majority of Hamilton students participated on both the Union and Confederate sides and that many perished.

Hamilton College attracted the media’s attention quite often this year in feature stories and news reports. Among the areas most often addressed by the media in covering Hamilton were topics related to the admission process.