Applied History Project

The mission of Harvard’s Applied History Project is to revitalize applied history by promoting the production and use of historical reasoning to clarify public and private challenges and choices. Founded by Professors Graham Allison and Niall Ferguson in 2016, the Applied History Project builds upon the foundation laid by Professors Ernest May and Richard Neustadt in the 1980s, reflected in their book Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers. 

Advancing its mission, the Project sponsors the Applied History Working Group of faculty members across Harvard University to organize discussions with scholars and practitioners; supports historians and policymakers in producing Applied History; develops courses in Applied History; funds the Ernest May Fellowships in History and Policy for pre- and post-doctoral students; and holds Applied History Events open to the Harvard Community and the public. Harvard’s project is one of the leaders among a rapidly expanding network of universities and think tanks that are furthering the discipline of Applied History by clarifying predicaments and choices to inform better decisions.

The Project gratefully acknowledges the Stanton Foundation's generous support for its Applied History endeavors. 

Quote of the Week 

“It is essential, above all, that in making history we do not forget to learn by history, to see our mistakes as well as our successes, our weaknesses as well as our strengths.” – Eleanor Roosevelt, Tomorrow Is Now: It Is Today That We Must Create the World of the Future (1963)

(More Quotes ») 

Article of the Week 

“We Need to Know History, Especially Now” – Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal, September 4, 2025.

Noonan spotlights a new collection of posthumous essays, History Matters, by renowned historian David McCullough, whose core message was that history “imparts ‘a sense of navigation,’ a new realization of what we’ve been through and are made of.” For Noonan, who laments that politicians “now routinely say and do things in our public life that are at odds with our history, that are unlike us,” the past is an essential reminder of “what we don’t do” as a functioning Republic. “You don’t want to live in the past,” she writes, “but you do want to bring the best of the past into the present.”