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 

“He who sees the past as surprise-free is bound to have a future full of surprises.” – Amos Tversky, quoted in Michael Lewis, The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds (2016) 

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Article of the Week 

“How a Cease-Fire Can Lead to Disaster” by Daniel Chardell and Samuel Helfont, Foreign Affairs, April 9, 2026.

Chardell and Helfont advise Trump to strike a deal with Iran that creates a credible path for normalization. They argue, “The critical error that Bush and Clinton committed in the 1990s was failing to come to terms with Saddam’s regime even after it had complied with American demands.” Unwilling to seek a diplomatic settlement but lacking a viable plan for overthrowing Saddam, the US became a “regional police,” a permanent role it had hoped to avoid in 1991. “If the United States is to avoid repeating past mistakes,” they write, “its greatest challenge will lie not in wielding military power but in learning to live with a settlement that leaves the Iranian regime in place.”