European history still dominates most of the history departments in the US (in addition to US history of course). At Stanford more than half of our faculty members are historians of Europe. (Modern Eur., Early Modern Eur., Medieval Eur., Eastern Eur., British). #twitterstorians +
In other major history departments at Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Berkeley, UCLA... the situation is similar or even worse. This institutional Eurocentrism creates an optic problem. Human experience throughout the world is often seen from the lenses of Europe.+
Even more problematic is that the historians of Asia, Africa, the Pacific World and Global South constantly need to justify their work to their Europeanist colleagues. This shapes fellowships, grants and hires. Institutional Eurocentrism creates epistemological Eurocentrism.+
Third (and the worst), this terrible imbalance between the histories of the West and the rest helps White supremacy persist in academia even if this is not intended. The tacit message is clear: European people are more important than others.+
History departments should seriously ponder their lack of genuine intellectual diversity, while working to diversify the racial and ethnic composition of faculty and student body.
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