Research

Think you know the story of the American Revolution? Think again. In this episode, acclaimed author and history professor Richard Bell discusses his book "The American Revolution and the Fate of the World,” where he dismantles the myths and explores the shocking global story behind America's founding. Forget the simple tale of colonists vs. the British crown. Bell reveals the Revolution as a world war, a chaotic and contingent struggle whose outcome was never certain. We dive into the fascinating, often overlooked connections to China, India and the Caribbean, and uncover the critical roles played by Native Americans, enslaved Africans and European powers.

Listen to Richard Bell on "Coming From Left Field"

In September 2025, Piotr Kosicki published an article (co-authored with Sylwia Kuzma-Markowska from Warsaw, the Department of History's 2024-25 Fulbright Visiting Scholar) in Comparative Studies in Society and History entitled "Brokering Right-to-Life: Poland and the Transnational Entanglements of Catholic Pro-Life Activism, from Santiago to Washington to Gdańsk, 1970s–1990s."

This episode aired just before Richard Bell published the historical page-turner “The American Revolution and the Fate of the World.” It looks at the war American rebels declared in 1776 as a global conflict -- basically a world war, even if it wasn’t called that.

Listen to Richard Bell on “On the Record”

The completion of the Panama Canal in 1914 positioned the United States as a global power, but the U.S. didn’t complete the feat single-handedly. It required land from Panama, equipment and information from the failed earlier effort by the French, and, importantly, tens of thousands of laborers from around the Caribbean. Decades later the Panamanians finally gained control of the canal zone and then the canal itself, but the labor – and sacrifice – of the Afro-Caribbean workers still deserves greater recognition.
 

Listen to Julie Greene on 'Unsung History'

Rape in Period Drama Television considers the representation of rape and rape myths in a number of the most influential recent television period dramas. Like the corset, has become a shorthand for women's oppression in the past. Sexual violence has long been, and still is, commonplace in television period drama, often used to add authenticity and realism to shows or as a sensationalist means of chasing ratings. However, the authors illustrate that the depiction of rape is more than a mere reminder that the past was a dangerous place for women (and some men). In these series, they argue, rape functions as a kind of “anti-heritage” device that dispels the nostalgia usually associated with period television and reflects back on the current cultural moment, in which the #MeToo and #Timesup movement have increased awareness of the prevalence of sexual abuse, but in which legal and political processes have not yet caught up. In doing so, Rape in Period Drama Television sets out to explore the assumptions and beliefs which audiences continue to hold about rape, rapists, and victims.

Piotr Kosicki  recently had his article published in the Journal of the History of Ideas. Titled "Channeling Erasmus in Communist Poland: Leszek Kołakowski, Vatican II, and the Reinvention of 'Counter-Reformation'", this article appears in Issue one of Volume eighty-five. You can access the issue in which this article was published HERE.

The official publication date for Jeffrey Herf's Three Faces of Antisemitism: Right, Left, and Islamist is December 22, 2023. Published by Routledge/Taylor and Francis, the voume is a collection of essays written by Jeffrey over the past 40 years. A few are old, most are revised and some are new.  Here is the link to the book webpage with table of contents and pre-publication comments HERE.

It appears in a series, "Studies in Contemporary Antisemitism" from the new London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. Link to that series HERE.

Antoine Borrut demonstrates that a robust culture of historical writing existed in 2nd-8th centuries Syria and offers new methodological approaches to access this now-lost history.

You can find more about the book HERE.

Zachary Dorner has authored two pieces in the most recent issue of History of Science (Vol. 61 No. 4), a special issue of the journal devoted to defining science as work and connecting the histories of science and labor.

The first, an article, recovers enslaved and otherwise precarious workers in the eighteenth-century pharmaceutical trade to consider the range of labor just below the surface of the commercial archive of pharmacy (plus the implications for histories of science, labor, and slavery). You can find it HERE.

Zachary Dorner has authored two pieces in the most recent issue of History of Science (Vol. 61 No. 4), a special issue of the journal devoted to defining science as work and connecting the histories of science and labor.

The second, a co-authored syllabus, proposes one way to teach the history of invisible labor in science, either intentionally or unintentionally hidden from the historical record. Each author brought a unique perspective and set of experiences to the syllabus which gives it quite a bit of breadth and theoretical heft. You can find it HERE.