History BA

Learn the skills you need to make the most of studying history.

This module aims to bridge the transition from school to university study, preparing you for more advanced work in your second year.

We will:

• Focus on your conceptions of history as a subject, as well as your strategies as learners, so you can effectively monitor and develop your skills and understanding
• Introduce different approaches to studying history, and different understandings of what history is for

This module is worth 20 credits.

"It’s very much a skills-based module. It was so useful. I had a long break from finishing sixth form in May, to starting uni in September – I thought 'how on Earth do I write an essay? What is this thing called referencing?!' The module took those worries away." – Emily Oxbury, History and Politics BA

Discover medieval European history from 500-1500.

We explore the major forces which were instrumental in shaping the politics, society and culture in Europe, considering the last currents in historical research.

Through a series of thematically linked lectures and seminars, you will be introduced to key factors determining changes in the European experience, as well as important continuities linking the period as a whole.

We will consider:

• Political structures and organisation
• Social and economic life
• Cultural developments

You will spend three hours in lectures and seminars each week.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Discover key themes in the history of early modern Europe.

We analyse the religious, political, demographic, social and cultural history of this dynamic period.

Themes include:

• Religious toleration and persecution
• International diplomacy
• Popular culture
• Popular protest
• Health, disease and disability
• Military change
• Monarchies and courts
• Gender and sexuality
• Ethnicity including Africans in Shakespeare's England
• Urban and rural life
• Witchcraft

This module is worth 20 credits.

Explore a chronology of modern history, from 1750 to 1945.

We concentrate on:

• key political developments in European and global history (including the French Revolution, the expansion of the European empires and the two World Wars)
• Economic, social and cultural issues (such as industrialisation, urbanisation, changing artistic forms and ideological transformations)

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module explores some of the major problems that exist in contemporary global politics. It introduces you to a wide range of challenges faced by states and non-state actors in the international system and engages with topics ranging from security concerns to economic issues. 

The module draws on a wide range of ideas and examples from around the world to help you to better understand global politics.

This module provides you with fundamental concepts in the study of film and television. It introduces key terms and investigates principal work roles within the industry.

You will develop a critical approach to the analysis of film and television media, spending around five hours a week in workshops and seminars.

Explore the real stories behind key sites and discoveries in the history of archaeology.

Taking a broadly chronological approach, we touch upon key finds from the earliest phases of human evolution to the Middle Ages. Each lecture focusses on a major site of scientific discovery or excavation that has fundamentally altered previously held interpretations of the past. This might include Pompeii, Sparta, Sutton Hoo or Palmyra.

You will also examine the personalities and ideologies that have shaped archaeology, noting how changing perspectives on gender, ethnicity and class have in turn formed ideas about the past and its material remains.

We also consider to what extent archaeology is used, abused, or misused in the modern world. So, if you'd like to learn how archaeology became the subject it is, and how it remains very much relevant to the present day, then this is the module for you!

This module is worth 20 credits.

Analyse the key developments in world affairs after the Second World War.

We will consider:

• Major international events, particularly the course and aftermath of the Cold War
• National and regional histories, especially in Europe, East Asia and the Middle East
• Key political and social movements
• Political, economic and social forces

This module is worth 20 credits.

The module compares and contrasts key historical, legendary and fictional figures to examine the development of western medieval values and ideologies such as monasticism, chivalry and kingship. It explores how individuals shaped ideal types and how they themselves strove to match medieval archetypes. The binary oppositions between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are explored through study of the ‘bad king’, and the creation of villains such as the Jew. You will spend four hours per week in lectures and seminars.

Have you ever wondered what makes a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ king?

We investigate late medieval kingship, the dynamics of politics and power, and the reasons why royal authority was challenged.

You will examine the history of late-medieval England, from the mid-13th to late-15th century, when a series of political crises rocked the English monarchy.

We focus on the political events of the period, especially the times of crisis when the monarchy faced opposition or even usurpation. This includes:

• Simon de Montfort and the Crisis of 1258
• Ruling in the king's name: the Ordinances of 1311
• The depositions of Edward II (1327) and Richard II (1399)
• Politics and Bankruptcy: Edward III and Henry IV
• The Wars of the Roses (1450-61)
• The tyranny of Richard III

England didn’t exist in isolation, however. You’ll also explore its relations with Scotland and Wales, considering how English power was imposed on subject populations, and how they resisted. Case studies include Robert Bruce and Own Glyn Dwr.

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module will survey and analyse how perceptions of law and order, and attitudes to crime and punishment changed in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – ostensibly in response to huge increase in criminal activity. The module will discuss the wider background factors behind these changes, as well as relevant historiographical debates about them. The major topics to be explored include:

• The machinery of justice
• Policing early modern communities
• Vagabondage and the problem of the poor
• Rioting, disorder and the negotiation of authority
• Organised crime: myths and realities
• Criminality and religion
• Women, crime and the courts 
• Crime and the state 
• Changing attitudes to punishment 1500-1800

This module explores the causes of political and religious instability in England in the century before the Civil War, with a particular focus on the problematic creation of a national identity. We begin by looking at the troubled political and religious legacy inherited by Queen Elizabeth. We then examine some of the forces that united and divided English men and women during the period. How did monarchs and local elites seek to justify their authority in this period? To what extent were ideas of hierarchy and obedience queried or accepted, and what impact did such ideas have on daily life? Areas for consideration include government ideology; popular beliefs and literacy; the persecution and toleration of religious minorities; the politics of the parish; and attitudes towards birth, marriage and death. Key topics include:

• the formation of English national identity
• perceptions of, and challenges to, royal authority
• the changing policies of Elizabeth, James I and Charles I
• popular beliefs and the spread of print culture
• festive culture and moral regulation
• anti-Catholicism and the Gunpowder Plot
• religion and the road to Civil War

Over the period 1750-1914, it has been argued that England passed through an ‘industrial revolution’. During this period, England certainly experienced enormous changes in both rural and urban areas. This module will investigate some of the economic and social consequences including: the move of people and industry to towns, changes in the countryside, changes in living conditions, changing patterns of consumption, and the changing structures of society. This module will evaluate whether these changes in fact represented a revolution, evolution or transformation.

The module introduces students to the cultural historiography on how urban modernity transformed everyday life in British and European cities (covering the period 1840-1900). In particular, it focuses on a range of new spaces, objects, images and discursive representations through which people tried to come to terms with rapid processes of social change. These provide a number of thematic approaches that will build into a composite picture of how experience was reshaped during this period. Topics may include:

• ‘Haussmannisation’ processes across Europe and the contested terrain of the boulevard;
• The development of mapping, surveying and statistics;
• The bourgeois home as a site of identity, the meanings of interior design;
• The department store and new contested sites of consumer culture;
• Photography as a means of both identity-creation and detection;
• The cultural meanings of pollution and waste;
• Slum literature as a source of anxiety and control,
• Museum culture, exhibitions, and the ordering of imperial knowledge.

Discover British foreign policy, from the last years of the Victorian Era to the German invasion of Poland in 1939.

We focus on the policy of British governments, giving an historical analysis of the main developments in their relationship with the wider world. This includes:

• The making of the ententes
• Entry into the two world wars
• Appeasement and relations with other great powers

We also discuss the wider background factors which influenced British policy, touching on Imperial defence, financial limitations and the influence of public opinion.

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module surveys and analyses social change in Britain during and after the Second World War, up to the end of the Attlee’s Labour government in 1951. Key issues include:

• changing gender roles and expectations
• the experience and impact of rationing, bombing, conscription, voluntary service and direction by central government
• historiographical debates about whether Britain was united against a common enemy
• propaganda, mass communication and the management of information
• planning for a post-war world, including the creation of the National Health Service and the reform of the education system
• post-war reconstruction of cities
• reactions to the Holocaust, atomic weaponry, returning service personnel, returning Prisoners of War
• post-war austerity
• representations of the period and the construction of memory

The module examines medieval concerns about the day of judgement, the Antichrist and the end of time.

These all had a significant impact upon many different individuals and societies, finding expression in literature, architecture and a wide variety of artistic media. In some cases, the need to infuse the present moment with apocalyptic meaning directly influenced the actions of kings, emperors, ecclesiastical leaders and religious communities.

Students will uncover the systems of belief about the Apocalypse and trace the impact of such traditions upon society in the medieval world. 

The later middle ages was a period of stark contrasts. From a population explosion and dynamic economic expansion at the end of the thirteenth century through the dark years of famine and plague of the fourteenth century, to the social and economic upheavals of the fifteenth century, this was a world that contemporaries believed had been turned upside down. This module examines how medieval society weathered these changes and the ways historians have tried to explain them. Translated medieval documents, which allow students to get as close as possible to the medieval people themselves, are a central element of the module. 

This course examines the history of the post-war Labour Party.

It will devote particular attention to the party's political thought and its relationship with, and perceptions of, social change.

Key issues discussed include:

• the nature of the Labour's party's political thought
• the British left's response to post-war affluence
• the relationship between cultural and political change
• the relationship between social change and Britain's electoral politics. 

This module addresses evidence for crusader motivation and experience through sources relating to crusading activity in Europe and the Middle East from the late eleventh century to the mid thirteenth century. It seeks to understand how crusaders saw themselves and their enemies, their experiences and activity on crusade and as settlers, and how this horrifying yet enduringly fascinating process has been interpreted historically. Topics addressed will be:

• crusades to the eastern Mediterranean (the 'Holy Land' and Egypt)
• crusades in western and eastern Europe (Spain, Greece, the Baltic and the Albigensian Crusade)
• detailed thematic examination of the motives, involvement, interests and experience of four specific groups; women, the lay elite, the ordinary laity and the clergy

This module explores the nature of the Venetian Republic in the later fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It examines the constitution, and administrative and judicial system, its imperial and military organisation, but will above all focus on the city and its inhabitants. The module will examine the enormous cultural dynamism of the city (especially the visual arts from the Bellini to Tintoretto and Veronese), changing urban fabric, the role of ritual and ceremony, the position of the Church, and class and gender.

• Venice and international context
• The Venetian economy
• Constitution and administration
• Venice at war and peace
• Patricians, citizens and popular classes
• Women in Venice: wives and workers, whores and nuns
• Urban fabric
• Patronage and the arts
• Artisans and printers
• Religion and the republic
• Jews and foreigners

This module aims to encourage students to develop a detailed understanding of the major political, social and economic developments in Central Europe between 1848 and 1914. They should become aware of the main historiographical debates concerning the region and the Habsburg Monarchy in particular.

As a result of their historical studies and analytical thinking, students should enhance and develop a range of intellectual and transferable skills.

Examine the rise of fascist movements in interwar Europe, following the First World War.

We focus in particular on the cases of Italy and Germany and also look at other cases for comparison (i.e. Spain, Britain, France, and Romania). This in order to understand why certain movements were more popular than others and able to seize power.

We will examine:

• the nature of fascist ideology
• the use of violence
• fascism and masculinity and femininity

We will also analyse the practice of the Fascist and National Socialist governments in power, comparing these with particular reference to repression and attempts to build ‘consent’, gendered policies on ‘race’, and expansion through conquest.

The module ends by considering the Axis and genocide during the Second World War.

This module is worth 20 credits.

In the 1970s and 1980s, momentous economic changes swept through traditional industrial regions across the West, turning proud heartlands into rustbelts in less than a generation. As the lights went out in shipyards, steelworks, coal mines and manufacturing plants, a way of life was destroyed for millions of manual workers and their families, with profound repercussions on identities, communities and urban topographies. This module examines the social and cultural impact of de-industrialisation in the north of England, the German Ruhr basin, and the American Midwest, using a wealth of diverse primary sources, from government records to popular music, to tease out what it meant to live through a period of tumultuous socio-economic change. The module takes thematic approaches, exploring topics including:

• Change and decline in traditional industries such as coal, steel and shipbuilding.
• Political responses to industrial change, with a particular focus on industrial conflict over closures.
• The impact of de-industrialisation on manual workers and their ways of life.
• Changing ideas of social class.
• Mass unemployment and its social and cultural consequences.
• Gender and identity, with a particular emphasis on the crisis of ‘muscular masculinity’.
• Urban decline and regeneration.
• Youth and youth subcultures in post-industrial cities.
• Cultural representations of de-industrialisation, with emphasis on popular music, fiction and feature films.

The module analyses the formation of the modern German state through the combined processes of nation-building and industrialization, and the multiple tensions that characterized it in the decades following unification: class conflict, ethnic tensions and problems of the constitution. The module examines how the First World War and the German revolution intensified these tensions, which proved incapable of resolution in the period of democracy that followed. It goes on to consider the crisis of the democratic state, the rise of National Socialism and its unleashing of war and genocide. Finally, it analyses the de-nazification and division of the country after the Second World War, the politics of memory in the 1950s and 60s and the reconciliation between West Germany and Eastern Europe in the early 1970s. 

This module studies the emergence of Muscovite Russia as a major player on the European arena by the early 18th century.

It examines:

• the rapid territorial and racial expansion from the 16th century and its consequences
• Muscovy’s first civil war
• the struggle of the Russian crown to curtail the power of its aristocracy
• the ground-breaking reforms of Peter I
• the beginnings of Russia’s slow progress towards Westernisation. 

This module examines political, social and economic transformations in the Soviet Union from the October Revolution of 1917 to Gorbachev’s attempted reforms and the collapse of the state in 1991. You will look at Russia both from the top down (state-building strategies; leadership and regime change; economic and social policy formulation and implementation) and from the bottom up (societal developments and the changing structures and practices of everyday life). You will usually spend three hours in lectures and seminars each week.

This module highlights key debates and themes in the history of the ‘first’ British Empire 1600-1807.

Topics include:

• trade to the East and colonisation to the West

• how the British government protected their empire and enforced a trading monopoly within it

• the loss of the American colonies

• the impact of abolition upon the valuable slave trade.

The module explores the key themes of ideology and identity; the concept of formal and informal empires and the causes and consequences of historical change.

This module examines the history of the British Empire from the end of the slave trade in 1833-4 to the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1899-1902. The module is divided into three major geographic and chronological sections. In the first part of the course, we will discuss the British Caribbean, with a particular focus on the transition from slavery and the period of instability in the decades that followed. In the second part, we will focus on India and the changeover from East India Company rule to the direct administration by the British government in the wake of the Indian Mutiny (aka “the Sepoy Rebellion”). In the final section, we will discuss Britain’s participation in the “Scramble for Africa” and the rise of “popular imperialism” with the 2nd Anglo-Boer War. The final, pre-revision class meeting will also discuss the metropolitan aspects of empire, examining London’s status as “the Imperial Metropolis.

The purpose of this module is to examine current debates in the historiography about the end of the European empires in African and the emergence of a new political system of independent states. Topics which will feature particularly strongly are

• the emergence of a variety of different forms of African nationalism
• the ongoing debate about the uneven economic development of Africa during the last years of empire and the first years of independence
• the controversies surrounding the numerous colonial wars which were fought during the liberation struggle
• the significance of race including the question of European settlements and migration
• the impact of the Cold War on the politics of decolonisation. Countries which will be examined in particular detail will include Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, the Congo, Kenya, Angola, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

This module covers two-and-a-half centuries in Japan during the early modern era when the land was governed by a dynasty of Tokugawa shogun rulers. Often characterized as a period of relative stability, it was also a time of profound social, cultural and intellectual change. Lectures and seminars address some of the historical forces that would combine to transform society and lay the foundations for Japan’s subsequent encounters with modernity. Key themes include: the premises of Tokugawa rule, control mechanisms and relations with daimyo lords; the self-imposed policy of seclusion, trade and external relations; transport networks, class mobility and urbanization; the emergence of ‘the Floating World’ and the growth of popular culture; natural disasters, famine and economic crises; the responses of competing schools of thought drawing on Japanese, Chinese and European texts to address problems within Japanese society; the ‘Opening of Japan’ and the collapse of the Tokugawa World.

In this module you will study the history of China from the 1840s, through to the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949. You will focus in particular on the ways in which Chinese society responded to the arrival of ‘modernity’ in the form of the Western powers and Japan throughout the period in question, but also how different groups in China tried to remould or redefine China as a ‘modern’ nation-state and society. In this module you will have a two-hour lecture each week.

This module considers Japan’s encounter with modernity during the ‘interwar’ or 'Greater Taisho' period between 1905 and 1931.

This period witnessed increasing liberalisation with the rise of labour and Leftist movements and the beginnings of feminist consciousness as well as urbanisation, commercialisation, mass education and literacy.

However, in the 1930s democracy and liberalism gave way to rising ultra-nationalism and militarism which led ultimately to a devastating war with the Western powers.

The Cold War was a conflict defined as much by intellectual and cultural struggle as by conventional military means or diplomatic relations. Cultural concepts such as race and identity were by no means immune from this, but heavily disputed and contested during the Cold War era, playing a decisive role in shaping the foreign relations of the United States, Soviet Union and other powers during this transformative period. This module examines how the United States and Soviet Union dealt with issues of race and identity during the Cold War years, confronting racial questions, challenges and liberation movements from both within their own borders (and each other’s) and in several theatres of superpower conflict – including the Middle East, East Asia and post-colonial Africa - and often viewing them through highly racialised lenses. It also considers how other powers - notably Britain, South Africa and newly-independent African and Asian nations - grappled with issues of race and identity as they sought to understand and work within a new, post-colonial Cold War world. This module aims to provide students with a new and deeper understanding of the relationship between the Cold War world and the politics of race, and an appreciation of the interconnectedness of the domestic and international in Cold War-era foreign relations.

Discover the environmental history of the Western World over the past two centuries. The great nature-people stories that have shaped who we are today.

You will examine the history of environmental ideas and our changing and complex attitudes to animals and nature, alongside the history of human impacts on the environment. We will use the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain as case studies. Ultimately, we ask, can environmental history save the world in the 21st century?

Topics include:

• species history and the rewilding debate
• the rise of environmental protection groups
• the role of the state in environmental protection
• the history of pollution and pesticide use
• the National Park movement
• the Nature Reserve and the rise of outdoor leisure and recreation
• the emergence of modern environmentalism and campaigning
• the role of wildlife television and natural history film-making

This module is a must for anyone wanting to pursue a career in the environmental sector.

This module is worth 20 credits

During the summer, you will complete a 60-credit dissertation (12-15,000 words) based on primary sources and supervised by a member of staff with expertise in your chosen field.

You will have regular meetings with your supervisor.

The mid-fifteenth century was a period of intense political turmoil, eventually leading to civil strife. The module examines the causes of the conflict, focusing initially on the failure of Henry VI’s kingship, before considering the failure of the political community – in the absence of a functioning king – to establish consensus in government during the 1450s. We then consider the attempts at reconstruction under Edward IV in face of continuing political instability and challenges to royal authority. To complement the seminars, the lectures will address related issues such as international relations and the role of magnates and the gentry, as well as wider themes such as the role of powerful women during this period and the nature of warfare.

Students will be introduced to the role of the British in the Atlantic slave trade in the early-modern period.

Themes considered will include:

• the operation of the slave trade and its importance to the British economy
• the slave trade in Africa
• the ‘Middle Passage’
• the ‘West India Interest’
• the debate over the abolition of the British Atlantic slave trade in 1807.

This module explores key themes in the political history of Britain from the time of the French Revolution to the middle of the 19th century. Topics for study include the role the 1832 Reform Act in political reform, the development of political parties, the role of parliament and the monarchy, electoral culture either side of the 1832 Reform Act, the nature of the press and the role of caricatures, and pressure groups in British political life - exploring movements such as the Luddites, Swing Riots, and Chartists. You will spend four hours in lectures and seminars studying for this module.

This course analyses the history of Britain since the 1930s through twelve classic films. We will examine the films as historical documents, that is, as interventions in the cultural, social, and political debates of their time, and as guides to those questions for historians. The questions to ask are: what do these films tell us about the society which produced them? What do they tell us about social, political, cultural and intellectual debates of the period in which they were made? How do the films address those debates? The films change each year, but will include: the documentaries of Humphrey Jennings, Ealing Comedy, British New Wave, 60s cinema, Derek Jarman, and “heritage” costume drama. Workload: every week students will watch one film and do a detailed synopsis of the film in the class, and will also do other class tasks based on reading articles or book sections.

This module re-evaluates the history of masculinity in Western culture. Most existing analysis of masculinity in Western culture deals with modern cultures. Yet, many of the key characteristics of masculinity can plausibly be traced back to the Dark Ages. Students You will study such issues as: how to use gender as an analytical tool with which to investigate early medieval evidence; gender ideology; codes of male honour; men's life cycles and fatherhood; relations between men and women; violence; military and clerical ideals of masculinity. You’ll spend four hours per week studying this module.

The module offers an overview of the history of witchcraft and covers a wide geographical area spreading from Scotland to the Italian peninsula and from Spain to Russia. Such breadth of reference is of vital importance because, in contrast to the uniform theology-based approach to witch persecution in Western and Central Europe, the world of Eastern Orthodox Christianity represented a very different system of beliefs that challenged western perceptions of witchcraft as a gendered crime and lacked their preoccupation with the diabolical aspect of sorcery. The module’s geographical breadth is complemented by thematic depth across a range of primary sources and case studies exploring the issues of religion, politics, and social structure.

This module looks at the great flowering of culture in Central Europe during the last years of the Habsburg Monarchy. In recent years the study of ‘Vienna 1900’ has grown to encompass such diverse figures as Freud, Mahler, Schoenberg, Klimt, Schiele, Schnitzler, Hofmannsthal, Kraus, Wittgenstein, Otto Wagner, Loos and many others. Yet this dazzling collection of mostly Viennese men only scratches the surface of fin-de-siecle Central European cultural world. This module aims to encourage students to develop a detailed understanding of fin-de-siecle Central European culture; its roots, achievements and failures. The students will engage with the existing historiographical debates; in particular the political, social and psychological causes of this late flowering.

In the two decades after the First World War, two modern western European countries, Italy and Germany, were transformed from liberal, parliamentary democracies into fascist dictatorships. Historians have offered detailed accounts of the political machinations that made this transition possible. Yet recent historical research has been led by different questions: what reconciled so many ‘ordinary people’ to the anti-democratic, illiberal and increasingly murderous policies upon which these regimes embarked? This course explores how fascism transformed ordinary life, and how culture was employed to translate fascist ideas into lived experience.

The module adopts a perspective of gender history to explore the workings of the Nazi regime in wartime, from conquest and genocide to the final defeat and collapse of the regime.

It examines how the regime sought to prescribe particular norms of behaviour for German men and women in wartime and how the policing of sexuality and marital relationships became part of heightened wartime intrusions into private life.

It will explore:

• conformity and resistance on the part of Germans during conditions of intense repression and terror
• how the categories of gender and race shaped the treatment of foreign forced labourers in Germany
• how far a perspective of gender can inform our understanding of the Holocaust. 

 

Module convener: Professor Elizabeth Harvey

This module examines occupied Vichy France and the Resistance between 1940 and 1944. In so doing, the module aims to understand and explain why the period has remained so potent in France up to the present day.

The module examines:

• the period in terms of collaboration
• Vichy as a gendered regime
• resistance
• the impact of the occupation on Jews
• trials of those accused of crimes against humanity
• occupied France in the cinema
• how occupied France has been remembered at different points since the end of the German occupation.

Module convener: Dr Karen Adler

The discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard, the largest collection of Anglo- Saxon gold and silver metalwork ever found, forced historians to reevaluate the early Anglo-Saxon period and ask new questions about this crucial formative stage of English history. The items discovered are almost exclusively connected to warfare, yet many show evidence of very high levels of craftsmanship, reflecting the fact that this period was one characterised by brutal and relentless fighting whilst at the same time maintaining an extraordinarily rich culture. The history of this era of conversions, conflicts and cultural renaissances is documented primarily by Bede (c. 673 735), whose career at the monastery at Wearmouth and Jarrow culminated with the production of the first synthetic history of the English (the Ecclesiastical History of the English People). Bede s writings are complemented by copious archaeological evidence, most famously through artefacts such as the Franks Casket and Sutton Hoo Helmet, monumental stone crosses at Ruthwell and Bewcastle, and fabulous manuscripts like the Lindisfarne, and Lichfield Gospels. Students will utilise these sources, plus a wide variety of other items of textual and non-textual evidence to explore the kingdoms and cultures of the early Anglo-Saxon world. The first semester will focus on the era of conversion documented in the Ecclesiastical History, and the second will consist of a detailed analysis of Bede’s wider body of work.

The first half of the module is an in-depth chronological survey of the domestic history of England from the Good Parliament of 1376 to the deposition of Richard II in 1399. We will investigate how the royal family and their friends - a colourful and sometimes scandalous group - struggled to rule the country with the aid of such government instruments as show trials, intimidation, legal advice, murder and poll-taxes. The remaining part of the module considers England's relations with its neighbours and the impact of Lollardy on society and the Church in this period.

In 1348 the Black Death arrived in England. By 1350 the disease had killed half of the English population. The module concentrates upon the stories of the epidemics' survivors and what they did to adapt to a world turned upside down by plague. It examines the impact of this unprecedented human disaster upon the society and culture of England between 1348 and 1520. It examines four particular groups of survivors:

• Peasants
• Merchants
• Gentry
• Women

The module explores English society through translated medieval sources. Themes include:

• Impact of the Black Death
• Religious and scientific explanations of the plague
• Changes in peasant society and how peasants lived after the plague  Merchants, their lives, businesses and shifting attitudes towards them
• Gentry society and culture in the fifteenth century and the development of an entrepreneurial ‘middling sort’
• Women’s lives and experiences in a post-plague patriarchal society The module poses a simple question: How central is the Black Death in explanations of long-term historical change and the evolution of the modern world?

The reign of James I was a decisive period in the history of Britain, marked by constitutional innovation, court scandals, religious and political tensions and conspiracies, a flourishing literary culture and the emergence of highly critical forms of popular political opinion. This course studies the interaction of these varied phenomena while addressing the broader question of how successful a ruler James was, and how far he can be held responsible for the upheavals of the reign of his son, Charles I. Topics include:

• The Gunpowder Plot
• Religious division and managing the Tudor religious legacy
• Court Scandals - poisonings, sorcery and corruption
• James I – political fixer or the ‘Wisest Fool in Christendom?’
• The birth of modern political journalism and propaganda
• Foreign policy in a time of European crisis--what role should England play?
• Ideas of the new Atlantic British Empire
• Shakespeare’s London and controversial Parliaments

This module surveys and analyses political, religious, social, cultural and military changes during the civil wars fought across the British Isles and the British Atlantic between 1639 and 1652. The major topics to be explored include:

• the causes of the civil wars
• the mobilisation of civilian communities
• the course of the civil wars
• the impact of war on individuals and communities
• religious and political change
• the growth of religious and political radicalism
• print culture and propaganda
• the changing roles of women
• the issues surrounding the public trial and execution of the king
• the abolition of the British monarchy and the House of Lords
• the ‘Celtic dimension’ of the conflict
• the Civil Wars in the British Atlantic

This module is an in-depth study of the impact of the French Revolution on British politics, society and culture between the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803. Through an exploration of primary documents and secondary texts, students will investigate the events of the period and consider the wide range of interpretations that have been applied to these years by contemporaries and historians. Subjects for consideration include:- 'the revolution debate' (e.g. Burke, Paine and Wollstonecraft) the development of popular radical and loyalist political organisations the government's use of legal apparatus against radicals and publishers the impact of scarcity and food crises in a time of war and economic dislocation the emergence of a so-called 'revolutionary underground' after 1795 the Irish rebellion of 1798 and its antecedents the ways in which loyalism, patriotism and nationalism were articulated during this period (e.g. More and Gillray)

International history is dominated by wars; historians and international relations scholars focus with an almost obsessive zeal on the causes and consequences of conflict. The intermittent periods of peace are rarely scrutinised, other than to assess the imperfections of peace treaties and thus extrapolate the seeds of future wars. This module offers a corrective to this tendency, taking as its focus the multifarious efforts that have been made since 1815 to substitute peace for war. These include diplomatic efforts (e.g. post-war conferences, legalistic mechanisms such as the UN, arms control protocols, etc.), and those advanced by non-state actors (e.g. national and transnational peace movements, anti-war protests, etc.). Taking a broad definition of the term peace , and focusing predominantly (though not exclusively) on Britain, this module revisits some of the pivotal episodes of the 19th and 20th centuries, exposing and interrogating the often complex relationship between war and peace that emerged, and thus arriving at an alternative history of the period.

The module explores the cultural transformations in Britain brought on by the shift to a Fordist economy (roughly covering the period 1920-50), and the social and cultural contestations that resulted. It takes chronological and thematic approaches, and topics may include:

• New experiences of factory work and the rationalisation of diverse areas of everyday life;
• New forms of advertising and commodity culture, and the anxieties and opportunities these produced;
• New forms of industrial urban leisure (e.g. the cinema and dance hall) and their role in promoting social change;
• Performances of self-hood and the contested politics of movement and habit;
• The perceived impact of Americanisation on national traditions, values and ways of life;
• The rise of the ‘expert’ across a range of fields to manage working-class behaviour;
• The development of social science and the problems of knowing ‘the masses’; Post-WW2 reconstruction and the early years of the Welfare State;

Typically this special subject module surveys and analyses social and cultural change in the West during the `long Sixties' from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s. Key issues include: The origins and nature of changes in norms of behaviour in the 1960s such as the sexual revolution, attitudes to authority, and the role of youth in society. The impact of wider historical developments such as post-war economic prosperity and the Cold War (the Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis took place in 1962, for instance). An emphasis on looking at the experiences of ordinary people while acknowledging the role of major leaders. The origins of a counterculture in the United States and Britain. The Vietnam War. The development of protest movements such as the civil rights campaign in the United States; the anti-nuclear movement (CND was founded in 1958); student protest movements; the anti-Vietnam War campaign. The movement of protest campaigns toward the use of violence, and ultimately the development of terrorist campaigns in the 1970s (Baader- Meinhof, the Weathermen, the Red Brigades). The `second wave' of feminism from the late 1960s. The representation of the decade in popular culture, both in the 1960s and in subsequent decades, and in particular the politicisation of debates about this controversial period.

The module will engage with the social and political changes that took place in 1980s Britain. It will be concerned with the following themes:

• The ideology of Thatcherism
• The relationship between social change and political change
• The political significance of Margaret Thatcher
• Margaret Thatcher’s rhetoric
• The political legacies of Thatcherism.

This module explores religious ‘faith’ in England from c. 1215 to the beginning of the Reformation in 1534.

The English church made great efforts in this period to consolidate Christianity amongst the masses through wide-reaching programmes of instruction, regulation and devotion. However, historians disagree as to how successful the church was in its efforts.

The module investigates the relationship between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ religion and examines how the church sought to maintain its authority in matters of faith. It asks how people responded and the degree to which they fashioned their own religious practices and beliefs. It also considers the violent repression by church and crown of those deemed ‘heretics’.

It looks at the condemned teachings of the Oxford academic John Wycliffe and the significance of those who followed his ideas, known as Lollards.

Module convener: Dr Rob Lutton

This module is an examination of the links between sexuality, intimate life, identity, politics, society, power and the state in Britain since 1900. It also examines the theoretical approaches to the study of sexuality and analyse sexuality as a category of historical analysis.

Key themes include

• free love and eugenics
• sexology, psychoanalysis and the therapeutic revolution
• birth control and sexual knowledge
• marriage and society
• male homosexuality
• the permissive society and Counter Culture
• the AIDs crisis.

Module convener: Dr Harry Cocks

On an unprecedented scale, from c.1150 into the thirteenth century, thousands of people stopped believing some of the religious narratives which had been handed down to them, and took up new ones which were radical and dangerous.

Often branded ‘heretical’, these new movements were ruthlessly persecuted by both church leaders and kings, but as often for political and territorial, rather than religious reasons.

This module explores:

• the Albigensian crusades
• murders of churchmen
• medieval warfare
• the signing of Magna Carta
• the establishment of the medieval inquisition
• the beliefs and activities of medieval heretics
• surveillance, denunciation and psychological warfare
• excommunication and trials
• warfare and execution
• the heretical underworld and organised resistance to persecution.

Module convener: Dr Claire Taylor

This module evaluates the ways in which ideas during the Renaissance had an impact on both long-distance exploration and interstate relations. Also, of primary importance will be situating Tudor England in a pan-European context, thereby helping students better understand the rise of this island nation to become a global superpower. Topics covered will include:

• Renaissance attitudes to human potential
• Motivations for overseas exploration and travel
• Beginnings of European imperialism
• Continuities and changes in diplomacy
• Religion and foreign policy
• Travel literature and cultural diplomacy
• Xenophobia and cosmopolitanism

The purpose of this module is to encourage students to develop a detailed knowledge of primary evidence and recent historical debates in the Thirty- Years’War addressed at three levels: as a war of religion, as a clash of interests between the imperial crown and German territorial princes, and as a human catastrophe of monumental proportions. Although its drama unfolded primarily in the territory of the Holy Roman Empire, the war drew in such diverse participants as Britain, France, Denmark, Sweden and Spain. In pursuit of self-seeking political goals, they formed unlikely alliances and created obstacles to the conflict’s resolution. However, the outcome of the war was to ensure the survival of Protestantism in Central Europe as well as to provide a stable political and religious status quo that lasted into the modern age. The module discusses the Thirty Years’War by drawing on various historiographical traditions that represent the views of major international players.

This module investigates the development of politics and society in the crucial period leading up to WWI. In general, it was an era of liberal dominance in Europe s political landscape, though this can be disputed. The main focus will be the rise and fall of liberal politics across Europe in the period 1848-1914. A major theme will be the interaction between ideas and actions. Particular attention will be devoted to the intellectual foundations of European politics, the legacy of the 1848 revolutions, the drafting of constitutions, bills of rights and a suitable legal framework, the difficulty in building a liberal nation-state, the place of religion in society, the rising power of nationalism and the concrete reforms introduced throughout the period. The emphasis will be on how politics functioned in practice, within its own context, taking into account the possibilities and strictures of the time. Extensive use will be made of original source materials and comparative analysis will also be encouraged.

The module surveys and analyses the policies of the main countries involved in the outbreak of the First World War in July-August 1914. It focuses in particular on the reasons they took the diplomatic and military decisions they did, including both specific decisions and the background factors that helped shape their thinking.

The module evaluates the crisis of modern mass industrial society that underpinned the weakness of democracy in Germany in the Weimar years. It examines the impact of World War One on the German welfare state, the rise new forms of paramilitary politics, the Americanization of industry, new gender roles, and the crisis of the nobility and traditional conservatism in the country-side. It looks in detail at the debates on modern cities that were increasingly identified as the hotbeds of the supposed ills of modernity and the way the Nazis were able to exploit these various pressure points of modern mass society for political gains. It makes detailed use of original source materials.

Spending four hours per week in seminars and tutorials, you will be given a framework to understand the experience of Italians (and to a lesser degree their enemies, allies, and collaborators) during the military conflicts in the long decade 1935-45, as well as knowledge of the background factors that shaped these experiences. As source material you will have the chance to explore diplomatic correspondence, personal memoirs, newspapers and magazines, newsreels, as well as examining the representation of the war in literature and cinema. You will have four hours of seminars each week for this module.

This special subject surveys and analyses the place of Jews in modern European history. Throughout the modern period, Jews lived in Europe as part of a minority. The module is concerned to analyse the enduring, productive and resilient relation between Jews and non-Jews. It is the contention of this module that the story of the relationship’s development and evolution can tell us a great deal of the history of Europe as a whole.

In the historiography, the 1970s and 1980s are often referred to as a ‘landslide’ (E. Hobsbawm) or a ‘time of troubles’ (A. Marwick) for the West, which, it is argued, followed upon the ‘Golden Age’ of material affluence and cultural liberalisation that characterised the post-war period. At the same time, historical scholarship is only just beginning to make inroads into a field that has been extensively documented by cultural critics, the media and the social sciences. The module will engage critically with the dominant conceptualisation of the 1970s and 1980s as crisis decades and ask about the contribution that Contemporary History can make to our understanding of the period. It focuses on the UK and W-Germany as case studies, but will also look at developments in the West more broadly, exploring economic, social and cultural change as well as continuity. It takes thematic approaches, analysing topics including:

• Détente and the second Cold War;
• the crisis of industrialism and structural economic change;
• social change and continuity, with special emphasis on the class structure;
• the disintegration of consensus politics and the rise of the New Right;
• liberalisation, new social movements and cultural politics;
• domestic terrorism, the public and the state; heritage, memory and nostalgia.

 

This module surveys and analyses Russia’s development between the 1905 revolution and the end of the civil war in 1921.

The module focuses on key features of this period, including:

• the causes for and impact of the 1905 revolution
• Russia’s economic and industrial development
• challenges to rural life
• the development of civil society
• the impact of World War One on Russian society.

Themes include:

• the importance of social identity in revolution
• the importance of symbolism and imagery in understanding revolution
• the role of violence and the language of hatred
• the roles of individuals and key political groups within the revolutionary process.

Module convener: Dr Sarah Badcock

In the early 20th century, Russia embarked on one of the most momentous experiments in history – to transform not only global political structures and social relations, but human nature itself.

Fundamental to the revolutionary project was the creation of a new culture, which would construct and promote new visions of the desired present and ideal future. Through culture, individuals would learn to think of themselves, their relations with others, and their relations with the world in new ways.

On this module, you will:

• Be introduced to Russian revolutionary culture and trace its evolution during the 20th century
• Engage with Soviet film, literature, graphic arts and architecture, both state-sponsored and ideologically non-conforming
• Read first-person testimonies written by ordinary Soviet citizens, offering fascinating insights into historical problems of social and self-identity and changing inter-relations between the individual and collective and state and society

Through grappling with these sources, you will discover new ways of understanding how culture and politics interact and shape one another. This is a vital skill for engaging critically with political and media discourses in the current age of ‘fake news’ and ‘virtual reality’.

This module is aimed at anyone interested in modern Russian history, in the significance of culture in political change, and the role of politics in constructing culture.

This module is worth 40 credits.

This module explores the role of empire and ideas of race, gender and disability in the eighteenth-century enlightenment. The module includes topics such as:

• What role colonial encounter played in Enlightenment theories of human development
• How Enlightenment scholars imagined bodily difference
• The place of the slave trade in Enlightenment thought
• Enlightenment ideas of the body, sexuality and disability
• Colonized people's responses to Enlightenment thinking

By the mid-nineteenth century, Britain controlled one of the largest and most populous empires in history. This module examine some of the major events and dynamics that shaped the character of British imperialism, and the historical debates over them.

Particular attention is paid to the relationship between London, the ‘Imperial Metropolis,’ and India, South Africa, and the British colonies in the Caribbean.

The module interrogates the idea of ‘imperialism’ itself and focuses on post-colonial theory and ‘New Imperial History’ in order to critically re-appraise the operation of imperial systems and to apply an interdisciplinary perspective to their study.

Module convener: Dr Sascha Auerbach

 

This module introduces students to the key themes within the medical history of colonialism. In particular it examines the implications of the inequitable power relations inherent in any colonial project and how these have specifically contributed to the development of health care in these regions.

The module is concerned with the way western medical theories of disease and healing shaped ideas about colonial environments, populations, bodies, and racial differences in the imaginations of colonisers. Medicine is revealed, not only as a vital tool of colonial domination, but also as fundamentally limited as a successful mechanism for colonial social control.

Module convener: Dr Anna Greenwood

The first half of the module deals with the background to the Suez crisis including British policy in the Middle East in the post-1945 period, the controversies regarding surrounding the enormous military base at Suez, the free officers' revolution in Egypt which led to Nasser's assumption of leadership, the growth of Arab nationalism and the impact of American policy in the Middle East. In the second half of the curriculum the crisis itself is examined, including the impact of diplomacy, military and intelligence operations and domestic opinion. The module concludes with an analysis of the war with Egypt and its aftermath. Students will study documents from the British Foreign Office, the American State Department and the memoirs and diaries of key Egyptian, Israeli, British and American foreign policy-makers. By the end of the course students will be able to use this kind of primary material to offer their own interpretations of the events which led to the Suez war and to make a judgement on its legacy.

In 1940, Japan was a vibrant, modernising power in the world replete with possibilities embedded in its industrial technology, social organisation and global intellectual engagement. Five years later, its cities were ruined, its economy wrecked, its population was exhausted, hungry and traumatised by the a-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Throughout the post-war period Japan's leaders have been haunted by ‘contested war memories’ and by the ghosts of the countless millions of myriad nationalities left dead, maimed, displaced or psychologically scarred.

This first part of this module examines the reasons for Japan’s slide into war. In the second part we study the on-going legacy of the war in Asia and Japan through a variety of media including secondary literature, documentary evidence, witness testimony, film and popular culture including animated film (anime). Students are warned that some of this material contains graphic and distressing imagery and description.

This module surveys the dramatic cultural encounter in the nineteenth century as the world of the samurai was confronted by Western expansion and the Age of Steam. It explores the forces at work in Japan’s rapid transformation from an ‘ancien régime’ under the rule of the Shogun into a ‘modern’ imperial power. Original documents examined in class draw on the growing range of Japanese primary sources available in English translation, together with the extensive works of Victorian diplomats, newspaper correspondents and other foreign residents in the treaty ports. You will have four hours of lectures and seminars each week for this module.

Once dismissed as the “Me Decade” (Tom Wolfe), or a time when “it seemed like nothing happened” (Peter Carroll), the 1970s have enjoyed something of a renaissance in recent American historical scholarship. This module introduces students to the narratives of crisis and decline that defined the 1970s and which helped make the decade such a transformative period in American life - recasting the United States and its society, politics and culture in significant and far-reaching ways - whilst encouraging students to think critically about those narratives and their utility for subsequent processes of political, socio-economic and cultural change. We will explore developments such as the growth of identity politics and the cult of the individual, debates over American foreign policy abroad and social policy at home, the rise of populist conservatism, the market and neo-liberalism, anxieties over the city, the environment and the political system, and a broader political and cultural power shift from Rustbelt to Sunbelt, as we seek to understand why the 1970s are now regarded as the decade “that brought us modern life - for better or worse” (David Frum).