“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
– George Santayana, The Life of Reason (1905-06)
Everything that exists in the present has come out of the past, and no matter how new and unique something may seem to be, it carries with it a legacy of the past. Therefore the more we understand about the past the more we will know about the present.
The Department of History aims to provide students with a broad range of courses reflecting the growing diversity of this discipline. Some courses survey specific areas of the world, some focus on particular issues or time periods. All courses are designed both for students who will pursue this discipline at the university level and those for whom the study of history will simply be useful as a way of understanding the contemporary world.
