School of Historical Studies

Historian Jérémie Foa offers a very unique view of the 1572 massacres in his work entitled Tous ceux qui tombent: visages du massacre de la Saint–Barthélemy [All that fall: faces of the St. Bartholomew's day massacre]. He exhumes the “small lives” that were taken by reconstituting history in minute detail and honoring the names of the anonymous victims.

The Institute for Advanced Study came into being at the most inauspicious of times. Founded in the early years of the Great Depression, it took shape during the buildup to the Second World War and under the growing shadow of authoritarian regimes. Its first Director Abraham Flexner published his manifesto on the “The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge” in October 1939, barely a month after the outbreak of hostilities in Europe. Surely this was a daunting moment to defend “the fearless and irresponsible thinker” and advocate for the free expression of knowledge and curiosity. 

In November 1954, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to a magazine in which he declared that, were he a young man again, he would not try to become a scientist: “I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree...

To Albert Einstein, she was “the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began.” More straightforward in his praise, Einstein’s fellow Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Hermann...

Historical epidemiologists are beginning to explore the documentary record of interventions in tropical Africa to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases and reduce their prevalence. Some interventions against individual diseases began in...

Abbey Ellis, Digital Content Specialist in the Institute for Advanced Study's Communications office, reflects on art historical allegories in IAS life and writing about the work of Maria Loh, Professor in the School of Historical Studies, for The Institute Letter.

Jonathan Davis-Secord, Elizabeth and J. Richardson Dilworth Fellow in the School of Historical Studies (2024), explains how his time at the Institute for Advanced Study enabled him to unravel the complexities of his research on Old English language and literature.

Art historian Marilyn Aronberg Lavin has assembled, edited, and updated a series of six lectures delivered by her late husband Irving Lavin, Faculty in the School of Historical Studies (1973–2019), to create a comprehensive collection of richly illustrated essays.