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

“Living in history builds your own shock absorber, because you’ll learn that there are lots of old solutions to new problems.” – General James Mattis, Call Sign Chaos (2019)

(More Quotes »)

Article of the Week

“A Surprising Historical Figure Offers a Lesson for Elon Musk and the Dept. of Government Efficiency” – Laura Ellyn Smith, TIME, December 3, 2024. 

Recommending the incoming Trump administration to look back to a “far less remembered” predecessor, Smith writes that “the key to the success of Musk and Ramaswamy’s effort might be how well they learn from [William Howard] Taft’s push to make government more efficient.” Taft’s goals were not unlike Trump’s, including “cutting waste” and “expanding executive power,” but Taft “recognized that the government — and the challenges facing the U.S. — had grown far beyond the point at which a President could micromanage affairs.” Ultimately, “Taft was less concerned about the number of employees in a particular department than in streamlining work, installing the best people, and ensuring that his secretaries had removed redundancies.”