Institute of History

Welcome to the Institute of History at the University of Bern. Here we research and teach the study of history in all its thematic breadth and methodological diversity. Our research deals with the history of Europe from antiquity to the present, as well as with the history of regions outside of Europe.

Special focal points are the history of Latin America, Eastern European history as well as environmental and climate history. Our institute is the only one in German-speaking Switzerland with its own department of Swiss history, which deals with our country's past from the Middle Ages to the 21st century.

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The podcast of the Institute of History

In the podcast of the Institute of History at the University of Bern, historians shed light on current topics from a historical perspective.

Remixing the Hip-Hop Narrative

Between Local Expressions and Global Connections
by James Barber / Christian Büschges / Dianne Violeta Mausfeld / Britta Sweers (eds.). transcript | September 2024

The International Journal of the History of Sport

New publication by Yvonne Schüpbach

The article by Yvonne Schüpbach, "Negotiating the Space between East and West: Sport and Gender Politics in Swiss Women's Artistic Gymnastics in the Cold War Era," analyses the complex gender and sport politics in Swiss women's artistic gymnastics during the Cold War when sport became a symbolic arena in the competition between the superpowers East and West. The article offers insights into international sporting dynamics by analysing the intertwining of gender politics and sporting developments and shows how Switzerland oscillated between rejection and adaptation, offering new insights into the historical dynamics of international sport.

Poster prize

Richard Warren, Niklaus Bartlome and Noémie Wellinger (Volcanic Impacts on Climate, Environment and Society (VICES) research group) won the 1st place poster prize at the Data Science for the Sciences conference here in Bern (11-12 April, 2024)
The poster was titled “Bridging History and Climate Science - ClimeApp: Data processing tool for the ModE-RA Global Climate Reanalaysis” and was presented by Richard Warren.

Russian Foreign Policy Debates and the Conflicts in Georgia (1991–2008) – Between Multilateralism and Unilateralism

New publication by Cécile Druey: The publication discusses the conflicts and crises in the former Soviet space from a historical perspective and reconstructs the often - contradictory approaches of public actors in Russia on how to deal with them.

L’aristocrazia senatoria e l’egemonia del Mediterraneo. Uno studio sulle forme dell’imperialismo romano nel II secolo a.C.

In his just-released book, Manfredi Zanin provides a new insight into the development of Roman imperialism in the second century BCE by highlighting the decisive impact of ‹Prominenzrollen›, individual interests, personal relationships with foreign elites, participation in diplomatic legations, expertise, and family traditions.

ClimeApp: Bridging History and Climate Science

ClimeApp is a web-based data processing tool for the ModE-RA Global Climate Reanalysis. The app presents temperature, precipitation and pressure from 1421-2008. Maps, timeseries and simple statistical functions allow all researchers to easily integrate climate data into their own research.