The Department of History has granted degrees for over a century, having awarded its first Ph.D. in 1883. One of the original departments in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, the department has traditionally stressed the integration of history as a field bridging the social sciences and humanities. Thus, interdisciplinary fields are available to students in such fields as American studies, humanities, classical and medieval studies, and comparative history in Latin American and South Asian studies.

The major emphasis in any field is on the development of skills necessary to pursue original research. In recent years Syracuse graduates have received appointments on college and university faculties, in libraries and archives, and in federal and state government agencies. The Maxwell School is the social science division of Syracuse University. In addition to the usual academic departments, the Maxwell School contains a wide variety of interdisciplinary and professional programs, including social science, public administration, foreign and comparative studies, health and society studies, and metropolitan studies.

History faculty are involved in all these areas. Currently about 1700 master's degrees and about 170 doctorates are awarded by Syracuse University each year. Approximately 4,000 graduate and 12,000 undergraduate students are studying on the main campus. Understanding history — the record of what people have thought, said, and done — is essential in understanding the world of today. Students explore not only events of the past, but how they were shaped by such factors as religion, economics, and geography and how these factors influence our own lives.