Social Sciences

Explore faculty and student work in economics, sociology, political science, anthropology, and other disciplines shaping our understanding of society.

A group of children interacts with an adult man, some laughing and smiling.

Robert Coles Was Most at Home on the Playground

A colleague remembers the late Harvard professor and child psychiatrist, who died this month.

by Alex Harris

Portrait of Jeannie Suk Gersen, an elegantly dressed Korean American woman leaning against a stone archway.

Jeannie Suk Gersen of Harvard Law School, profiled by Lydialyle Gibson

Jeannie Suk Gersen on the law, trauma, and “the rhetoric of believing”

by Lydialyle Gibson

A collage of emblematic figures in American history set against the Stars and Stripes

An intellectual history of the Cold War era

In a new book, Louis Menand probes the cultural currents of postwar America.

by Spencer Lee Lenfield

A Zoom screen shot shows guest speaker Isabel Wilkerson, interviewer Don Lemon, and Harvard professor David R. Williams

Isabel Wilkerson speaks at Harvard about racism storytelling and public health

Author Isabel Wilkerson kicks off a Harvard speaker series on storytelling and public health.

by Lydialyle Gibson

Headshots of Marc Lipsitch, William Hanage, Barry Bloom

Fast-spreading coronavirus variants raise concerns

Despite vaccines, Harvard scientists warn, more-transmissible variants make COVID-19 harder to control.

by Jonathan Shaw

Rapid Tests Key to Control of COVID-19

Amid skirmishing on the stimulus bill, another chance for wider viral detection 

by Jonathan Shaw

Cracks appear in a balloon decorated like a $100 bill as Uncle Sam fills it with a bicycle pump

Asset bubbles and credit growth precede financial crises.

Contrary to expert belief, some financial crises can be predicted—and perhaps averted.

by Jonathan Shaw

Portrait of Rachel Gable, author of new book on first-generation students at elite colleges

Timely guidance for colleges enrolling first-generation and low-income students

Rachel Gable’s research on helping first-generation and low-income students succeed at elite colleges

by John S. Rosenberg

Drawing of a distant solitary figure walking alone toward the horizon along a narrowing path of light edged on both sides by darkness

The Loneliness Pandemic

As the country isolates, are we all alone?

by Jacob Sweet

An illustration by James Steinberg shows a heavenly hand extending down to the U.S. Capitol and attempting to influence members of Congress

Benjamin Friedman on faith and American socioeconomic policy

How faith shapes economic and social policy

Archival photograph of John F. Kennedy as an undergraduate, circa 1939, studying papers

Fredrik Logevall, “JFK: Coming of Age…” excerpt

An unusual senior thesis