example of history research paper

Handbook for Historians

• Choosing a Paper Topic
• Thesis Statement
• What Sources Can I use?
• Gathering sources
• Find Primary Sources
• Paraphrasing and Quoting Sources
• How to create an Annotated Bibliography
• Formatting Endnotes/Footnotes
• Formatting Bibliographies
• Avoiding Plagiarism

Sample History Papers

Sample title pages, outlines, & citations.

• Research Paper Checklist

These are examples of well written, properly cited history papers.

• Sample Paper with Outline
• Judge and Langdon Book Review/Research Paper - Example 1
• Judge and Langdon Book Review/Research Paper - Example 2
• citation presentation
• HST 302 Paper Example example of a paper for upper division History courses
• HST 302 Title Page
• Outline Example Example of an outline for a first year level history paper.
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• Last Updated: Apr 15, 2024 10:08 AM
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How to Write a History Research Paper

• How do I pick a topic?
• But I can’t find any material…

Research Guide

Writing guide.

See also: How to Write a Good History Essay

1. How do I pick a topic?

Picking a topic is perhaps the most important step in writing a research paper. To do it well requires several steps of refinement. First you have to determine a general area in which you have an interest (if you aren’t interested, your readers won’t be either). You do not write a paper “about the Civil War,” however, for that is such a large and vague concept that the paper will be too shallow or you will be swamped with information. The next step is to narrow your topic. Are you interested in comparison? battles? social change? politics? causes? biography? Once you reach this stage try to formulate your research topic as a question. For example, suppose that you decide to write a paper on the use of the films of the 1930’s and what they can tell historians about the Great Depression. You might turn that into the following question: “What are the primary values expressed in films of the 1930’s?” Or you might ask a quite different question, “What is the standard of living portrayed in films of the 1930’s?” There are other questions, of course, which you could have asked, but these two clearly illustrate how different two papers on the same general subject might be. By asking yourself a question as a means of starting research on a topic you will help yourself find the answers. You also open the door to loading the evidence one way or another. It will help you decide what kinds of evidence might be pertinent to your question, and it can also twist perceptions of a topic. For example, if you ask a question about economics as motivation, you are not likely to learn much about ideals, and vice versa.

2. But I can’t find any material…

No one should pick a topic without trying to figure out how one could discover pertinent information, nor should anyone settle on a topic before getting some background information about the general area. These two checks should make sure your paper is in the realm of the possible. The trick of good research is detective work and imaginative thinking on how one can find information. First try to figure out what kinds of things you should know about a topic to answer your research question. Are there statistics? Do you need personal letters? What background information should be included? Then if you do not know how to find that particular kind of information, ASK . A reference librarian or professor is much more likely to be able to steer you to the right sources if you can ask a specific question such as “Where can I find statistics on the number of interracial marriages?” than if you say “What can you find on racial attitudes?”

Use the footnotes and bibliographies of general background books as well as reference aids to lead you to special studies. If Carleton does not have the books or sources you need, try ordering through the library minitex. Many sources are also available on-line.

As your research paper takes shape you will find that you need background on people, places, events, etc. Do not just rely on some general survey for all of your background. Check the several good dictionaries of biography for background on people, or see if there is a standard book-length biography. If you are dealing with a legal matter check into the background of the judges who make the court decision and the circumstances surrounding the original incident or law. Try looking for public opinions in newspapers of the time. In other words, each bit of information you find should open the possibility of other research paths.

Learn to use several research techniques. You cannot count on a good research paper coming from browsing on one shelf at the library. A really pertinent book may be hidden in another section of the library due to classification quirks. The Readers’ Guide (Ref. A13 .R4) is not the only source for magazine articles, nor the card catalog for books. There are whole books which are listings of other books on particular topics. There are specialized indexes of magazine articles. Modern History Journals are indexed in the Social Studies and Humanities Index (Ref. A13 .R282) before 1976 After 1976 use the Social Sciences Index (REF A13 .S62) and the Humanities Index (Ref. A13 .H85). See also Historical Abstracts (Ref. D1 .H5). Reference Librarians would love to help you learn to use these research tools. It pays to browse in the reference room at the library and poke into the guides which are on the shelves. It also pays to browse the Internet.

3. Help! How do I put this together?

A. preliminary research:.

If you do not already have a general background on your topic, get the most recent good general source on the topic and read it for general orientation. On the basis of that reading formulate as clearly focused question as you can. You should generally discuss with your professor at that point whether your question is a feasible one.

B. Building a Basic Bibliography:

Use the bibliography/notes in your first general source, MUSE, and especially Historical Abstracts on cd-rom in the Library Reading Room (the computer farthest to the left in the front row as you walk past the Reference Desk — or ask there). If there is a specialized bibliography on your topic, you will certainly want to consult that as well, but these are often a bit dated.

C. Building a Full Bibliography:

Read the recent articles or chapters that seem to focus on your topic best. This will allow you to focus your research question quite a bit. Use the sources cited and/or discussed in this reading to build a full bibliography. Use such tools as Historical Abstracts (or, depending on your topic, the abstracts from a different field) and a large, convenient computer-based national library catalog (e.g. the University of California system from the “Libs” command in your VAX account or the smaller University of Minnesota library through MUSE) to check out your sources fully. For specific article searches “Uncover” (press returns for the “open access”) or possibly (less likely for history) “First Search” through “Connect to Other Resources” in MUSE can also be useful.

D. Major Research:

Now do the bulk of your research. But do not overdo it. Do not fall into the trap of reading and reading to avoid getting started on the writing. After you have the bulk of information you might need, start writing. You can fill in the smaller gaps of your research more effectively later.

A. Outline:

Write a preliminary thesis statement, expressing what you believe your major argument(s) will be. Sketch out a broad outline that indicates the structure — main points and subpoints or your argument as it seems at this time. Do not get too detailed at this point.

B. The First Draft:

On the basis of this thesis statement and outline, start writing, even pieces, as soon as you have enough information to start. Do not wait until you have filled all the research gaps. Keep on writing. If you run into smaller research questions just mark the text with a searchable symbol. It is important that you try to get to the end point of this writing as soon as possible, even if you leave pieces still in outline form at first and then fill the gaps after you get to the end.

Critical advice for larger papers: It is often more effective not to start at the point where the beginning of your paper will be. Especially the introductory paragraph is often best left until later, when you feel ready and inspired.

C. The Second Draft:

The “second draft” is a fully re-thought and rewritten version of your paper. It is at the heart of the writing process.

First, lay your first draft aside for a day or so to gain distance from it. After that break, read it over with a critical eye as you would somebody else’s paper (well, almost!). You will probably find that your first draft is still quite descriptive, rather than argumentative. It is likely to wander; your perspective and usually even the thesis seemed to change/develop as you wrote. Don’t despair. That is perfectly normal even for experienced writers (even after 40 years and a good deal of published work!). You will be frustrated. But keep questioning your paper along the following lines: What precisely are my key questions? What parts of my evidence here are really pertinent to those questions (that is, does it help me answer them)? How or in what order can I structure my paper most effectively to answer those questions most clearly and efficiently for my reader?

At this point you must outline your paper freshly. Mark up your first draft, ask tough questions whether your argument is clear and whether the order in which you present your points is effective! You must write conceptually a new paper at this point, even if you can use paragraphs and especially quotes, factual data in the new draft.

It is critical that in your new draft your paragraphs start with topic sentences that identify the argument you will be making in the particular paragraph (sometimes this can be strings of two or three paragraphs). The individual steps in your argument must be clearly reflected in the topic sentences of your paragraphs (or a couple of them linked).

D. The Third or Final Draft:

You are now ready to check for basic rules of good writing. This is when you need to check the diction, that is, the accuracy and suitability of words. Eliminate unnecessary passive or awkward noun constructions (active-voice, verbal constructions are usually more effective); improve the flow of your transitions; avoid repetitions or split infinitives; correct apostrophes in possessives and such. Make the style clear and smooth. Check that the start of your paper is interesting for the reader. Last but not least, cut out unnecessary verbiage and wordiness. Spell-check and proof-read.

– Diethelm Prowe, 1998

Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research

How to Write a History Research Paper

In my last post, I shared some tips on how to conduct research in history and emphasized that researchers should keep in mind a source’s category (transcript, court document, speech, etc.). This post is something of a sequel to that, as I will share some thoughts on what often follows primary-source research: a history research paper. 

1. Background Reading   The first step to a history research paper is of course, background reading and research. In the context of a class assignment, “background reading” might simply be course readings or lectures, but for independent work, this step will likely involve some quality time on your own in the library. During the background reading phase of your project, keep an eye out for intriguing angles to approach your topic from and any trends that you see across sources (both primary and secondary).

2. T hemes and Context Recounting the simple facts about your topic alone will not make for a successful research paper. One must grasp both the details of events as well as the larger, thematic context of the time period in which they occurred. What’s the scholarly consensus about these themes? Does that consensus seem right to you, after having done primary and secondary research of your own?

3. Develop an Argument  Grappling with answers to the above questions will get you thinking about your emerging argument. For shorter papers, you might identify a gap in the scholarship or come up with an argumentative response to a class prompt rather quickly. Remember: as an undergraduate, you don’t have to come up with (to borrow Philosophy Professor Gideon Rosen’s phrase) ‘a blindingly original theory of everything.’ In other words, finding a nuanced thesis does not mean you have to disprove some famous scholar’s work in its entirety. But, if you’re having trouble defining your thesis, I encourage you not to worry; talk to your professor, preceptor, or, if appropriate, a friend. These people can listen to your ideas, and the simple act of talking about your paper can often go a long way in helping you realize what you want to write about.

4. Outline Your Argument  With a history paper specifically, one is often writing about a sequence of events and trying to tell a story about what happened. Roughly speaking, your thesis is your interpretation of these events, or your take on some aspect of them (i.e. the role of women in New Deal programs). Before opening up Word, I suggest writing down the stages of your argument. Then, outline or organize your notes to know what evidence you’ll use in each of these various stages. If you think your evidence is solid, then you’re probably ready to start writing—and you now have a solid roadmap to work from! But, if this step is proving difficult, you might want to gather more evidence or go back to the thesis drawing board and look for a better angle. I often find myself somewhere between these two extremes (being 100% ready to write or staring at a sparse outline), but that’s also helpful, because it gives me a better idea of where my argument needs strengthening.

5. Prepare Yourself   Once you have some sort of direction for the paper (i.e. a working thesis), you’re getting close to the fun part—the writing itself. Gather your laptop, your research materials/notes, and some snacks, and get ready to settle in to write your paper, following your argument outline. As mentioned in the photo caption, I suggest utilizing large library tables to spread out your notes. This way, you don’t have to constantly flip through binders, notebooks, and printed drafts.

In addition to this step by step approach, I’ll leave you with a few last general tips for approaching a history research paper. Overall, set reasonable goals for your project, and remember that a seemingly daunting task can be broken down into the above constituent phases. And, if nothing else, know that you’ll end up with a nice Word document full of aesthetically pleasing footnotes!

— Shanon FitzGerald, Social Sciences Correspondent

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How to write an introduction for a history essay

Every essay needs to begin with an introductory paragraph. It needs to be the first paragraph the marker reads.

While your introduction paragraph might be the first of the paragraphs you write, this is not the only way to do it.

You can choose to write your introduction after you have written the rest of your essay.

This way, you will know what you have argued, and this might make writing the introduction easier.

Either approach is fine. If you do write your introduction first, ensure that you go back and refine it once you have completed your essay. 

What is an ‘introduction paragraph’?

An introductory paragraph is a single paragraph at the start of your essay that prepares your reader for the argument you are going to make in your body paragraphs .

It should provide all of the necessary historical information about your topic and clearly state your argument so that by the end of the paragraph, the marker knows how you are going to structure the rest of your essay.

In general, you should never use quotes from sources in your introduction.

Introduction paragraph structure

While your introduction paragraph does not have to be as long as your body paragraphs , it does have a specific purpose, which you must fulfil.

A well-written introduction paragraph has the following four-part structure (summarised by the acronym BHES).

B – Background sentences

H – Hypothesis

E – Elaboration sentences

S - Signpost sentence

Each of these elements are explained in further detail, with examples, below:

1. Background sentences

The first two or three sentences of your introduction should provide a general introduction to the historical topic which your essay is about. This is done so that when you state your hypothesis , your reader understands the specific point you are arguing about.

Background sentences explain the important historical period, dates, people, places, events and concepts that will be mentioned later in your essay. This information should be drawn from your background research . 

Example background sentences:

Middle Ages (Year 8 Level)

Castles were an important component of Medieval Britain from the time of the Norman conquest in 1066 until they were phased out in the 15 th and 16 th centuries. Initially introduced as wooden motte and bailey structures on geographical strongpoints, they were rapidly replaced by stone fortresses which incorporated sophisticated defensive designs to improve the defenders’ chances of surviving prolonged sieges.

WWI (Year 9 Level)

The First World War began in 1914 following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The subsequent declarations of war from most of Europe drew other countries into the conflict, including Australia. The Australian Imperial Force joined the war as part of Britain’s armed forces and were dispatched to locations in the Middle East and Western Europe.

Civil Rights (Year 10 Level)

The 1967 Referendum sought to amend the Australian Constitution in order to change the legal standing of the indigenous people in Australia. The fact that 90% of Australians voted in favour of the proposed amendments has been attributed to a series of significant events and people who were dedicated to the referendum’s success.

Ancient Rome (Year 11/12 Level)  

In the late second century BC, the Roman novus homo Gaius Marius became one of the most influential men in the Roman Republic. Marius gained this authority through his victory in the Jugurthine War, with his defeat of Jugurtha in 106 BC, and his triumph over the invading Germanic tribes in 101 BC, when he crushed the Teutones at the Battle of Aquae Sextiae (102 BC) and the Cimbri at the Battle of Vercellae (101 BC). Marius also gained great fame through his election to the consulship seven times.

2. Hypothesis

Once you have provided historical context for your essay in your background sentences, you need to state your hypothesis .

A hypothesis is a single sentence that clearly states the argument that your essay will be proving in your body paragraphs .

A good hypothesis contains both the argument and the reasons in support of your argument. 

Example hypotheses:

Medieval castles were designed with features that nullified the superior numbers of besieging armies but were ultimately made obsolete by the development of gunpowder artillery.

Australian soldiers’ opinion of the First World War changed from naïve enthusiasm to pessimistic realism as a result of the harsh realities of modern industrial warfare.

The success of the 1967 Referendum was a direct result of the efforts of First Nations leaders such as Charles Perkins, Faith Bandler and the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

Gaius Marius was the most one of the most significant personalities in the 1 st century BC due to his effect on the political, military and social structures of the Roman state.

3. Elaboration sentences

Once you have stated your argument in your hypothesis , you need to provide particular information about how you’re going to prove your argument.

Your elaboration sentences should be one or two sentences that provide specific details about how you’re going to cover the argument in your three body paragraphs.

You might also briefly summarise two or three of your main points.

Finally, explain any important key words, phrases or concepts that you’ve used in your hypothesis, you’ll need to do this in your elaboration sentences.

Example elaboration sentences:

By the height of the Middle Ages, feudal lords were investing significant sums of money by incorporating concentric walls and guard towers to maximise their defensive potential. These developments were so successful that many medieval armies avoided sieges in the late period.

Following Britain's official declaration of war on Germany, young Australian men voluntarily enlisted into the army, which was further encouraged by government propaganda about the moral justifications for the conflict. However, following the initial engagements on the Gallipoli peninsula, enthusiasm declined.

The political activity of key indigenous figures and the formation of activism organisations focused on indigenous resulted in a wider spread of messages to the general Australian public. The generation of powerful images and speeches has been frequently cited by modern historians as crucial to the referendum results.

While Marius is best known for his military reforms, it is the subsequent impacts of this reform on the way other Romans approached the attainment of magistracies and how public expectations of military leaders changed that had the longest impacts on the late republican period.

4. Signpost sentence

The final sentence of your introduction should prepare the reader for the topic of your first body paragraph. The main purpose of this sentence is to provide cohesion between your introductory paragraph and you first body paragraph .

Therefore, a signpost sentence indicates where you will begin proving the argument that you set out in your hypothesis and usually states the importance of the first point that you’re about to make. 

Example signpost sentences:

The early development of castles is best understood when examining their military purpose.

The naïve attitudes of those who volunteered in 1914 can be clearly seen in the personal letters and diaries that they themselves wrote.

The significance of these people is evident when examining the lack of political representation the indigenous people experience in the early half of the 20 th century.

The origin of Marius’ later achievements was his military reform in 107 BC, which occurred when he was first elected as consul.

Putting it all together

Once you have written all four parts of the BHES structure, you should have a completed introduction paragraph. In the examples above, we have shown each part separately. Below you will see the completed paragraphs so that you can appreciate what an introduction should look like.

Example introduction paragraphs: 

Castles were an important component of Medieval Britain from the time of the Norman conquest in 1066 until they were phased out in the 15th and 16th centuries. Initially introduced as wooden motte and bailey structures on geographical strongpoints, they were rapidly replaced by stone fortresses which incorporated sophisticated defensive designs to improve the defenders’ chances of surviving prolonged sieges. Medieval castles were designed with features that nullified the superior numbers of besieging armies, but were ultimately made obsolete by the development of gunpowder artillery. By the height of the Middle Ages, feudal lords were investing significant sums of money by incorporating concentric walls and guard towers to maximise their defensive potential. These developments were so successful that many medieval armies avoided sieges in the late period. The early development of castles is best understood when examining their military purpose.

The First World War began in 1914 following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The subsequent declarations of war from most of Europe drew other countries into the conflict, including Australia. The Australian Imperial Force joined the war as part of Britain’s armed forces and were dispatched to locations in the Middle East and Western Europe. Australian soldiers’ opinion of the First World War changed from naïve enthusiasm to pessimistic realism as a result of the harsh realities of modern industrial warfare. Following Britain's official declaration of war on Germany, young Australian men voluntarily enlisted into the army, which was further encouraged by government propaganda about the moral justifications for the conflict. However, following the initial engagements on the Gallipoli peninsula, enthusiasm declined. The naïve attitudes of those who volunteered in 1914 can be clearly seen in the personal letters and diaries that they themselves wrote.

The 1967 Referendum sought to amend the Australian Constitution in order to change the legal standing of the indigenous people in Australia. The fact that 90% of Australians voted in favour of the proposed amendments has been attributed to a series of significant events and people who were dedicated to the referendum’s success. The success of the 1967 Referendum was a direct result of the efforts of First Nations leaders such as Charles Perkins, Faith Bandler and the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. The political activity of key indigenous figures and the formation of activism organisations focused on indigenous resulted in a wider spread of messages to the general Australian public. The generation of powerful images and speeches has been frequently cited by modern historians as crucial to the referendum results. The significance of these people is evident when examining the lack of political representation the indigenous people experience in the early half of the 20th century.

In the late second century BC, the Roman novus homo Gaius Marius became one of the most influential men in the Roman Republic. Marius gained this authority through his victory in the Jugurthine War, with his defeat of Jugurtha in 106 BC, and his triumph over the invading Germanic tribes in 101 BC, when he crushed the Teutones at the Battle of Aquae Sextiae (102 BC) and the Cimbri at the Battle of Vercellae (101 BC). Marius also gained great fame through his election to the consulship seven times. Gaius Marius was the most one of the most significant personalities in the 1st century BC due to his effect on the political, military and social structures of the Roman state. While Marius is best known for his military reforms, it is the subsequent impacts of this reform on the way other Romans approached the attainment of magistracies and how public expectations of military leaders changed that had the longest impacts on the late republican period. The origin of Marius’ later achievements was his military reform in 107 BC, which occurred when he was first elected as consul.

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Thesis Statements

What is a thesis statement.

Your thesis statement is one of the most important parts of your paper.  It expresses your main argument succinctly and explains why your argument is historically significant.  Think of your thesis as a promise you make to your reader about what your paper will argue.  Then, spend the rest of your paper–each body paragraph–fulfilling that promise.

Your thesis should be between one and three sentences long and is placed at the end of your introduction.  Just because the thesis comes towards the beginning of your paper does not mean you can write it first and then forget about it.  View your thesis as a work in progress while you write your paper.  Once you are satisfied with the overall argument your paper makes, go back to your thesis and see if it captures what you have argued.  If it does not, then revise it.  Crafting a good thesis is one of the most challenging parts of the writing process, so do not expect to perfect it on the first few tries.  Successful writers revise their thesis statements again and again.

A successful thesis statement:

• makes an historical argument
• takes a position that requires defending
• is historically specific
• is focused and precise
• answers the question, “so what?”

How to write a thesis statement:

Suppose you are taking an early American history class and your professor has distributed the following essay prompt:

“Historians have debated the American Revolution’s effect on women.  Some argue that the Revolution had a positive effect because it increased women’s authority in the family.  Others argue that it had a negative effect because it excluded women from politics.  Still others argue that the Revolution changed very little for women, as they remained ensconced in the home.  Write a paper in which you pose your own answer to the question of whether the American Revolution had a positive, negative, or limited effect on women.”

Using this prompt, we will look at both weak and strong thesis statements to see how successful thesis statements work.

While this thesis does take a position, it is problematic because it simply restates the prompt.  It needs to be more specific about how  the Revolution had a limited effect on women and  why it mattered that women remained in the home.

Revised Thesis:  The Revolution wrought little political change in the lives of women because they did not gain the right to vote or run for office.  Instead, women remained firmly in the home, just as they had before the war, making their day-to-day lives look much the same.

This revision is an improvement over the first attempt because it states what standards the writer is using to measure change (the right to vote and run for office) and it shows why women remaining in the home serves as evidence of limited change (because their day-to-day lives looked the same before and after the war).  However, it still relies too heavily on the information given in the prompt, simply saying that women remained in the home.  It needs to make an argument about some element of the war’s limited effect on women.  This thesis requires further revision.

Strong Thesis: While the Revolution presented women unprecedented opportunities to participate in protest movements and manage their family’s farms and businesses, it ultimately did not offer lasting political change, excluding women from the right to vote and serve in office.

Few would argue with the idea that war brings upheaval.  Your thesis needs to be debatable:  it needs to make a claim against which someone could argue.  Your job throughout the paper is to provide evidence in support of your own case.  Here is a revised version:

Strong Thesis: The Revolution caused particular upheaval in the lives of women.  With men away at war, women took on full responsibility for running households, farms, and businesses.  As a result of their increased involvement during the war, many women were reluctant to give up their new-found responsibilities after the fighting ended.

Sexism is a vague word that can mean different things in different times and places.  In order to answer the question and make a compelling argument, this thesis needs to explain exactly what  attitudes toward women were in early America, and  how those attitudes negatively affected women in the Revolutionary period.

Strong Thesis: The Revolution had a negative impact on women because of the belief that women lacked the rational faculties of men. In a nation that was to be guided by reasonable republican citizens, women were imagined to have no place in politics and were thus firmly relegated to the home.

This thesis addresses too large of a topic for an undergraduate paper.  The terms “social,” “political,” and “economic” are too broad and vague for the writer to analyze them thoroughly in a limited number of pages.  The thesis might focus on one of those concepts, or it might narrow the emphasis to some specific features of social, political, and economic change.

Strong Thesis: The Revolution paved the way for important political changes for women.  As “Republican Mothers,” women contributed to the polity by raising future citizens and nurturing virtuous husbands.  Consequently, women played a far more important role in the new nation’s politics than they had under British rule.

This thesis is off to a strong start, but it needs to go one step further by telling the reader why changes in these three areas mattered.  How did the lives of women improve because of developments in education, law, and economics?  What were women able to do with these advantages?  Obviously the rest of the paper will answer these questions, but the thesis statement needs to give some indication of why these particular changes mattered.

Strong Thesis: The Revolution had a positive impact on women because it ushered in improvements in female education, legal standing, and economic opportunity.  Progress in these three areas gave women the tools they needed to carve out lives beyond the home, laying the foundation for the cohesive feminist movement that would emerge in the mid-nineteenth century.

Thesis Checklist

When revising your thesis, check it against the following guidelines:

• Does my thesis make an historical argument?
• Does my thesis take a position that requires defending?
• Is my thesis historically specific?
• Is my thesis focused and precise?
• Does my thesis answer the question, “so what?”

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US History Research Paper

View sample US history research paper. Browse other  research paper examples and check the list of history research paper topics for more inspiration. If you need a history research paper written according to all the academic standards, you can always turn to our experienced writers for help. This is how your paper can get an A! Feel free to contact our custom writing service for professional assistance. We offer high-quality assignments for reasonable rates.

The history of the United States is usually taught and written about as if the nation was self-contained, not part of any larger history than itself. Yet history operates across space as well as through time, and the history of the Americas, including the United States, shares world history from its very beginnings.

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Because the United States is continental in scale and without threatening neighbors, its history is usually focused inward. The most famous continental interpretation of U.S. history is the frontier thesis of Frederick Jackson Turner, popularized as a story of generations of Europeans moving west. The vision of the United States in Turner’s elegant essay of 1893 is deeply embedded in American mythology. Yet Turner was making the point that this westward movement across the continent was coming to an end; the frontier experience would no longer shape American life and values.

Turner offered his larger reflections on modern history and historical method two years earlier when he explained that “we cannot select a stretch of land and say we will limit our study to this land; for local history can only be understood in the light of the history of the world” (quoted in Bender 2006, 12). He was prompted to make this point in the 1890s because global trade and modern means of communications and transportation meant that all nations were, in his phrase, “inextricably connected.” A hundred years later, in the 1990s, when talk about “globalization” and the “Internet” became pervasive, the same idea dawned upon historians: perhaps American history should be thought about and taught in terms of its global connections and the history it shares with the rest of the planet.

In fact, the modern history of the Americas and global history commence at the same time. Both are the result of the same rapid sequence of events, from the voyages of Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama (who established a sea route from Europe to India), and the expedition captained by Ferdinand Magellan that circumnavigated the globe between 1519 and 1521. Within a quarter of a century of the first recorded Atlantic transit, the planet had been encircled by oceanic voyages. The great achievement of this “age of discovery” was not only the discovery of America but, more importantly, what could fairly be called the discovery of the “oceanic world.”

This notion requires some explanation. Before the voyage of Columbus maps had shown the ocean as the outer limit of the world, ringing the Afro-Eurasian landmass that was the known world. The Americas were unknown to the peoples of that world, as the Afro-Eurasian world was unknown to the first peoples of the Western Hemisphere. Jews, Christians, and Muslims shared the Old Testament account of the origins of that world. God had pulled back the ocean to make land for the beginning of the human family, Adam and Eve.

The place that Columbus found and began to explore was first labeled “America” by the German mapmaker Martin Waldseemuller in 1507; his map first showed the hemisphere as separate from Asia. The name, which Waldseemuller wrote over what is today’s northern Brazil, came from Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine who had explored the mouth of the Amazon River in 1499. He called the hemisphere Mundus Novus or “new world.” Educated in the classics, he recognized that the ancients had known nothing of what he saw. But it was new in a different way as well. The ancient Greeks knew that you could sail west from Iberia (Spain) to Asia, except that the ocean was in the way. The discovery that the ocean was not in the way, that it was in fact the connector of all the continents, transformed understanding of the planet. It extended the world to include the oceans as well as the land of the planet, making history global. Rather quickly the new globality entered the literary imagination. A Spanish scholar and writer in 1540 wrote a fantastic account of a journey to the moon, which included a view of the Earth as a globe, prefiguring by centuries the photographic image of the moon made by U.S. astronauts in 1969. The cities, empires, and nations that would develop from the seventeenth century on would be part of global history; their histories could not be wholly separated from that larger history.

The peoples of the world, including the adventurers who established the first settlements in British North America, were worldlier than we usually assume them to have been. Captain John Smith, who rescued from disaster the Jamestown settlement in Virginia, England’s first continental settlement in 1607, is an example. He had seen a good part of the world before he joined the Jamestown project, perhaps somewhat by accident. The usual colonial narrative seems to suggest that his life “abroad” consisted of his few months in Virginia. In fact, that brief experience was embedded in a longer train of experiences in Europe, Central Asia, and Africa that were remarkable but not unique for European adventurers. Smith, who in his teens had gone to the European continent to fight the Catholics, afterward on his return to England met an aristocrat from the former Byzantine Empire. He mentored Smith, making the son of a yeoman into a gentleman. At the age of twenty, he went forth to see the world and to “trie his fortune against the Turks” of the Ottoman Empire, who had recently conquered parts of the Habsburg Empire (Kupperman 2007, 53). He joined the Austrian and Hungarian resistance to the Ottoman armies, learning the art of war, including a command that resulted in the capture of a Hungarian town that had been held by the Ottomans.

His next military adventure, in the service of a Hungarian prince, dragged on in a stalemate, neither side able to mount an effective attack. The Turkish commander proposed that one Christian soldier compete with him one on one to decide the battle. Smith was selected; he beheaded the leader and two subsequent challengers. The Hungarian prince honored him with a Hungarian coat of arms that displayed three heads. In a subsequent battle he was injured, but villagers rescued him and nursed him to health. Then, however, they then sold him into slavery. The noble who bought Smith gave him to his mistress, who became fond of him. To protect him, she sent him to her brother, an Ottoman military officer stationed in the Black Sea region. The officer turned out to be a cruel master, and Smith rebelled, killing the officer. He then fl ed to North Africa, where he met the king of Morocco, who was at that time in correspondence with Queen Elizabeth of England proposing a joint colonization project in the Americas. Smith might have gotten the idea of an American adventure there. At any event, he returned to England and joined the Jamestown project. Does all of this travel and fighting make any difference for American history? Smith thought it had. “Warres in Europe, Asia, and Africa taught me to subdue wilde salvages in Virginia and New England, in America.” (Barbour 1986, 269)

In examining the question of America in the world, this essay does not address the foreign relations of the United States. That is another topic. Here the aim is to show the participation of the United States in world history as part of the common history of the world. It makes the point that the history of the United States is, as Turner suggested, a local example of a larger history that may be global in extent. So the question is whether these larger histories help explain the development of the United States. In fact, major events of American history—and many others besides—cannot be adequately explained other than in part by locating them in world history. For examples, the American Revolution, the Civil War, and Progressivism and the beginnings of the modern welfare state will serve here.

The American Revolution

We usually think of the American Revolution as a very specific and local event: resistance by the thirteen colonies in the face of unwelcome changes in British colonial policies in North America. It was in fact an episode in the “Great War” between England and France. This war lasted episodically for 126 years, from 1689 to 1815, and after 1753 it was a global war, fought on every continent.

The competition between England and France was costly to royal finances. Governments had to show the taxpayers at home that new taxes were worth it, or they had to find other sources of funds, most obviously from the colonies themselves. Historians refer to the financial and governance squeeze as a “military-fiscal crisis.” The British victory in the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) was so spectacular that it greatly enlarged the empire, at the expense of the French, who lost Canada and trading centers in Africa and Asia. To meet the costs of the war and to secure the new territories, the British crown and Parliament turned to the colonies for new revenue. This decision led to the sequence of infamous (in America) taxes that triggered the resistance that developed into a successful war for independence. But the high cost of empire and imperial wars affected the Portuguese and Spanish empires as well. And they turned to similar strategies. The fiscal crises both faced, as well as new Enlightenment ideas of rational administration, inspired novel imperial policies that promised more revenue.

Any changes in the rules of the game, however, can unsettle established customs and hierarchies of status and power. That happened in all of the empires. Established elites felt that they were being marginalized, that traditional forms of power formerly available to them were being diminished or taken away entirely. They also felt that they were suddenly being treated as second class, when they thought themselves as equal in rights to those in the home country. There were tensions and forms of resistance throughout the Americas, and in the British case expansions of imperial power in India (by way of the East India Company) produced military conflict in the Bengal region of India. There were major eighteenth-century colonial revolts in Colombia and Argentina, and the Portuguese were confronted with a number of smaller plots and rebellions. The rebellion in Peru and the La Plata region of Spanish America in 1782 that was led by Tupac Amaru, descendant of the last Inca king, almost brought down the empire in today’s Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Argentina.

The Thirteen Colonies would not have succeeded in their rebellion without the financial aid, diplomatic support, and military assistance of France. Why did an absolutist monarchy support the American republicans? Because the French had lost badly in the Seven Years’ War, they wanted revenge on Britain. Even the Marquis de Lafayette, who later became a great friend of the Americans, declared that his initial motive for joining the American cause was simply to battle Britain. It was to damage England rather than to help the Americans that France gave its support.

To understand the American Revolution within the context of the long war between France and England that did not end until 1815 is to revise the chronology as well as the geography of the age of revolution. After the Treaty of Paris (1783), which recognized the independence of the United States, the new nation could not fully exercise control over its territory. Britain still had forts in the Ohio Valley, for example. Nor could the Americans protect their sailors from “impressment,” a form of kidnapping of American sailors by the British for service on their ships. Before the United States could fully exercise its independence, the Great War had to end as it did in 1815, with the defeat of Napoleon by the British.

The intense partisanship in the politics of 1790s and creation of political parties, something not anticipated by the founders or provided for in the Constitution, were also a result of foreign issues, particularly a deep division of opinion about the French Revolution and the wars that followed it. But the first American party system, as political scientists call it, and the passionate political conflict associated with it, dissolved in 1815, when the Great War ended. Historians call this postparty period the “era of good feelings,” but this change was not the product of a sudden desire to be nice in Washington; rather it was a result of the end of the international irritant.

This wider view also opens the way for understanding the importance for American history of the third great eighteenth-century revolution: the extraordinarily wealthy French slave colony of Saint Domingue, or as it was called after independence, Haiti. Federalists and Jeffersonians divided over whether to aid and support Toussaint Louverture, the former slave who led the revolution. John Adams was supportive, with materiel as well as foodstuffs, while Jefferson embargoed the second republic in the Americas, a black republic. This largest slave revolt in history shook planters throughout the Americas, including Jefferson, who was in a panic. Ironically, it also gave him his greatest accomplishment as president. The loss of Haiti prompted Napoleon to sell Louisiana.

The Civil War

The American Civil War is the moral core of American history. Yet it also invites a global framing as part of the nineteenth-century invention of the modern nation-state and the turn against unfree labor— conditions under which people must work against their will, including slavery, debt bondage, serfdom, or prison labor—in the Atlantic world. The immediate transnational context was the European revolutions of 1848. Abraham Lincoln, who had been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1846, admired the European liberals who were seeking to transform monarchies into parliamentary nation-states. These liberals, as well as Lincoln and the Republican Party, linked nation and freedom, with the nation a vehicle for achieving greater freedom.

Lincoln also absorbed their redefinition of the meaning of national territory, particularly the demand for homogeneity within national borders. In central Europe homogeneity meant linguistic or ethnic homogeneity, but that was not the meaning for Lincoln. He had strongly opposed the anti-immigrant Know Nothing Party of the 1850s; for him homogeneity meant the nation would be all free or all slave. That was the underlying logic and conclusion of the famous “House Divided” speech he delivered in 1858. Of course, the nation had been divided from the beginning. It was a political problem to be compromised, as it was in the 3/5 clause of the Constitution and in subsequent compromises, such as the Missouri Compromise that established a line equally dividing slave and free territories. The new Atlantic-wide understanding of the nation-state made such compromise impossible. The passion of Lincoln and those who supported the Republican Party in 1860 cannot be understood without awareness of this new understanding of the nation that was circulating around the globe.

The United States was also experiencing a federative crisis, arguing over the relation of national and local power. The Republicans were strong nationalizers, while southern politicians embraced decentralization that would allow individual states to protect their “peculiar institution.” This struggle between centralization and decentralization was a global phenomenon, and wars were fought in Europe (Germany and Italy) and Latin America, particularly in Argentina, but also Brazil and Chile. The issue was resolved without war in Japan, with the Meiji Restoration, and in Siam, today’s Thailand, where a modern state structure was established under the leadership of the monarch. Although the nationalist revolution in Hungary against the Habsburg Empire failed in 1848, Hungary achieved self rule in domestic matters in 1867, under what became the Austro-Hungarian “Dual Monarchy.” There were also efforts to strengthen the Russian and Ottoman empires, making then more like modern European states. Equally important, emancipation, or freedom, was part of the process of nation making in the middle of the nineteenth century. While the United States freed four million slaves, another forty million serfs were emancipated in the Habsburg, Russian, and other empires.

Not only did Americans feel themselves part of the liberal movements of 1848, a point made repeatedly by Lincoln—and by common soldiers as well—but the great European liberals, from John Stuart Mill in England to Giuseppe Garibaldi in Italy to Louis Kossuth in Hungary, also understood the American Civil War to be a crucial episode in the history of liberal reform well beyond the United States.

Progressive Reform and the Welfare State

American progressivism was part of a broad transformation of laissez faire liberalism into what was called variously the new liberalism, economic liberalism, or social liberalism. Its beginnings in the United States were in the 1890s and it culminated in the American welfare state in the 1930s established by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. This movement was part of a global response to massive urbanization and industrialization under conditions of unregulated capitalism. A global menu of reform ideas was available to all industrializing nations. Many of the key ideas originated in the economics seminars of German universities; these ideas were particularly important in the United States and Japan. But there was a general circulation of ideas; all industrial nations were borrowing ideas from each other.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, reformers realized that modern urban and industrial society held more daily life risks than did the agricultural era. Modern society is a risk society, no safer than a jungle, and it required novel forms of protection. This was pointed out in the very title of the reform novel published by Upton Sinclair in 1906: although set in a city, Chicago, the title was The Jungle. Risk is best addressed by insurance, and what became the twentieth-century welfare state was a combination of regulation and social insurance.

All urban and industrial nations developed programs of insurance against old age, industrial accidents, illness and injury, and unemployment. If the ideas were in general circulation, the policy outcomes were distinct. While other industrial nations included health insurance in the social liberalism package, the United States did not. On the other hand, the United States moved very fast to protect pure food and drugs, beginning with milk inspection in the 1870s in New York City.

Here is where one must be careful, however. If the policy ideas and examples were available to all, the politics of reform had national distinctions. Why? Local cultural and political traditions, national politics, the balance of interests produced different versions of the new liberalism. For example, opposition to the reforms came from different groups in different nations: in Latin America and Russia it was the landed classes; in the United States and Japan it was big business. This is why a national history in a global context is not global history. It is both global and national, but in the end the point is to explain a national history.

By examining the history of the United States in the larger context of world history, national history is not dissolved but rather its distinctiveness becomes clearer. But the global context also provides fuller explanations of how change has happened, and it becomes easier to understand why U.S. history differs from other histories as well as to better understand how much is shared.

It is often claimed that American history is exceptional; placing American history in a global context undermines this exceptionalist notion of American history. Yet the specific distinctive aspects of the history of the United States, those that make it a unique nation, are clarified and accented. The problem with an exceptionalist interpretation of American history is that is presumes a norm, or a rule, that has one exception, the United States. That implies that the United States does not share a history with other nations, thus putting the United States outside of the common history of humankind, which obviously is not the case. There is a second problem with the argument for exceptionalism. The claim of exceptionalism requires a norm followed by everyone else. But there is in fact no norm. A global perspective reveals a spectrum of unique resolutions of many common or even universal challenges. A global perspective reveals that the United States is unique but not exceptional.

Bibliography:

• Barbour, P. (Ed.). (1986). The complete works of captain John Smith (1580–1631), 3 vols. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
• Bender, T. (2006). A nation among nations: America’s place in world history. New York: Hill & Wang.
• Bender, T. (Ed.). (2002). Rethinking American history in a global age. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Guarneri, C. (2007). America in the world: United States history in global context. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Kupperman, K. O. (2007). The Jamestown project. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Reichard, G. W. & Dickson, T. (Eds.). (2008). America on the world stage: A global approach to U.S. history. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
• Rodgers, D. T. (1998). Atlantic crossings: Social politics in a progressive age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Turner, F. J. (1961) Frontier and section: Selected essays of Frederick Jackson Turner. (Ray A. Billington, Ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
• Tyrrell, I. (2007). Transnational nation: United States history in global perspective since 1789. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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