history

Humanities

Uncovering the roots of prison labor in America

Two Berkeley doctoral students dissect how prison labor programs — such as California's use of incarcerated firefighters — evolved and why they persist.

An extended family (grandparents, mother, small child, father) eat. and serve Thanksgiving table in this black-and-white photograph.

Arts & culture

How to think about Thanksgiving like a food historian

In a black and white photograph, a group of people, including children, stand in front of the White House holding signs that say

Politics & society

How World War I helps explain what gave rise to Trump’s second term

Jack Weinberg sits in a police car in 1964 with his arms folded out the window, surrounded by police and protesters

Campus & community

How Freedom Summer activists brought the Free Speech Movement to Berkeley

huge plumes of smoke billow into the sky over New York City's buildings after the terrorist attack on 9/11/2001

9/11 shaped the U.S. in unimaginable ways. This class helps Gen Z students grasp how

New Palestinian and Arab Studies program established at UC Berkeley

dozens of tv screens showing various sporting events from the control room of the Beijing Olympics

What is lost — and gained — when Olympics coverage becomes a round-the-clock spectacle?

Berkeley Talks: Reconsidering Black America’s relationship to the plantation

William Carter wears headphones and listens as a computer program reads text from transcribed slave ship logs, the original of which is displayed on a computer screen.

With newly digitized slave ship logs, Berkeley Ph.D. student examines race, power — and literacy

Claudia Sheinbaum pumping her fist and smiling while delivering a presidential victory speech behind a podium.

Claudia Sheinbaum just became Mexico’s first female president. It’s not surprising, Berkeley historian says.

Saagar, with short dark hair and glasses, wearing a powder blue suit, holds a viola to his chin while standing in a courtyard

Berkeley Voices: Medieval song holds clues to lost dialects

Black-and-white line drawing of Walter Gordon with a Cal football to his side

Berkeley Voices: Take the first Black history tour at UC Berkeley

A black-and-white illustration of hundreds of Irish immigrants and families with all their belongings

Afterthoughts: The true origins of American immigration policy

illustration of a wave behind a red barbed wire fence

New podcast series explores the legacy of Japanese American incarceration

A black and white image of boats being rowed in a race as they cross under a sign that says finish

New ‘Boys in the Boat’ movie — and a unique campus class — spark pride in Cal’s rowing history

a sepia toned photo of about 100 white men in hats shaking hands and celebrating, some of whom are on top of a train.

They built the railroad. But they were left out of the American story.

All history