Faculty from many of the chronologicall and geographical subfields within the department study formal political history, state formation, national ideologies, citizenship, and reform and revolution. They examine power in its circulatory, socioeconomic, and sociocultural dimensions, as well as the formation of political subjectivities, and the rise and fall of political hegemonic blocks. One distinctive feature of the University of Michigan’s History Department is the close connection between studies of this kind, and work in social history. That is to say, the imagined distinction between political and social history does not constitute a line of cleavage for this department—many of the same faculty work in both areas.
