History

Studying History is exciting and rewarding; it encourages you to appreciate the human experience in other places and at other times. Exploring what people have felt, thought and done in the past expands our self-awareness. It will help to satisfy your curiosity about the past, acquire understanding of specific periods and problems, and make discoveries. As well as an in-depth knowledge, History students also develop essential skills of analysis, argument and communication - all highly valued in today’s competitive employment market.

Our internationally renowned academics are developing the very latest thinking on historical problems; this cutting edge knowledge informs the curriculum and will enhance your learning experience. By studying at one of the largest and most influential departments in the country you will be able to choose from an exceptionally broad range of subjects, enabling you to spread your studies across the medieval and modern worlds, from Ancient Rome through to modern China, from Saladin through to Margaret Thatcher, exploring topics as diverse as the Byzantine Empire, English family life in the sixteenth century, and international terrorism in the twentieth century.

You will receive individual attention and learn in small teaching groups, whilst having access to some of the richest facilities for historical research anywhere in the world; in addition to the College’s substantial library collections, in London there are the National Archives, British Library and other libraries of the University of London.

• Learn in small teaching groups from the start.

• Develop analytical and communication skills.

• Assessed through coursework and written exams.

• Become involved in our world-leading research centres, such as the Holocaust Research Institute.

• Graduate destinations include museum curators, law and marketing.

Course Modules

Core Modules

Year 1

• History in the Making

Year 2

• Concepts in History

Year 3

• History Dissertation

Optional Modules

Year 1

• Gods, Men and Power: An Introduction to the Ancient World, from Homer to Mohammed

• Rome to Renaissance: An Introduction to the Middle Ages

• From Renaissance to Revolutions: Europe and the World, 1500-1800

• Conflict and Identity in Modern Europe, c. 1770 to 2000

• From Mao to Bin Laden: Twentieth-Century Leaders in the Non-Western World

• World City: A History of London from Roman to Contemporary Times

Year 2

• The Holy Man: Sanctity and the Sacred in Historical Research

• The Ottomans: The Muslim Empire in the Early Modern World, 1453-1789

• The British and the World: 1763-1900

• Awakening China: From the Opium Wars to the Present Day

• Refugees in the 20th Century: A Global History

• The Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic

• Rome and its Empire from Augustus to Commodus

• Natural History: Science from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages

• Medieval Worlds: Power, Belief and Culture, c.1000-1300

• She-Wolves: Female Royal Power across the Medieval World, c.1000-1400

• All modules are core

• Spanish and Portuguese Empires in the Americas, 1450-1650

• An Empire of Liberty? History of the USA 1787-1877

• The United States in the Twentieth Century

• The Tudor Monarchy 1485-1603

• Gorgeous Georgians?: Society, Culture and Crime, 1714-1830

• Vice, Virtue and the Victorians: British History 1837-1901

• Community, Culture and Conflict in Twentieth-Century Britain

• The Shock of the New: European Culture and Society 1789-1905

• The Dark Continent: Europe, 1914-1948

• Safe European Home? Europe 1945-2000

Year 3

• ‘With Intent to Destroy’: Genocide in the Modern World

• The Curse of Aid: International Development 1940-2000

• A Clash of Powers: The United States, China and the Cold War

• The Age of Terror: Terrorism from 1945 - Present

• China and the World: Migrations and Frontiers, 1800-1960

• Drawing the Line: Independence, Partition, and the Making of India and Pakistan

• Children of the Revolution? France from 1789 to the Great War

• A Global History of Drugs and Prohibition

• History and Fiction

• Grand Designs: Art, Architecture and Power in the Roman World

• Christians and Pagans from Constantine to Augustine (AD 306-430)

• Medicine in the Ancient, Medieval and Islamic World

• Saladin, Richard the Lionheart and the Third Crusade

• The City and the Conqueror: The Fall of Constantinople (1453)

• A Nation Torn Asunder: Civil War America

• Malcolm X: Islam and Black Protest in America

• Entangled Histories: The Interconnected Atlantic World, 1500-1800

• Divided by Faith: Belief in the Age of the European Reformations

• Britain on Camera: Photography, Film and Society, 1840-1965

• From Inverts to Perverts: Queer Life and Identity in Modern Britain

• Europe, 1900: Cultures of Conflict and the Shock of the New

• The Holocaust Witness: Personal Histories of Survival and Resilience

• The Holocaust

• Out On The Town: Leisure and Popular Culture in Twentieth-Century Urban Britain

• The Age of Thatcher? Politics, Identities and Cultures in Britain, c.1970-2000

• Sex, Society and Identity in Britain, c. 1660-1815

• Borderlands: Coexistence and Conflict, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Eastern Europe, 1912-1945

• Berlin: A European Metropolis in the Twentieth Century

https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-here/undergraduate/history/history/

You will be taught through a combination of lectures, large and small seminar groups and occasionally in one-to-one tutorials. Outside classes you will undertake group projects and wide-ranging but guided independent study. Private study and preparation are essential parts of every module, and you will have access to many online resources and the University’s comprehensive e-learning facility, Moodle, which provides a wide range of supporting materials. A Personal Tutor will guide and support throughout your degree and you will be supervised individually by a member of staff when preparing your second-year independent research essay and your final-year dissertation.

Some module units are assessed solely by modulework, others by a combination of examinations, modulework, online quizzes and presentations. In your second year, you will write a 5,000-word independent research essay, and in your final year you will research and write a dissertation based on primary sources.

You will take a study skills module during your first year, designed to equip you with and enhance the writing skills you will need to be successful in your degree. This module does not count towards your final degree award but you are required to pass it to progress to your second year.