About

 - Thucydides, Leopold Von Ranke, William Langer, and Crane Brinton and others were Applied Historians.

- Harvard’s Applied History Project celebrates the work of Paul Kennedy and John Lewis Gaddis at Yale, Michael Howard at Oxford, Margaret MacMillan and many other leaders in this cause.

- Harvard’s Applied History Project claims no monopoly of wisdom or methodology or practice; applauds analogous efforts at other universities, think tanks, and among practitioners; and thus takes a “big tent” approach.

- Harvard’s Applied History Project is building on the foundation laid by the late professors Ernest May and Richard Neustadt in their classic Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers (1986) and the course and cases they developed.

As the 2016 Applied History Manifesto by Allison and Ferguson states, the aspiration of the Applied History Project at Harvard is to revitalize scholarship, teaching, and practice in Applied History. Operationally, it also calls for the creation of a Council of Historical Advisers in the White House analogous to the Council of Economic Advisers.

- To illustrate ways in which the AH Council could add value in the current policymaking process, the Manifesto identifies seven generic tools: “assignments” a President could give his historians. For example, in response to Washington’s reflexive declaration that every new challenge—from the COVID pandemic to the rise of China—is “unprecedented,” ask: have we ever seen anything approximately like this before? If so, what, when, where? In those cases, who did what—with what consequences? A second assignment asks: if the issue presented to the policymaker today is a “snapshot” of the issue today, show the policymaker the key scenes of the “movie” that led to this point.

- No more than others who are attempting to help decision makers understand the problems they face and choices they must make do historians pretend that they have a clear crystal ball in which they can see the future. Our claim is if their product is judged by the same standards currently used in assessing the Council of Economic Advisers’ forecasts about future economic developments, Applied Historians can add value.

The Applied History Working Group of faculty members across Harvard University organizes discussions with scholars and practitioners, in the past year including Margaret MacMillan, John Bew, Alex Keyssar, Jim Mattis, and John Lewis Gaddis.

- Scholars and practitioners producing Applied History, in the past year Fredrik Logevall’s JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century and Robert Zoellick’s America in the World: A History of US Diplomacy and Foreign Policy.

- Developing courses and curriculum in Applied History, in the past year Fred Logevall’s “US Foreign Policy in a Global Age” and Arne Westad’s “Power Shifts: Understanding Global Change Through History.”

- Hosting and funding pre and post-doctoral students as Ernest May Fellows in History and Policy, in the past year numbering seven.

- Holding Applied History Seminars open to the Harvard community and the public.

Assignment Framework

1. Is a current event, group, phenomenon, or individual “X” unprecedented?
2. If not, is it an example of a larger category for which we can identify a large number of instances (e.g., financial crises, wars of attrition, tyrants)?
   • For many complex events or people, we will find that they belong to multiple categories, depending on the perspective of the analyst.
3. If X is not unprecedented, draw from the categories you have identified to brainstorm a long list of potential analogues. Be imaginative; start with a longer rather than shorter list.
4. For the best analogues, identify both Similarities and Differences with the present case.
   • Use the “May Method”: Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle of the page; put “Similar” atop one column and “Different” atop the other. You should identify at least three of each.
   • Formulate leading questions to help you identify salient similarities and differences between the cases. For example, if you are comparing two armed conflicts, you might ask the following questions: “What is the relevant backstory for each conflict?” “What are the issues of contention?” “Who is fighting?” “What are their interests and goals?” “What are their capabilities?”
5. Using similarities and differences, assess what lessons your historical comparisons may hold for the present case.
   • Assess the outcomes or consequences of the historical analogues, and consider whether similarities to the present might suggest similar outcomes or consequences.
   • In considering lessons, make sure to adequately account for differences between historical cases and the present: What specific caveats do those differences add to our analysis?
   • This assignment, when expanded to a data set, can be used to make predictions and assess track records (e.g., we can predict where oil prices are going to go next because we know, under similar conditions, what has happened before.)

Selected Examples

Question: What historical actors is ISIS like?

• A “What is this like?” analysis of ISIS might give an analyst valuable perspective that could be used to answer policy questions like the following:
  • Do movements motivated by religious zealotry collapse under their own weight or require foreign intervention? If foreign intervention, how long does that intervention need to last?
  • Will decapitation work in defeating ISIS?
  • How important is international backing (and ISIS’ lack thereof) to its future prospects?
  • Can ISIS be contained?
  • Which factors make a population more or less susceptible to radicalization? What role do economic/social factors play in this process?
  • For movements that are both international and have a “home address,” which should we pay more attention to: attacking them where they are strongest or preventing proliferation of their ideology?
  • Can an organization that begins as a revolutionary terrorist group evolve over time into a respectable and stable state?
• For a good example along these lines, see:
  • Stephen Walt, “ISIS as revolutionary state” (Foreign Affairs, Nov./Dec. 2015)

Question: What can past financial crises tell us about present crises?

• For good examples, see:
  • Ben Bernanke, The Courage to Act(Norton, 2015)
  • Ben Bernanke, Hamilton Awards Dinner speech: “Economic lessons from history” (4/8/10)
  • Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, This Time is Different(Princeton University Press, 2009)
  • Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, “Watch out for sovereign debt risk” (WSJ, 6/24/08)
  • Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, “What other financial crises tell us” (WSJ, 2/3/09)

Question: Many analysts consider the prospect of war between the US and China today incredible. Judging from history, how incredible is it really?

• For good examples, see:
  • Graham Allison, “Just how likely is another world war?” (Atlantic, 7/30/14)
  • Graham Allison, “The Thucydides Trap: Are the US and China headed for war?” (Atlantic, 9/24/15)
  • Richard Rosecrance, and Steve Miller, ed., The Next Great War? (MIT Press, 2014)

Question: What does the historical record tell us about whether we should accommodate or "appease" the behavior of Nation X?

• For good examples, see:
  • Paul Kennedy, “A Time to appease” (National Interest, July 2010)
  • Stephen Rock, Appeasement in International Politics(University Press of Kentucky, 2000)
  • Yuen Foong Khong, Analogies at War(Princeton University Press, 1992)

Assignment Framework

1. Consider: in a given historical event, which contingencies and decisions had the biggest roles in causing the outcome?
2. Ask whether the case could have just as easily (or nearly as easily) turned out differently.
3. If it could have turned out differently, what were the pivot points or tripwires that the outcome hinged on?
4. If the result was a bad outcome, do any of these pivot points provide lessons on how not to deal with current problems? If the result was a good outcome that could have easily gone badly (e.g., the Cuban Missile Crisis), were there actions statesmen could have taken to limit risk?
5. Does the menu of options decision-makers chose or considered in the historical case expand our palette of possible responses to a current problem or change our sense of the most important drivers in today’s case? What possibilities did historical decision-makers consider that we have not?
6. This assignment can be done as a tabletop exercise under the heading of “Red-Teaming the Past.”

Selected Examples

Uses of counterfactual history

• Niall Ferguson, Virtual History (Basic Books, 1997)
• Cass Sunstein, “What if counterfactuals never existed?” (New Republic, 9/20/14)

Assignment Framework

1. For a given great statesman of the past, can we extract specific strands of their thought or statecraft that led to success?
   • Typically, these strands will focus on the statesmen’s ability to anticipate threats, identify/evaluate threats, devise solutions, or implement solutions in a complex political environment.

Selected Examples

• Graham Allison, “US-Russia relations: What would Kissinger do?” (National Interest, 10/5/15)
• Graham Allison, “What would JFK have done about Iran” (CNN, 11/22/13)
• Niall Ferguson, “The Meaning of Kissinger” (Foreign Affairs, 9/10/15)
• James Holmes, “Speak Softly and carry a big ship” (Foreign Policy, 2/19/15)
• Fred Logevall and Gordon Goldstein, “We Need Richard Holbrooke more than ever” (Politico Magazine, 12/6/15)

Assignment Framework

1. One of the best ways to understand the current behavior of nations (or people) is to place it within the narrative of a state’s (or person’s) past.
2. Try to discern common threads between historical decisions made by a state and current ones in response to similar threats/stimuli.
   • Are there constant aspects of nation/person’s situation that make it act in a certain way? (e.g., geography, political system, economic situation)
   • Can we discern patterns of behavior between past and present? To what extent do these patterns evince flexibility in responding to changing circumstances? To what extent are they inflexible?
   • Is there an overriding ideology or philosophy governing a nation/person’s behavior? To what extent does the current moment or challenge fit into a nation/person’s historical narrative of its own identity or mission?
3. Based on the historical record, try predicting how a given nation or leader will react to a current circumstance, and use actual events to judge the quality of your analysis.
4. As a corollary, ask how other nations or entities understand this nation/person’s history. This may help in anticipating the actions of others when dealing with the same threat or issue.

Selected Examples

Chinese behavior

• See Henry Kissinger, On China(Penguin, 2011)

Russian behavior

• Edward Delman, “The Link between Putin’s military campaigns in Syria and Ukraine” (The Atlantic, 10/2/15)
• Tim Marshall, “Russia and the Curse of Geography” (The Atlantic, 10/31/15)
• Mary Sarotte, “A Broken promise: what the West really told Moscow about NATO expansion” (Foreign Affairs, 9/10/14)
• Graham Allison, “Assessing an Iran Deal: Five big lessons from history” (National Interest, 7/7/15)

Commentary on the uses of "longue duree" history

• David Armitage and Jo Guldi, The History Manifesto (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
• Ernest May and Richard Neustadt, Thinking in Time (Free Press, 1988)