Welcome to the Web Page of the History Department at the University of Miami!

      With this brief introductory letter let me thank you for visiting our website and give you a quick overview of our program, our objectives and goals, and a little taste of the excitement that animates our program here at the University of Miami. We pride ourselves on being a small, high quality program that provides first-rate teaching for both undergraduate and graduate students; an active collection of scholars who are doing cutting edge research and publishing important work of wide-ranging interest; and a collegial group that enjoys working with our students, fellow scholars, and the broader community to make history come alive and enrich our culture and our lives.

      At Miami our classes are small and we have the opportunity to work closely with students at all levels from broad ranging introductory courses to graduate seminars. One advantage of those close working relationships is that we pride ourselves on not just imparting knowledge, but stimulating students to think critically. For history with its study of how people function in complex social and cultural environments that change over time is an ideal discipline for honing the skills necessary to think clearly and critically – the kind of critical thinking that allows one not only to be a good historian, but also a good lawyer, doctor, politician, business person or simply a thoughtful, cultured, engaged adult. Thus we stress a slightly different three Rs – reading and writing of course, but also reasoning – and we are very proud of the results. Our students have gone on to become teachers at all levels from kindergarten to research university professors in the US and abroad, but many have also become lawyers, doctors, politicians, business leaders and, most importantly, cultured, thoughtful people. We like to think that we make history at UM literally by helping to form the people who lead our society and enrich it with their intellectual range, vision and critical thinking.

      When one turns to research and publishing our department is definitely making history. Even with a faculty of only twenty-one (that will grow to the mid-twenties over the next few years) we have still published over sixty volumes – with some of the most prestigious presses nationally and internationally (including Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Chicago, California, Blackwell, etc.) and dozens of articles with the most cutting edge journals in the field. Reflecting these accomplishments and aiding them, three members of our department have won the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim fellowship and we have also been awarded a host of other major research awards including National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, Fulbright Fellowships (for both our faculty and our graduate students), American Philosophical Society Fellowships, and invitations to numerous research centers in the US and abroad. The department has been particularly active publishing on issues of race, gender and urban development in modern America; culture, sex, and society in the early modern world (including the Americas); Latin America and Caribbean social history both in the colonial and modern periods; politics, economy and culture in modern Europe; warfare in ancient China; and the African Diaspora and its economic and social impact.

      Yet perhaps the hardest positive feature of our department to measure is the most important. Walking our halls, pausing for a coffee in our lounge, dropping by the departmental offices, one repeatedly encounters knots of students and faculty – from all over the world – involved in conversation: earnest, quiet, excited, laughing, lively, and thoughtful. A similar lively collegiality infuses departmental functions, whether they are the periodic visits of noted colleagues from around the world who come to discuss their ideas and research, our own more or less formal discussions of our research, or simply the periodic celebrations that mark out the academic calendar. As historians we work a great deal on our own, late into the night and/or early in the morning. But supporting and enriching that solitary labor, we enjoy a rare community of colleagues, students, and friends (including the Friends of History, a formal support group made up of alumni and supporters of the department). Together we all share the pleasures and the excitement of making history at UM.

      I hope that your visit to our website will give you some sense of that excitement, at least until you can visit our department in person. Quickly, but with my best,

Guido Ruggiero

Professor and Chair

Department of History

University of Miami