In the most recent surveys of departments of history, the University of Georgia is ranked in the top twenty in the country. A major contributor to this ranking is the strength of the department's faculty in early American history. By all indications this field has grown in popularity over the years, and it was the place where historians introduced American students to the history of the family, quantitative methods, cultural studies and other innovative approaches to the study of the past. Individual members of the faculty's research specialties include the history of Native Americans, early American religion, the Atlantic World, the history of slavery, legal history, and early southern history. In prize-winning books and articles, the early American faculty has advanced our understanding of the rise of African American communities, the encounter between Native American and European peoples, the contribution of the Puritans to American republicanism, the origins of slave rebellions, and many other topics. The early Americanists are also busy in the classroom, offering a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses. The department's nationally recognized Center for Virtual History, its History and Gender Workshop, and its Workshop in the Cultural History of Capitalism, along with its close ties to the Law School, the Institute for Native American Studies, the Willson Center for the Arts and Humanities, the Institute for African American Studies, and the Institute for Women's Studies afford students the opportunity for personal contact with early American faculty working at the cutting edge of teaching and scholarly methods.
