For Graduate Applicants

David A. Bell (Princeton University):

Information for Prospective Graduate Students

Regretfully, the volume of inquiries from prospective graduate students has recently increased so greatly that I no longer have time to meet individually with everyone interested in working with me in the Princeton History Department’s Ph.D. program. While I will be very happy to meet with admitted students, for those still at the application stage, I hope the following information will be useful.

At Princeton, advisors are not formally assigned until after general exams (i.e. from the third year of the Ph.D. program). That said, we do informally admit students to work with particular faculty members. At present, in 2024-25, I have three post-generals students working with me, and two pre-generals students who are planning to work with me. I also regularly serve as a dissertation committee member and general exam committee member for students other than my own advisees.
I will be considering taking new students for the fall of 2025. But while all History Department faculty have a role in graduate student admissions, final decisions are made by the Admissions Committee in coordination with the Director of Graduate Studies and the Graduate School.
To see the sorts of topics I advise for Ph.D. dissertations, and the sorts of careers my students have gone on to, please see the full list of my advisees below.
To see the sorts of graduate courses I offer, please see the list below.
To see the requirements for the Ph.D. program, and its structure, please consult the Princeton History Department website.
For more information about me and my work, please see the other pages on this website.
My core expertise is in the history of France and the French empire from roughly 1650 to 1830. While I often work with students whose dissertation topics extend beyond this area, I can give the most focused and detailed advice for work within it.
In keeping with this focus, I expect students working with me to enter the program already possessing a fluent reading ability, or close to it, in the French language. Please also bear in mind that students working with me will need to pass a language exam in a second foreign language. German, Spanish, and Italian have been most useful for my advisees.
Because the Ph.D. program begins with two years of coursework, followed by general exams in three fields, we do not expect students to enter the program with fully fleshed-out dissertation research projects. Please note that U.S. history Ph.D. programs differ from those in most of the rest of the world in this regard. In evaluating applicants, we would like to see which areas of inquiry, methods, and theories most appeal to them. Giving examples of possible dissertation topics is welcome. But the “personal statement” part of the application should give a full sense of the applicants and their professional goals, rather than just a detailed research program.
My style of advising is “hands on,” but I expect my advisees to set the agenda. I am happy to suggest research topics, to read drafts, to advise on research strategies, to draw up general exam reading lists, to make introductions to colleagues, to offer professional development advice, and so forth, as often as requested. I don’t assign topics or require advisees to check in regularly.
The most important part of the application, from my point of view, is the writing sample. It should be an example of the applicant’s best historical work. While, ideally, it should address the sorts of topics and questions applicants want to work on in the Ph.D. program, overall quality is most important. To keep the sample to the recommended length, feel free to edit as necessary and to provide brief summaries of sections not included. There is no obligation to turn in a paper or thesis as it was originally written.
Applicants are often concerned about the History job market. Here are some brief thoughts about it. A History Ph.D. is an enormously worthwhile thing to do. Students can delve deeply into fascinating subjects, become part of a lively intellectual community, master large and important bodies of work, gain teaching experience, and make their own original contributions to knowledge. That said, as most applicants undoubtedly know, the academic job market, especially in European History, is poor, and does not look likely to improve. Students entering the program should be under no illusion that they are guaranteed careers as History professors. While some positions are available, many of my students have had to go into different lines of work, and this will continue to be the case. Furthermore, very few students now finish their Ph.D. program in less than six years, and post-doctoral fellowships can extend this timeline further. Please bear in mind these possible opportunity costs and tradeoffs when considering whether to apply for or enroll in a History Ph.D. program.

Ph.D. advisees, 1997- present.

Darrin McMahon (Yale University, 1997, co-directed with John Merriman). Revised thesis published as Enemies of the Enlightenment: The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity (Oxford University Press, 2001). David W. Little Class of 1944 Professor of History, Dartmouth College.
Matthew Lauzon (Johns Hopkins University, 2002, co-directed with Anthony Pagden). Revised thesis published as Signs of Light: French and British Theories of Linguistic Communication, 1648–1789 (Cornell University Press, 2010). Associate Professor of History, University of Hawaii.
Neil Safier (Johns Hopkins University, 2003, co-directed with Anthony Pagden). Revised thesis published as Measuring the New World: Enlightenment Science and South America (University of Chicago Press, 2008). Associate Professor of History, Brown University.
Anoush Terjanian (Johns Hopkins University, 2005, co-directed with Anthony Pagden). Revised thesis published as Commerce and its Discontents in Eighteenth-Century French Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2012). Formerly Associate Professor of History, East Carolina University.
Jason Kuznicki, “Scandal and Disclosure in the Old Regime” (Johns Hopkins University, 2005). Editor-in-Chief, TechFreedom, formerly Senior Fellow, Cato Institute, and Editor, Cato Books.
Jeremy Caradonna (Johns Hopkins University, 2007). Revised thesis published as The Enlightenment in Practice: Academic Prize Contests and Intellectual Culture in France, 1670-1794 (Cornell University Press, 2012). Distinguished Visiting Professor of Values-Driven Leadership, Benedictine University (formerly Associate Professor of History, University of Alberta).
Mary Ashburn-Miller (Johns Hopkins University 2008). Revised thesis published as A Natural History of Revolution: Violence and Nature in the French Revolutionary Imagination 1789-1794 (Cornell University Press, 2011). Professor of History, Reed College.
Edward Kolla (Johns Hopkins University, 2010). Revised thesis published as Sovereignty, International Law, and the French Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Associate Professor of History, Georgetown University in Qatar.
Claire Cage (Johns Hopkins University, 2011). Revised thesis published as Unnatural Frenchmen: The Politics of Priestly Celibacy and Marriage, 1720-1815 (University of Virginia Press, 2015). Professor of History, University of South Alabama.
Christopher Tozzi (Johns Hopkins University, 2013). Revised thesis published as Nationalizing France's Army: Foreign, Black, and Jewish Troops in the French Military, 1715-1831 (University of Virginia Press, 2016). Senior Lecturer, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (formerly Associate Professor of History, Howard University).
William Brown (Johns Hopkins University, 2016), “Learning to Colonize: State Knowledge, Expertise, and the Making of the First French Empire, 1661-1715.” Academic Advisor, University of Oregon.
Katlyn Carter (Princeton University, 2017). Revised thesis published as Democracy in Darkness: Secrecy and Transparency in the Age of Revolutions (Yale University Press, 2023). Assistant Professor of History, Notre Dame University.
David Moak (Princeton University, 2017). “La capitale d’hiver: Tourism, Consumer Capitalism, and Urban Transformation in Nice (1760-1860).” Lecturer in Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Benjamin Sacks (Princeton University, 2018, co-directed with Linda Colley). “Creating the Atlantic Port Town: Surveyors, Networks and Geographies, 1670-1763.” Senior Policy Researcher, RAND Corporation, and Professor of Political Geography, Pardee RAND Graduate School.
Paris Spies-Gans (Princeton University, 2018, co-directed with Linda Colley). Revised thesis published as A Revolution on Canvas: The Rise of Women Artists in Britain and France, 1760-1830 (Yale University Press/Paul Mellon Centre, 2022). Independent Scholar. Previously, Junior Fellow, Society of Fellows, Harvard University.
Matthew McDonald (Princeton University, 2021). “A Linguistic Archipelago: The Spread of European French, 1740-1815.” Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Department of Defense. Previously, Marie Curie Fellow, University of Trier.
Benjamin Bernard (Princeton University, 2022). “Administering Morals in the French Enlightenment: Sexuality and Authority at the Parisian Collège, 1645-1763.” Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer, University of Virginia.
Netta Green (Princeton University, 2022). “Revolutionary Succession: Families, Inheritance Law, and the Social Sciences in France, 1789-1815.” Postdoctoral fellow, Martin Buber Society of Fellows, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Blake Grindon (Princeton University, 2023, co-directed with Michael Blaakman). “The Death of Jane McCrea: Sovereignty and Violence in the Northeastern Borderlands of the American Revolution.” Patrick Henry Postdoctoral fellow, Johns Hopkins University.
Jin-Woo Choi (Princeton University, 2024, co-directed with Anthony Grafton). “The Cold Standard: The Great Winter of 1709 in European Context.” Prize Fellow in Economics, History and Politics, Harvard University.

Graduate History Courses Taught at Princeton:

“Enlightenment and Revolution in France”
“France and its Empire: 1650-1962”
“Historical Approaches to the Enlightenment, 18^th Century to the Present”
“The Theory and Practice of Revolution”
“Revolutionary Lives in the Atlantic World”
“France, Britain and their Empires in the Eighteenth Century” (with Linda Colley)