Division of History and Social Sciences

History majors at Reed develop a broad range of analytical skills in order to better understand the legacy—conscious or unconscious—that each present has inherited from its past and the many perspectives one can have on those legacies. The department offers courses that cover a variety of periods and areas of study. Rather than focusing on specific coverage of conventional fields, however, the program exposes students to the diversity of approaches to studying the past, including social, intellectual, economic, cultural, gender, legal, and imperial, with the aim of developing students’ abilities to conduct independent inquiry and craft their own analytical and critical interpretations of the past. Faculty areas of research include, amongst others, modern Europe; revolutionary-era France and Europe; colonial and revolutionary America; nineteenth-century United States; Middle Eastern and Ottoman history; U.S. women’s history; environmental history; Native American history; modern China and Japan; Latin America; Russia, and the history of science.