"History is little else than a picture of human crimes and misfortunes." -Voltaire                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        "[A]ny fool can make history, but it takes a genius to write it." -- Oscar Wilde                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        "[H]istory... is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and fortunes of mankind." -- Gibbon                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        "A country without a memory is a country of madmen." -- George Santayana                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        "History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future." -- Robert Penn Warren                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        "History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten." -- George Santayana                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        "Hope is the other side of history." -- Marcia Cavell                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        "At a certain point one ceases to defend a certain view of history; one must defend history itself." -- E. P. Thompson                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        "Honest history is the weapon of freedom." -- A. M. Schlesinger, Jr.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        "Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler were born four days apart, like the joined forces of comedy and tragedy over the gaudy portals of Western civ." -- Andrei Codrescu                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        "Everything is surprising, rightly seen." -- A. S. Byatt                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        "The individual appears for an instant, joins the community of thought, modifies it and dies; but the species, that dies not, reaps the fruit of his ephemeral existence." -- A.S. Byatt                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        "The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day." -- David Foster Wallace                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

News & Events


Introducing Our Mark Clark Chair for 2011-2: Kelly DeVries

DeVries' monograph of 2005

We welcome Kelly DeVries as our Mark Clark Chair for 2011-2. Professor DeVries is a leading military historian of the European Middle Ages. To learn more about Prof. DeVries and his publications, see the Wikipedia page about him, and his faculty profile at Loyola University Maryland.

The Mark Clark Chair is a visiting position awarded to distinguished senior scholars. The duties of the M.C.C. include teaching advanced courses to our undergraduate majors.


Recent Faculty Publications

Three of our faculty published books in 2009. Mike Barrett, together with H. P. Willmot, examines afresh the notions of the war theorist Carl von Clausewitz in Clausewitz Reconsidered (Praeger Security International). Joelle Neulander, Programming National Identity (LSU Press) determines the complex relationships among domestic space, nationalism, and radio in Interwar France. David Preston reconceives the history of interaction between the Iroquois and European settlers in Colonial America in The Texture of Contact (U. of Nebraska Press). Add them to your reading list.


  1. Contact Information

  2.  
  3. Department Address:
  4. 430 Capers Hall
  5. The Citadel
  6. 171 Moultrie Street
  7. Charleston, SC 29409
  8.  
  9. Phone: (843) 953-5073
  10. Fax: (843) 953-7020
  11. Hours: 7:30am - 3:30pm Weekdays
  12.  
  13. Chair:
  14. Keith Knapp - (843) 953-5073
  15.  
  16. Director of Graduate Studies:
  17. Kurt M. Boughan - (843) 953-5064
  18.  
  19. Administrative Assistant:
  20. Kelley Kinney - (843) 953-5073

Cadet History Club and Phi Alpha Theta

If you are a cadet (any class, any major) with a passion for history (any period, any place), then join the Cadet History Club! Past activities of the Club have included movie screenings, day trips to historical sites in the Charleston area, and overnight trips to historical sites further afield.

Successful undergraduate history majors and graduate students are invited every spring to join the Citadel chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, an international honor society for history students. Current cadet Phi Alpha Theta members may choose to operate as a club, with activities (including field trips). They may also make presentations of research at the annual Phi Alpha Theta conference.

For more information about our History Club and Phi Alpha Theta, contact the Department main office.


Citadel Oral History Program (COHP)

Our Department proudly hosts the COHP. Check out the COHP website.



Academic Program Information


The Undergraduate Major

Are you are a Citadel undergraduate or prospective student who wants to be a History major? Here are two important resources to get you started: All requirements for the major, including descriptions of all standard courses in the major, are in this excerpt from the Cadet course catalog (2011-12). The expected four-year course of study is laid out in this other excerpt from the Cadet course catalog (2011-12). You should study both of these carefully and understand them well before meeting with an advisor or registering for courses.


Undergraduate Minor Programs

Are you a Citadel undergraduate or prospective student interested in taking a Minor in History? Learn about History Minor and its requirements from here.

  1. Tips for Student Success
  2. Avoid the seven spelling and grammar errors that make you look dumb.

Other undergraduate minor programs affiliated with our Department are African American Studies, East Asian Studies, International Relations, and Southern Studies.




Masters Program

Our Department administers a Masters program in History jointly with the Department of History of the College of Charleston. Learn more here.