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 

“Here we are on top of the world. We have arrived at this peak to stay there forever. There is, of course, this thing called history. But history is something unpleasant that happens to other people.” – Arnold Toynbee, recalling the 1897 diamond jubilee celebration of Queen Victoria 

(More Quotes ») 

Article of the Week 

“History Repeats in Iran” by Gerard Baker, The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2026. 

The US decided to attack Iran in February “based on a bleakly familiar combination of misjudgments,” Baker argues. Just like George W. Bush in Iraq, Trump has underestimated the enemy’s capabilities and will to resist while overestimating the US’s will to complete the war it started. Baker perceives “wild oscillations between overconfidence and hypercaution” in US foreign policy since George H.W. Bush: Clinton’s “pusillanimous response to al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks” in Africa and the Middle East, then Bush’s invasion of Iraq, then Obama’s “diffidence” regarding Syria’s use of chemical weapons. Baker ends with a question for Applied Historians: “What are we to make of those who seemed to have learned the lessons and then went and repeated the mistakes anyway?”