History PhD Program Recommendations

[Whanauer]

Hi everyone, I was hoping maybe some of you could give me some advice. I'm currently debating between getting my PhD in History, my undergraduate major, or Pol Sci, as I have my MA in International Affairs. My specific interest is the history of suicide terrorism, on which I wrote my MA thesis. Essentially, my thesis attempted to refute the assertions made by Robert Pape in his 2006 book Dying to Win, which basically stated that suicide terrorism is ultimately a logical and effective strategy. However, I was hoping to explore these issues more from a historical perspective than political, and was wondering if any one knew of History Programs which might match my interests? As far as I know, most terrorism experts work in the political science arena.

If it helps, my qualifications are as follows. I currently possess a BA in History with a 3.957 GPA (4.0 Major GPA) and a minor in French. However, it was from a small college in NY (St. Francis), and therefore I'm not sure that GPA carries much weight. I also have my MA in International Affairs from CUNY Brooklyn College with a 3.966 GPA, and passed Brooklyn's language exam as was necessary (short translation sans dictionary, basically). My GRE was taken approximately three years ago prior to my graduate work, and my scores were 690 V (96%), 580 Q (52%), and 6.0 writing. While I realize my Q is low, I've received grades of A in numerous courses such as graduate stats and macro/ micro which should help alleviate some concerns. Also, over the course of my BA and MA I've written three theses (2 undergrad, 1 for major and 1 to satisfy an Honors graduate, and 1 for my MA. LORs should not be a problem. Therefore I feel my strengths are my language ability, proven graduate record, GPAs, and strong writing skills. My weaknesses are the fact that I did not attend a top flight program and had a relatively low Q score.

[lifetimestudent]

I wouldn't focus too much on your scores and numbers. There's not much you can do at this point to change them. What you should think about is not what programs you want to go to, but which professors you could work with. Who is doing research in your field? I am not so familiar with the area of suicide terrorism, but there must be a lot of people out there studying that. Contact them and talk to them. They will recommend the best programs, and maybe they will even let you into theirs!

[Sparky]

Well, generally in history you would start out with a geographic region and era, then study suicide bombing in that specific context. Not because a comparative history of, say, suicide bombing is any less valid a way to study it, but because that's how history teaching jobs work. You're hireable as a colonial Americanist, or a 20th century Asianist, or whatever, not as a "historian of suicide terrorism"--because you have to be able to teach a wide variety of classes, not just "Suicide Bombing in the 20th Century" "Suicide Bombing in the Early Byzantine Empire" etc. You might find a few comparative history programs, but in general you will have to narrow it down to a more specific time/place.

You write your dissertation on suicide bombing in a specific area at a specific time...then you publish a book on comparative terrorism history. It's a fairly common process, from what I understand.

So with that in mind, one way to look for programs/profs to work with is something like:

you decide you want to study suicide bombing in the early Byzantine Empire. Well, what profs are writing articles and books on early medieval war tactics? Who is publishing on peasant unrest in late antiquity? etc.

[TMP]

First of all, adcoms could not care less about knowing your GPA all the way down to one-thousandth decimal.

Your GRE scores are just fine. But your Q score is debatable for political science programs, especially for those focusing on quantitative thinking.

You just need to focus better if you're intending to do history. Sparky's right, you do need some kind of idea of which part of the world you'd like to study in depth. To extrapolate on Sparky's thoughts of the job market, what courses would you really like to teach/TA for? If you're thinking "world/international/global", fine, there are several programs that do that. But for most part, programs would like to be able to label you as Americanist, Europeanist, etc. If you can't say it straight in your SOP, your choices of faculty member and background will determine which category you'll fall under. 20th century US and Europe are the most competitive fields. Even though I'm most of thematic history, programs tend to label me as an Americanist because of my strong background and training in that geographical field.

My thinking is that you'll most likely want to find professors who fall under these sub-categories, never mind their actual geography:

-Conflict/Peace

-Military

-history of psychology/science

-Diplomatic/foreign relations

-Any specific war (Civil War, WWI/II, Mideast conflict, Korean War, etc)

-Genocide (it *is* an act of terror)

And whatever you do, don't write your SOP like a dissertation proposal, so that you're open to other ideas.

[Riotbeard]

You might wanna look at programs with more transnational approaches. I think it would be easier if you picked a geographic locale and era (because that is just how the field is structured), but I am not sure it is essential if you can find good historians who like transnational and have similar thematic interests, you may be able to avoid the geographic pigeon-holing but it is risky. It would be easier to select schools based on geographic focci, but NYU is really well-known for its Atlantic workshop.

[Riotbeard]

You might wanna look at programs with more transnational approaches. I think it would be easier if you picked a geographic locale and era (because that is just how the field is structured), but I am not sure it is essential if you can find good historians who like transnational and have similar thematic interests, you may be able to avoid the geographic pigeon-holing but it is risky. It would be easier to select schools based on geographic focci, but NYU is really well-known for its Atlantic workshop.

I also think on the surface your pretty set, you just have to figure out how you want to present yourself.