BA (Hons) History

Year 1

Your first year will introduce the study of History at a degree level. You'll develop research skills and study prominent periods of interest.

Core modules

You will take core modules which may include

• Political Communities in World History 

• Societies and Economies in World History 

• Knowledge and Beliefs in World History 

• Evidence and Methods 

• Group Research Project 

Option modules

You will choose from a selection of Period Topic option modules, examples of which may include:

• Between the Empire and Me: Race and Decolonisation in Britain since 1930

• Children and Childhood in Britain and Empire, 1850-2000

• Colonists, Capitalists and Gangsters: Republican Shanghai, 1911-49

• Cultural Encounters in Asia, 1500-1700

• Designs for Life: Health Education Campaigns in Britain, 1900-1980

• Decolonization, Internationalism and the Making of a New World Order after World War 2

• Empire, Welfare and Citizenship in Britain, 1870-1914

• Goths and Romans in Sixth Century Italy

• Medieval Lives

• Playing Politics in Early Modern Europe

• Politics of Reform in the United States since 1890

• Strange Defeat: France from 1914 to 1945

• Stranger Things: The Supernatural in Early Modern Europe,c. 1450-1750

• The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-45

• ​The Viking World: From Vínland to Samarkand

Year 2

Your second year will be about preparing for your final dissertation and reports. You'll begin to design your project and learn how to use the tools needed to complete it. You'll also broaden your knowledge on a particular theme or period.

Core modules

You will take core modules which may include:

• Disciplines of History 1 (Issues in Historical Thought)

• Disciplines of History 2 (Varieties of Historical Practice)

Option modules

You will choose from a selection of Histories and Contexts option modules, examples of which may include:

• Ancien Régime France, 1500-1787

• Britain in the Long Twentieth Century

• Ending European Empires: Decolonization after 1945 in Comparative Perspective

• From Grave Robbers to Gene Therapy: The Rise of Modern Medicine

• Histories in Public: Understandings of the Past in Today's Society

• Kingship, Rule and Mythmaking: England 1065-1307

• Narrators and Historical Memory in the Middle Ages

• Righteous Might: American Politics and Society since 1877

• The Tudor Regime: Power, Propaganda and Faith, 1485-1603

You will choose from a selection of Explorations option modules, examples of which may include:

• An Inconvenient Truth: Climate and Capitalism in the Modern World

• Black Radicalism in the Americas

• Britain and the World Since 1945

• British Police and the Democratic Idea since 1829

• Catherine the Great 1763 – 1796

• From the Global Shadows: Africa and the World since the 1950s

• Knowledge and Empire, c.1760-1965

• Law and Society in Later Medieval England (c.1300-1500)

• Revolutions, Scandals and Reforms: British Political Culture, 1688-1832

• The British Atlantic World, 1576-1692: From Roanoke Colony to the Salem Witch Trials

• The Color Line: Race and Empire in British, French and North American Worlds, c.1860-1945

• The Good World: Visions of Rule and Power in Italy, 1200-1400

• The Long Black Freedom Struggle in the U.S. since 1865

• The Making of England, c.850-1066

• The Pursuit of Happiness: The Politics of Leisure and Pastime in Twentieth-Century America

• Uniting the Kingdom: Britishness and the Four Nations, 1707-1815

• Using and Abusing the Past in Britain, 1835-2018

• What News?' People and Politics in Early Modern Britain

• Wild Things: A Cultural History of Animals, 1700-1900

Year 3

In your final year of the BA in History, you'll participate in Special Subject seminars focusing in depth on a historical process or problem. You'll also complete your dissertation, demonstrating the research skills you have learned during your time here.

Core module

• Dissertation

Option modules

You will choose from a selection of Comparative Histories option modules, examples of which may include:

• Commemorations

• Communisms

• Disease

• Empires

• Family

• Honour and Shame

• Magic

• Sexualities

• The Power of Persuasion: Rhetorics, culture and politics

• Unfree Labour

• Violence

• Work and Labour

You will choose from a selection of Special Subject option modules, examples of which may include:

• Fantasy and Friction: US-Middle East Relations from 1945

• Francis Bacon: Myth, Magic and Morals

• From Colonial to Post-Colonial States? The Twentieth Century Caribbean

• Improvement, Modernization or Violence? 'Development' in Historical Perspective

• Inquisitors and Heretics in the High Middle Ages

• Ireland in the Age of Revolution

• Joan of Arc

• John Stuart Mill and Victorian Britain

• Ploughing the Sea? The Spanish American Wars of Independence, 1750-1830

• Possession: Objects and Ownership in Early Modern England, c.1650-c.1750

• Reading and Writing in Late-Medieval England

• Rebellion and Revolution: The British Civil Wars, 1637-51

• Revolution in the Streets: Faith, Poverty, and Religious Ferment, c.1200

• Second-Class Citizens: Migration in Modern Europe

• The French Wars of Religion, 1559-94

• The Ghosts of Gandhi: India and Africa since the Late Nineteenth Century

• The Russian Revolution, 1917-21

• Thomas More: Learning, Politics and Religion in England, 1500-35