International history is the study of the interaction of historical forces across national boundaries and regions of the world. These interactions can be very broadly defined–to include demographic, environmental, cultural, and intellectual and media exchanges. They also encompass the more traditional canon of military, political, and economic interactions. National identities and regional affiliations are interrogated from an international, transnational or global perspective.
The strengths of the core international history faculty are in the following areas: regional East-Asian history, US and the world, colonialism and post-colonialism, modern war and genocide, and human rights and humanitarianism. The unique strength of this faculty consists of the genuinely global coverage of the field of international interaction and their interrogation of the local articulation of global forces.
Some Chicago historians are concerned with international exchanges. Most prominently among them are Mark Bradley, Bruce Cumings, Michael Geyer and James Hevia. Many other members of the department incorporate international or transnational themes into their scholarship or teaching. These include Leora Auslander, Fredrik Albritton-Jonsson, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Tomas Holt, Emily Osborn, Moishe Postone, Julie Savile, James Sparrow, Christine Stansell, and Bernard Wasserstein. In addition to historians pursuing international, transnational, and global topics the department can also draw on the resources of the Center for International Studies, with its affiliated area studies centers, the Human Rights Program, Film and Media Studies Center, the Center for Gender Studies, the Center for Race, Politics and Culture, the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory, as well as the large number of international, transnational, and comparative workshops affiliated with departments in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Graduate students come to international history either as international history students proper or as students of national and regional history with a strong emphasis on transnational and transregional processes.