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HI-M01
Historical Methods and Approaches
This module introduces you to a diverse range of methodological approaches that underpin the discipline of history at an advanced level. You will explore how historians construct knowledge about the past, examining key debates around evidence, interpretation, narrative, and the politics of history-writing. You will engage critically with a variety of methods, including archival research, oral history, microhistory, cultural and social history, postcolonial and decolonial approaches, gender analysis, and digital history.
Through seminar discussions and a series of mini projects, you will develop a sophisticated understanding of the strengths, limitations, and ethical implications of different historical methodologies. The module also supports the development of research design skills in preparation for independent dissertation work.
Finally, the module will encourage you to think reflexively about your own role as researchers and to consider how methodological choices shape historical narratives and their relevance to contemporary global challenges.
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HI-M38
Past and Present: Themes in History
This module offers you an in-depth engagement with key debates, theories, and methodological approaches that have shaped the discipline of history from the Enlightenment to the present. It is designed to provide you with a critical understanding of historiography as both a body of scholarly literature and a dynamic, reflexive practice central to historical inquiry. Through a close reading of foundational texts, schools of thought, and recent historiographical interventions, students will interrogate how historians construct arguments, use evidence, and navigate epistemological challenges.
You will engage with topics such as empiricism, Marxism, the Annales School, postmodernism, gender and postcolonial critiques, microhistory, memory studies, and global history. Emphasis will also be placed on the ethical and political dimensions of historical representation and the role of the historian in public discourse.
By the end of the module, you will be expected to demonstrate an advanced conceptual grasp of historical theory, critically assess differing historiographical traditions, and apply these insights to their own research practices. The module fosters independence of thought, originality in interpretation, and methodological self-awareness.
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HI-M39
Managing Historical Research
During this module you will be guided through the process of formulating a viable, original, and academically sound research proposal in the discipline of History. You develop your own research project idea with the guidance and support of your supervisor. Through a combination of seminars, independent research, and supervisory meetings, you will engage with historiography, methodology, source evaluation, and research ethics. By the end of the module, you will have produced a fully developed research proposal suitable for submission to support an MA dissertation.
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HIH124
Britain and the World 1800 to 2000
This module will provide an overview of the history of British politics, society, culture, and the economy from c. 1800 to the present, from a national and international perspective. The lectures and seminars for this module will give students the opportunity to engage closely with events, processes, and people - both male and female, from diverse ethnic backgrounds - who contributed to the making of the modern British state and society, and who defined Britain¿s relationship with the wider world. We will discuss the transformative impact of warfare, Empire and colonialism, industrial and technological change. We will also consider the significance of race, class, and gender, and how they relate to national sentiment and social and political emancipation movements in Britain and beyond.
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HIH237
The Practice of History
The purpose of the module is to encourage you to think more deeply about how historians work and, in particular, about how we as historians can locate and use primary historical sources effectively as a means of interpreting and understanding the past. During the module we will learn about the survival of historical evidence, how it is organised and made accessible to historians to undertake their research, and how to effectively locate and interpret it in your studies. We will consider how the process of doing historical research changes over time, in particular with the impact of recent developments like digitization.
At the core of the module will be the work you undertake with others in your seminar group using a range of primary sources which your seminar tutor will introduce to you. As part of the module assessment you will also undertake your own primary source based research project using items from these collections. The module is designed strengthen your analytical skills and to help prepare you for the more extensive uses of primary evidence which you will encounter in final year special subjects and dissertation.
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HIH246
The Enlightenment and the Eighteenth-Century World
'The Enlightenment' is a broad term denoting the development of new ideas in the late 17th to late 18th centuries on what it means to be human, on society, human progress, social and economic change, and the natural world. Enlightened belief in the power of reason was the starting point for a new form of 'rational' and 'scientific' inquiry into all aspects of human activity and the natural environment. Enlightenment meant finding out how societies needed to change to move forward and achieve the greatest possible happiness and prosperity for the greatest number of the population. Reforms and innovative ideas were presented to the public by writers, philosophers, government officials and lawyers, artists and architects. In the early stages, most 'enlightened' people were male, white, and European. However, in the second half of the 18th C, women, European colonists, and native colonial populations increasingly played a part by appropriating and radicalizing key concepts such as liberty, justice, and natural rights. This module will look at what the Enlightenment was, what it meant in practice for European and colonial societies, and where it fell victim to its own limitations. Subjects typically covered include: war and society, culture, arts, travel, communication and sociability, legal reform, social philosophy, ideas on race, the emergence of modern natural sciences and medicine, economic thought, the situation of minorities.
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HIH3300
History Dissertation
The History dissertation is a free-standing, 40-credit module that runs across both semesters of Level Three. Candidates conduct research upon a subject of their choice, devised in consultation with a member of staff teaching for the degrees in History, and concerning a topic that falls within staff research and teaching interests.
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HIH3364
The Great Depression and New Deal America, 1929-1941
This module will explore one of the most exciting and in many respects exceptional periods in US history: to combat the devastating economic and social impact of the Great Depression that had started at the l ate 1920s, the new administration led by President Franklin D Roosevelt carried out an ambitious program of bold and rapid legislative reform and social engineering in the years 1933 to 1938. In spite of a political and legal backlash in 1937-39, and significant shortcomings, these reforms created an influential source of inspiration for future federal governments¿ responses to social and economic policy issues such as social security, health care, and industrial relations. Quantifying the New Deal¿s contribution to ending the Great Depression remains a disputed subject among historians, not least because the war-related employment boom the US economy experienced after 1941 makes it harder to separate out any long-term effects of specific New Deal policies. There is, however, consensus about the profound political impact of the New Deal¿s use of federal government-led intervention, often at the expense of individual states¿ powers, and the contribution it made to social change. As will be shown, some of these social shifts were unintentional, e.g. in race relations: unlike his wife Eleanor, F D Roosevelt was not a champion of legally enforced racial equality. The module will study in depth the different components of the New Deal and its ideological foundations, as well as the motives and aims of its chief supporters and opponents. We will use a representative selection from the vast array of primary sources that are readily available for this topic to investigate how the New Deal affected the lives of the rural and urban population in different parts of the US, why it continues to be controversial, and in what sense it can be said to have changed American politics and culture permanently.
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HIH396
From Machiavelli to Mussolini: Government and Society in Western Political Thought
This module offers a guide to the history of ideas on government and society which continue to influence political thought and action in the 21st century. The lectures will start by looking at the origins of democratic thinking in Athens, 5th Century BC, and will then give a brief account of medieval political thought and the impact of Christian-Muslim encounters. The main part of the course will deal with modern ideas on government as developed by Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, the political authors of the Enlightenment and American Revolution, and Marx and Lenin. The final part will focus on the Italian and German national socialists' assault on the liberal state and Western democratic tradition. Students will have the opportunity to read and discuss a representative selection from the 'classics' of Western political thought and reflect on their contemporary political relevance. As will be shown, some of today's best-known early modern texts on the nature of state power were misinterpreted by contemporaries and brought into disrepute by fascist ideologues who claimed them in defence of dictatorship.
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WS-M95
Experiences of War and Conflict: War, Identity and Society
Throughout history, wars and conflicts have shaped personal and collective experiences and identities. Hot wars have laid waste to cities and entire national economies. Those fighting wars have suffered traumatic experiences, as did non-combatants, including children. Even where no armed conflict took place, preparedness for a potential war led to the militarization of civil societies, including the use of massive economic resources. Or, military planners and strategists gamed likely war scenarios to prepare for the worst case ¿ even the unthinkable that is nuclear war. Likewise, propaganda ¿ both by states and anti-war or peace movements ¿ emerged in response to conflicts (actual and imaginary), contributing to war and conflict becoming part of official government discourse and everyday language. But the legacies of wars have also entered national identity through their memorialization within specific historical and ideological contexts. Popular culture, too, addressed wars and conflicts through films and popular music, thereby disseminating particular interpretations and myths to mass audiences.
This module takes a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the multifaceted experiences of war and conflict. We will examine how such experiences of violence shape and are in turn shaped by social, economic and cultural forces. In this, we will explore war and conflict as both a catalyst for societal change and a reflection of historical developments. Through critical analysis, the module encourages reflection on how war is represented and the lasting impact it has on personal and collective identities.
