“What is Global History?” I asked, answered, or heard this question every week for two straight years and I still cannot give you one clear cut answer. In my cohort, everyone had a different definition of global history and a different means of using it in historical research. This is the beauty of the program: the ability to question and challenge your own preconceived notions of history in a diverse, open environment of global historians.

Currently, I’m completing my Ph.D. in History at the University of Michigan with a focus on the Global Cold War, human rights discourses, and development and humanitarian aid. After a series of seminars, my interests morphed from being purely German into a broader questioning of Cold War era ideas inside and outside the Germanys. In addition to the seminars, professors encouraged me to improve language skills, mainly German and French, as well as begin primary research in several archives throughout Berlin.

This MA taught me the foundations of Global History in traditional seminars, but also through interactions with people from all over the world and from all sorts of backgrounds. As painted on the Berlin Wall by Kani Alavi and Muriel Raoux, “many small people, who in many small places do many small things, can alter the face of the World.” This is the essence of Global History as a field and the program here in Berlin.