BA (Hons) History/Politics

Year 1

You'll begin examining the broader concepts of how history has shaped the modern world. At the same time, your required Politics modules will focus on contemporary politics with an emphasis on the state. You'll also take one Politics module of your choice.

Core modules

You will take core modules:

• Evidence and Methods 

• Group Research Project 

• Political Communities in World History 

• What is Politics? 

Option modules

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

• Introduction to Democratic Politics

• Introduction to International Politics

• Introduction to Political Theory

Year 2

Your second year in the History and Politics degree 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. Political Text and Process options examine underlying philosophies, and how they're put into practice.

Core module

• Disciplines of History 1

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

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

• Contemporary Political Philosophy 

• History of Political Thought 

• State, Economy and Society 

• Empire, War and Law 

• The Politics of Gender 

• Democracy, Autocracy and the State 

• Politics in the United Kingdom 

• The European Union: Politics and Policies 

• Politics of Development 

• The Rising Powers 

• War and Peace 

• The United States and Global Politics After the Cold War 

• Human Rights and Wrongs in the Globalised World 

• Critical Global Security Studies 

• Global Political Economy 

Year 3

In your final year, you'll take a specialised, in-depth module on a particular historical topic, along with Politics module options. You'll also write a 10,000-word dissertation on a political or history topic of your choice.

Dissertation

• History Dissertation

• Politics Dissertation

Option modules

You will choose from a selection of History 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

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

• Gender and Political Theory 

• Knowledge and Ignorance in Democratic Politics 

• The Idea of Liberty 

• Political Participation and Democracy 

• Green Politics 

• British Foreign Policy after the Cold War 

• Territory and Conflict in the former Soviet Union 

• Regionalism in World Politics 

• Terrorism and Counterterrorism 

• Global Politics of Nuclear Weapons 

• Governing the Global Economy 

• Contemporary Politics of South Asia 

• Governmentality: Michel Foucault and the Analytics of Power 

• Politics and the Novel 

• 'We the people': Ideas of Democratic Representation from Rousseau to Occupy 

• Karl Marx 

• Politics and the Street 

• The Labour Party ad Britain's Struggle for Socialism 

• Policy Analysis in Theory and Practice 

• Global Sustainability and Energy Policy 

• Political Economy of the New Europe 

• Political Transition in the Middle East: A Century of Conflict 

• The Politics of Security in Africa 

• Statebuilding and Political Transition in South East Asia 

• The Global Food System 

• Ethnicity and Conflict 

• Ethics and Public Policy (PEP)