The department focuses on multiple areas within history "including social life, the economy, culture, thought, and politics.
Students of history study individuals, groups, communities, and nations from every imaginable perspective.
[9] They found that Harvard was supported by donations from a slave-based economy, affiliated with scholars who promoted ideas of scientific racism, and hired professors and students who owned slaves.
[10] In 2016, then Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust and Congressman John Lewis unveiled a plaque dedicated to the memory of four enslaved people, Titus, Venus, Bilhah, and Juba, who worked at the university.
"[13] The next University President, Lawrence S. Bacow, announced another $5 million would be invested to continue investigating Harvard's ties to slavery, led by Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin.