The module Learning History, develops skills and introduces methodologies. Students reflect on the nature of history as a discipline and develop skills associated with writing and discussing of history. You will also take further survey modules in European history.
In politics, you will take modules in contemporary political theory, comparative politics and international relations. You will learn to compare and contrast political institutions and behaviour in liberal democracies and gain a thorough understanding of the history of political ideas.
Core
Learning History
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
Understanding Global Politics
This module provides an introduction to the study of international relations.
It focuses on some of the main theoretical approaches in the discipline: ways of explaining and understanding global politics, each of which has developed over time rival accounts both of the features of world politics on which we ought to concentrate and of the concepts that we ought to bring to bear in our analyses. It illustrates each of these broad theoretical approaches - and some of their pitfalls - by introducing the study of some 'structural' aspect of global politics, such as conflict, peace, institutions and globalisation.
The module therefore supplies the introduction to international relations that will be necessary for those who go on to study contemporary global affairs and more advanced modules such as those on international political economy, global security, or foreign policy analysis.
Introduction to Political Theory
This module introduces you to the ideas of some of the canonical thinkers in the history of political thought, such as Burke, Rousseau, Kant, Mill, and Marx. The module considers the impact of these thinkers on modern political thought and practice, with reference to key political ideas and historical developments (such as liberty and equality, and the Enlightenment). The module will be text based.
Watch a video about this module.
Introduction to Comparative Politics
This module seeks to compare and contrast the decision-making structures of modern democratic states. Topics to be covered will include:
- politics
- government and the state
- the comparative approach
- constitutions and the legal framework
- democratic and authoritarian rule
- political culture
- the political executive
- legislatures
- political parties and party systems
- electoral systems and voting behaviour
- the crisis of democracy
Watch a video about this module.
And one of the following two modules:
British Political History Since 1945
This module will introduce and interrogate British political history since 1945. The module will take students through key issues and controversies in post-war British politics and as they relate to leaders and governments and key debates over controversies.
The module will explore a range of issues relating to:
- economic policy
- social policy and the welfare state
- industrial relations
- foreign and defence policy
- Europe
- local government
- nuclear deterrence
Seminars will employ a range of activity-based scenarios to develop student understanding of key crises experienced by leaders and governments since 1945.
Watch a video about this module.
Problems in Global Politics
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.
Optional
Making the Middle Ages, 500-1500
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.
Roads to Modernity: An Introduction to Modern History 1750-1945
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.
From Reformation to Revolution: An Introduction to Early Modern Europe c.1500-1800
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.
The above is a sample of the typical modules we offer but is not intended to be construed and/or relied upon as a definitive list of the modules that will be available in any given year. Modules (including methods of assessment) may change or be updated, or modules may be cancelled, over the duration of the course due to a number of reasons such as curriculum developments or staffing changes. Please refer to the
module catalogue for information on available modules. This content was last updated on Tuesday 02 July 2019.
The core element in year two is provided by a compulsory module specifically designed to ensure the intellectual coherence of this degree – History and Politics: A problem or solution? This module permits you to reflect on the complementary nature of the two disciplines as well as on ways in which they may be considered distinct from one another with regards to their methods of research and analysis.
Alongside this, you will have a choice of other more specific optional history modules, covering an extremely wide chronological and geographical range. In politics, your options must be chosen from three designated areas: comparative politics, international relations, and political theory.
Core
History and Politics: A Problem or a Solution?
What is the relationship between history and politics? Are historians concerned with day-to-day events, while political scientists are theorists with little interest in telling stories? Or, can we perhaps view them as collaborators in a common endeavour?
This module answers these questions by taking a particular historical context – post-war Britain – and exploring how historians and political scientists have understood it. Each week, we consider a concept that is central to both disciplines and show how it can be used to understand the politics of the post-war period.
You will build an understanding of various methodological approaches that have been applied to the study of past politics. In doing so, you will improve your ability to engage critically with arguments and gain an understanding of how the two parts of your degree fit together.
The approaches that we explore include:
- Marxism
- Feminism
- Post-structuralism
- Post-colonialism
- Rational choice theory
- The history of ideas
This module is worth 20 credits.
"The module brought together historical analysis, and the skills of the historian, along with political science. In history you often get given chapters of books to read, whereas in politics you get given articles and journals. It showed how and why the two disciplines can work very well together." – Emily Oxbury, History and Politics BA
And one of the following two modules:
Approaches to Politics and International Relations
The module introduces you to alternative theoretical approaches to the study of political phenomena. We consider the different forms of analysing, explaining, and understanding politics associated with approaches such as behaviouralism, rational choice theory, institutionalism, Marxism, feminism, interpretive theory and post-modernism.
The module shows that the different approaches are based upon contrasting ontological suppositions about the nature of politics, and they invoke alternative epistemological assumptions about how we acquire valid knowledge of politics and international relations.
We examine questions such as: what constitutes valid knowledge in political science and international relations? Should political science methodology be the same as the methods employed in the natural sciences? Can we give causal explanations of social and political phenomena? Can we ever be objective in our analysis? What is the relationship between knowledge and power?
How Voters Decide
Elections are the foundation of representative democracy. The act of voting creates a link between citizens' preferences and government policy. This means that the choices voters make have important consequences.
But, how do voters make these choices? Are they based on the policies that parties promise to enact in the future, or is it more about the policy successes (or failures) that parties have experienced in the past? Does the party's leader make a difference? Can campaigns or the media's coverage change how voters see their electoral choices? Finally, given the importance of elections, why do many citizens choose to abstain from the process altogether?
How Voters Decide will explore the choices that citizens make when they participate in elections and it will provide students with the skills necessary to evaluate arguments about electoral behaviour in Britain and beyond.
Optional
Heroes and Villains in the Middle Ages
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.
The Venetian Republic, 1450-1575
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
De-industrialisation: A Social and Cultural History, c.1970-1990
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 Crusaders
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
Soviet State and Society
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.
Doing History
You will also attend a non-assessed weekly lecture module throughout the year called ‘Doing History’. This builds on the first-year core module Learning History and aims to develop your awareness of the craft of the historian, developing essential skills to get the most out of your second-year options and enabling you to determine what sort of historian you are. It also operates as a bridge to your third and final year, permitting you to make informed decisions about your choice of Special Subject, third-year options, and dissertation.
The above is a sample of the typical modules we offer but is not intended to be construed and/or relied upon as a definitive list of the modules that will be available in any given year. Modules (including methods of assessment) may change or be updated, or modules may be cancelled, over the duration of the course due to a number of reasons such as curriculum developments or staffing changes. Please refer to the
module catalogue for information on available modules. This content was last updated on
In year three you will write a 10,000 word dissertation on a topic of your choice in either history or politics. In history, your dissertation will normally be linked to your Special Subject, a year-long, in-depth, research-based module, which you may select from a very broad menu. You will also take further politics options.
Core
Dissertation
This can be done either in History or Politics. For history, the module involves the in-depth study of a historical subject from which you will produce a 10,000 word dissertation. You will have regular meetings with your supervisor and a weekly one hour lecture to guide you through this task. For politics, you choose a topic in politics and the dissertation length is 12,000 words.
Optional
Politics and Drugs
This module studies the implications of the growing abuse of narcotics for the political system from both a national and international perspective. It will examine the production, consumption and trade in drugs as an international problem.
The development of and issues associated with contemporary British drug policy will be explored and the theoretical questions raised by drug control policy will be examined.
Airpower and Modern Conflict
The invention of the aircraft fundamentally changed the ways in which wars are fought and won. Over the course of only a century airpower developed into an indispensable instrument of warfare. Today, war without airpower is an unlikely prospect and major military operations, as a rule, are launched with overwhelming air attacks.
In recent years, however, the utility of 'strategic' airpower has increasingly come under question. Whilst technological innovation continues to strengthen airpower's capabilities, the relevance of these capabilities in contemporary conflicts cannot be taken for granted.
This module critically assesses the role of air power in modern conflict within the broader framework of strategic and security studies. It will assess the evolution of air power theory since the First World War and examine the limits of its practical application with reference to specific air campaigns.
Dark Age Masculinities
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.
Samurai Revolution: Reinventing Japan, 1853–78
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.
Italy at War, 1935-45
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.
From Racial State to Reconstruction: Women and Gender Relations in Germany, 1939–45
This module adopts a perspective of women's and gender history to explore the history of Germany in the period from the beginning of the National Socialist dictatorship up to the division of Germany into two post-war states in 1949. It will examine National Socialist discourses, policies and practices in relation to women and gender relations by drawing on records of public authorities and institutions concerned with educating and training the female population in line with Nazi precepts, mobilising labour for the Nazi war economy, sustaining home front morale, and combating ‘threats to the race’. You will have four hours of lectures and seminars each week for this module.
The above is a sample of the typical modules we offer but is not intended to be construed and/or relied upon as a definitive list of the modules that will be available in any given year. Modules (including methods of assessment) may change or be updated, or modules may be cancelled, over the duration of the course due to a number of reasons such as curriculum developments or staffing changes. Please refer to the
module catalogue for information on available modules. This content was last updated on