The Middlebury History Department offers courses that aim at the broadest geographical and thematic diversity.
Whether you are interested in the drama of the American Civil War, women heretics in Medieval Europe, the environmental impact of colonialism in Africa, the rise of Islamic empires, the shaping of Brazilian culture, or the ideology of the Chinese Revolution, you will find it here. History is essential to all knowledge because everything has a past.
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History majors at Middlebury learn to craft arguments and tell stories based on primary and secondary documents from geographical regions and peoples from across the globe. All majors take courses in a variety of fields and familiarize themselves with different ways of interpreting the past.
Are you curious about the world you live in and how it came to be? Do you wonder how the past informs and shapes the present? If you love written narratives and complex stories that unfold from a book, in a 19th-century diary, or on ancient parchment, and if you have a particular interest—in warfare, the environment, inequality, national identity, or politics—you will find all that and more here.
Our faculty members combine a deep commitment to teaching with active scholarly research that keeps them up-to-date in their areas of specialization. They also specialize in different approaches to history, from social, political and intellectual to environmental, ethnic, and gender, including the history of science, medicine, and technology.
With the exception of upper-level 400-level courses, there are no prerequisites to courses in the History Department, and course numbers reflect fields of study, not degrees of difficulty. There are numerous opportunities to dig deeply into what interests you.
Explore CoursesOur students graduate from the department having learned the basic skills of historical analysis and writing through a variety of lecture and seminar courses, as well as through extended research projects. History majors go on to careers in a wide variety of areas, from law and finance to teaching and international service, medicine, science, and the digital economy.
