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 

“One is apt to perish in politics from too much memory.” – Alexis de Tocqueville

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Article of the Week 

“Gordon S. Wood, a Historian Who Loved America” by Jack Butler (deputy editor, Free Expression) in The Wall Street Journal 

Butler remembers leading US historian Gordon Wood, “who did more than any other academic, and perhaps more than anyone in the past 50 years, to sustain the memory and importance of the Revolution and its principles.” Wood’s scholarship not only demonstrated the Revolution’s “radicalism” but also illuminated its contemporary relevance: “he called ‘all men are created equal,’ that famous coinage of the Declaration, the words that ‘came to define America’s culture.’” Butler describes Wood’s work as an important antidote to amnesia and the politicization of America’s past.