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Undergraduate Course Catalogue, 2010-11

IF YOU ARE READING A PRINTED VERSION OF THIS CATALOGUE, PLEASE BE AWARE THAT YOU WILL BE SEEING COURSES THAT ARE NOT ACTUALLY AVAILABLE. USE THE ONLINE VERSION OF THE CATALOGUE ONLY

First-Year Courses

Foundation Courses

Foundation courses (value: half unit) are taken at Level 1 and are designed to introduce students to skills and methods of approach used in the study of History at university level. They cover a range of periods from ancient to modern, a variety of geographical areas, and different types of history and related studies.

Gateway Courses

Gateway courses (value: one unit) are taken at Level 1. They cover broad sweeps of history and are designed to open vistas into areas defined chronologically, or thematically, or both.

Second-Year Courses

Independent Essay

Group 1 Courses

Group 1 courses (value: half unit) are taken at Level 2 and cover a relatively long chronological span and/or broad geographical spread. They are taught in reference to big themes, illustrated through selected examples.

Optional Latin Courses taught in the Department

Second/Third-Year Courses

Group 2 Courses

Group 2 courses (value: one unit) are studied at Levels 2 and 3. They are more limited than Group 1 courses in chronological/geographical range, allowing a more intensive study. Courses marked with an asterisk (*) may only be selected as first or second preference.

Third-Year Courses

Group 3 Courses

Group 3 courses (value: two units) are taught at Level 3. Group 3 courses are based on the study of primary sources, and normally involve the intensive investigation of a short period of time from a particular angle. One unit of assessment relates to the taught course (see individual course descriptions for details); the other to a 10,000 word dissertation based on primary sources. Courses marked with an asterisk (*) may only be selected as first or second preference.

HS3103: Comparative History - compulsory

HS3105: Disseration Research Methods - compulsory

Dissertation

In the list of classes below, classes listed inside a box with a solid border are offered in Term One. Classes inside a box with a dashed border are offered in Term Two, and all others are offered across both terms.

HS1002
History and Meanings: Varities of History from Herodotus to Postmodernism and After
Value half unit
Teaching: 11 lectures, 5 classes
Assessment: assessed coursework essay
This course looks at how the understanding of historical time has developed in different societies, and how the interpretation and writing of history has evolved over the centuries.

HS1005
History and Meanings Part 2
Value half unit
Teaching: 11 lectures, 5 classes
Assessment: assessed coursework
How do historians, politicians and communities make use of the past in the present, and what problems, opportunities and responsibilities does this entail? History and Meanings Part 2 investigates the practice and use of history in the modern world through a series of case studies, and encourages students to think about their own role as consumers and producers of history. Outside lectures, students will develop their ability to make informed judgments about public and academic manifestations of history. Tutorial discussions will focus on how to evaluate both historians' interpretations and the history presented through the media. As part of their assessment, students will critique a manifestation of public engagement with History. This might focus on a controversy which attracted significant media coverage, or an attempt to revise public views of a historical event, or the establishment or refurbishment of a monument or museum. Students will choose their own case study, developing a bibliography of electronic and other resources, and presenting their findings in a 3,000 word essay.

HS1007
Doing History: Researching and Writing Critical History from Antiquity to Contemporary Times Part 1
Value half unit
Teaching: 11 lectures, 5 classes
Assessment: assessed coursework
This course will introduce students to a range and variety of primary sources used by historians to reconstruct pre-modern society and culture. It will engage students in the interpretative problems raised by a number of types of primary source: visual sources; state records; and literary sources. As well as engaging with specific types of source, the course will introduce students to the practical skills needed to do history: using the internet, referencing sources, citing primary and secondary materials, and applying various types of IT to primary research materials will be embedded in the lectures and seminar activities. The course will aim to give students experience in writing exercises discussing the interpretation of primary materials and develop students' skills of critical and interpretative analysis.

HS1008
Doing History: Researching and Writing Critical History from Antiquity to Contemporary Times part 2
Value half unit
Teaching: 11 lectures, 5 classes
Assessment: assessed coursework
This course will introduce students to a range and variety of modern sources which historians use to write the history of post 1800 society, politics and culture. Methods and procedures for doing (for example) oral history, the history of other cultures, and the history of everyday life, will be explored by using specific sources. As with HS1007 students will also examine these historical records through using a variety of practical historical skills. The course will aim to give students experience in writing exercises discussing the interpretation of primary materials and develop students' skills of critical and interpretative analysis.

HS1105
Gods, Men and Power: An Introduction to the Ancient World from Homer to Mohammed
Value one unit
Teaching: 22 lectures, 20 seminars
Assessment: assessed coursework essay (30%) plus 2 hour examination (70%)
This course looks at how power was exercised in the ancient Mediterranean world - in politics, in religion, and in culture. It covers a long and dramatically changing period, from early Greece (the time of the Homeric epics) to the rise of Christianity and then the rise of Islam. A variety of areas of life are investigated through both primary sources (in translation) and a selection of the latest secondary works.

HS1107
Republics, Kings and People: The Foundations of European Political Thought from Plato to Rousseau
Value one unit
Teaching: 22 lectures, 20 seminars
Assessment: assessed coursework essay (30%) plus 2 hour examination (70%)
This course investigates the origins of our ideas about human rights and duties, revolution and democracy, consent and liberty, etc. A number of key writings are studied: ranging from Plato and Aristotle in the ancient world to Macchiavelli, More, Hobbes, Locke and the Enlightenment in the transition from the early modern to the modern world. Analysis of the development of fundamental ideas about politics and society through these examples sharpens the mind and throws light upon the present in the perspective of the past.

HS1108
The Rich Tapestry of Life: A Social and Cultural History of Europe 1500-1780
Value one unit
Teaching: 22 lectures, 20 seminars
Assessment: assessed coursework essay (30%) plus 2 hour examination (70%)
This course aims to provide students with a grounding in the key processes which had a major impact on the lives of early modern Europeans: from the new culture of religious reform and personal discipline to the strengthening of patriarchy, from the rise of consumerism to the intensification of social and geographical mobility. Students will be directed to some of the most exciting writing in the recent social and cultural history of early modern Europe, and introduced week by week, to analytic concepts (space, gender, status, identity, etc.) which are central to recent interpretations of this period of history. Finally, they will be acquainted with a range of primary source material. Topics covered will include: masculinity and femininity; privilege and protest; popular culture, magic and witchcraft; life and death; body and mind; new world and race. The course draws on material from both Continental Europe and England.

HS1109
Conflict and Identity in the Modern World from 1789 to the Present
Value one unit
Teaching: 22 lectures, 20 seminars
Assessment: assessed coursework essay (30%) plus 2 hour examination (70%)
This course highlights a range of major themes in (predominantly) European history from the French Revolution to the Fall of the Berlin Wall. In studying specific events and developments students will also be introduced to more general concepts like revolution, constitutionalism, liberalism, nationalism, industrialisation, socialism, communism, fascism, parliamentary democracy and welfare state. Exposure to different historical methods and conflicting interpretations will help students to hone their own analytical skills.

HS1111
Latin for Historians
Tutor Dr. Hannes Kleineke
Teaching: 20 hours of classes
Assessment: 2 hour examination
This course can be substituted for one Foundation course. The classes are held weekly over two terms.
This course takes students with little or no previous knowledge of Latin language up to approximately GCSE standard in one year. It is particularly recommended for students with a strong interest in the medieval part of the History degree.

HS1113
From Mao to Mandela: Twentieth-Century Political Leaders in the non-Western World
Value one unit
Teaching: 22 lectures 20 seminars
Assessment: project essay (45%); individual oral presentation (10%); collaborative class oral presentation (15%); Information Literacy Skills quiz (10%) and critical evaluation of internet sources (20%)
The course looks at the role of world leaders in the twentieth-century with a view to understanding, from their experiences and the problems that confronted them, the nature of politics in the non-western world. Not surprisingly, they represent a range of political ideas on leadership, authority and charisma. But they had one common problem - how to handle the impact of the west on the country in which they operated - and so they were often closely linked with nationalist struggles. By necessity, many were also involved in revolutionary change and war, both of which, like western ideas, helped to shape them and the lives of their people. The course also guides students in research using the internet and electronic resources.

HS1113
From Mao to Mandela: Twentieth-Century Political Leaders in the non-Western World
Value one unit
Teaching: 22 lectures 20 seminars
Assessment: project essay (45%); individual oral presentation (10%); collaborative class oral presentation (15%); Information Literacy Skills quiz (10%) and critical evaluation of internet sources (20%)
The course looks at the role of world leaders in the twentieth-century with a view to understanding, from their experiences and the problems that confronted them, the nature of politics in the non-western world. Not surprisingly, they represent a range of political ideas on leadership, authority and charisma. But they had one common problem - how to handle the impact of the west on the country in which they operated - and so they were often closely linked with nationalist struggles. By necessity, many were also involved in revolutionary change and war, both of which, like western ideas, helped to shape them and the lives of their people. The course also guides students in research using the internet and electronic resources.

HS1116
Rome to Renaissance: An Introduction to the Middle Ages
Value full unit
Teaching: 22 lectures, 20 seminars
Assessment: 2 hour examination
The terms 'Middle Ages' and 'Medieval' are often used to evoke a dark and bigoted world, wracked by war, pestilence and superstition and oppressed by tyrannical kings and prelates. The image is not entirely false as all those things can be found in medieval history but it is by no means the full picture. The period from c.400 to c.1500 saw western Europe transform itself from the poorer part of the retreating Roman empire to a wealthy and dynamic society that was starting to explore the world far beyond its borders. This course explores some of the changes that took place along the way and answers some of the questions that you may always have wanted to ask: What was 'feudalism'? How were castles and Gothic cathedrals built? Why did the Pope become so powerful? What were the Crusades? And does any of this have any relevance whatsoever to the modern world?

HS1280
British Social and Economic History 1945-1997
Value: half unit
Teaching: 11 lectures, 5 classes
Assessment: assessed coursework
The focus of this course will be on the basic economics necessary to help students understand the nature and workings of economies at the national level. This will be done through consideration of some of the recurring themes in modern Economic History – individuals’ welfare and the State, growth, labour supply, overseas trade and national accounting. These topics will be considered using examples drawn from British History 1945-1997.

HS1283
British Social and Economic History 1914-1945
Value half unit
Teaching: 11 lectures, 5 classes
Assessment: two assessed coursework essays (40% and 60%)
This course is compulsory for the degree programmes BA MODERN HISTORY AND POLITICS and BA HISTORY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS.
The course aims to draw out the particular features which made the economic and social history of Britain in the first four decades of the twentieth century so distinct and to study them in depth while incorporating basic economic statistics.

PR1400
Introduction to Politics and Government
Value: full unit
Teaching: 22 lectures, 12 classes
Assessment: 3 hour examination
This course is compulsory for the degree programme BA MODERN HISTORY AND POLITICS. It is taken with students studying for degrees in the Department of Politics and International Relations.
This course covers three main areas: the nature of politics and political science, key theories, models and concepts used in the study of politics and government; with particular reference to the political systems of the United Kingdom and the United States.

HS2001
History of the British Empire, 1763-1900
Value half unit
Tutor: Dr Zoe Laidlaw
Teaching: 11 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment best coursework essay (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
This half-unit charts a period of dramatic change, during which the British Empire was transformed by the loss of the 13 American colonies; enormous territorial expansion in India and Africa; the abolition of slavery; and the growth of settler societies in Canada, southern Africa and Australasia. The course considers British imperialism from both a metropolitan and a colonial viewpoint: as well as the impact of British debates about race, economics, government and religion on the empire, it charts indigenous responses to, and rejections of, colonialism in regions including India, New Zealand, the Caribbean and Africa.

HS2003
History of the British Empire 1899-1963
Tutor: Dr Zoe Laidlaw
Value: half unit
Teaching: 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment best coursework essay (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
*Students must have taken HS2001 in term one to be eligible for this course NB - Not to be taken in conjunction with HS2028 Twentieth-Century World History: The Middle East, Africa and Latin America
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the British Empire reached its greatest extent, and yet, by the 1960s, it had all but disappeared. This course covers the history of Britain's expansion and contraction in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, from the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War to the achievement of African independence during the premiership of Harold Macmillan. Case studies focus on the Empire's presence in metropolitan life, the emerging Dominion powers; the contribution of the empire to the First World War; the rise of Indian nationalism; the Empire in the Middle East and South-East Asia; and the role of the Cold War in decolonisation. Recurrent themes include economics and empire; the meaning of 'race'; the nature of colonial rule; global power and international relations; local responses to British colonialism; and the rise of colonial nationalism. By the end of the course students should have a good understanding of the decline of the of British empire and will be well-equipped to proceed to related Group 2 and Group 3 courses

HS2004
The Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic
Tutors Dr David Gwynn
Value half unit
Teaching 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment best coursework essay (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
This course covers the history of the Roman Republic from the foundation of Rome to the murder of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. We will trace the rise of Rome from city-state to world power and examine the pressures that drove Rome to conquer her Mediterranean empire and the consequences of that expansion for the Romans and for the peoples they conquered. The major primary sources will be discussed in translation together with the evidence of archaeology and material culture.

HS2005
Rome and its Empire from Augustus to Commodus
Tutors Dr David Gwynn
Value half unit
Teaching 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment best coursework essay (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
This course traces the history of the Roman Empire from the achievement of sole power by the first emperor, Augustus (31 BC - AD 14), to the murder of Commodus in AD 192. We will assess the political, social and cultural developments under the emperors and explore fundamental themes including imperial frontier policy and administration, the process of Romanisation, and the nature of Roman religion. The evidence of art and architecture will be examined as well as the major literary sources.

HS2006
Globalizing Capital: Britain and the World, 1846-1913
Tutor Dr Emmett Sullivan
Value half unit
Teaching 11 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment best coursework essay (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
Did the late-Victorian and Edwardian British economy "fail?" This recurring question will at the heart of this course, which covers the economic developments affecting the international economy between the Irish potato famine and the First World War. Emphasis will be placed on Britain's pivotal role in developing the international economy, and the course will contrast Britain's fortunes with the rise of the "newly industrialising economies" of the late nineteenth-century - the US, Germany, and to a lesser degree, Japan. Topics covered along the way include international migration and investment, the international Gold Standard, the development of manufacturing and trade protection, and the relative economic strength of nations by the First World War. International economic relations and trade policy will be recurring themes.

HS2007
Rome and its Empire from Augustus to Trajan (31BC - AD117)
Tutors: Dr S. Barnish
Value: half unit
Teaching: 22 lectures, 20 tutorial classes
Assessment: 2-hour exam (100%)
Roman history from Augustus's seizure of power in 31 BC to AD117. The course involves not only political history based on Rome but also the wider social, economic and religious changes taking place over the whole of the Roman Empire. Students have ample opportunity to engage with the primary evidence at first hand.

HS2008
Rome and its Empire from Hadrian to Theodosius the Great (AD 117-395)
Tutors Dr S. Barnish
Value half unit
Teaching 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (100%)
Roman history from Hadrian to Theodosius the Great. The course involves not only political history based on Rome but also the wider social, economic and religious changes taking place over the whole of the Roman Empire. Students have ample opportunity to engage with the primary evidence at first hand.

HS2009:
Conquest and Colonisation (1): The Structures of Power
Tutor Prof. Peregrine Horden
Value half unit
Teaching 11 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (100%)
This course explores a crucial stage in the development of Europe in the period 1000-1300. The central Middle Ages witnessed an expansion of the frontiers of Latin Christendom in almost every direction; an increase, at almost every level, in the powers of both secular and ecclesiastical authorities; a rapid growth in the number and size of towns, in trade and in production; the establishment of an international European culture in the worlds of learning and the arts; and an often merciless sharpening of distinctions between orthodoxy and dissent. This half-unit deals with state formation across Europe, and the growth of papal monarchy. The course serves as a solid foundation for Group 2 and Group 3 courses in related fields.

HS2010
Conquest and Colonisation (2): Culture, Society and Religion
Tutor Prof Peregrine Horden
Value half unit
Teaching 11 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (100%)
This course explores a crucial stage in the development of Europe in the period 1000-1300. The central Middle Ages witnessed an expansion of the frontiers of Latin Christendom in almost every direction; an increase, at almost every level, in the powers of both secular and ecclesiastical authorities; a rapid growth in the number and size of towns, in trade and in production; the establishment of an international European culture in the worlds of learning and the arts; and an often merciless sharpening of distinctions between orthodoxy and dissent. This half-unit deals with developments in the economy, and n religious practice; the growth of heresy; the minorities categorised as deviant and thus persecuted; art and vernacular literature; and the history of gender relations.

HS2011
The Flowering of the Middle Ages (1): Politics, pestilence and war, c.1300-c.1500
Tutor Dr Clive Burgess.
Value half unit
Teaching 11 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (100%)
This course presents the two and a half centuries that preceded the Renaissance and Reformation less as preludes to those cataclysmic movements than as centuries of dynamic development and achievement in their own right. Europe is considered as a whole (though particular attention is paid to Britain), and changes in different economic and political environments are studied comparatively: especially the contrasts between northern and southern Europe. Among the topics considered are the forms and practice of monarchy, the role of representative institutions, the reform movements in the Church, the flowering of Gothic art and the changing patterns of trade.

HS2012
The Flowering of the Middle Ages (2): Religion, Renaissance and Urban Life
Tutor: Prof. Nigel Saul, Dr Clive Burgess
Value: half unit
Teaching: 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment: 2-hour exam (100%)
This course builds upon the themes covered in HS2011 in term one. The course presents the two and a half centuries that preceded the Renaissance and Reformation less as preludes to those cataclysmic movements than as centuries of dynamic development and achievement in their own right. Europe is considered as a whole (though particular attention is paid to Britain), and changes in different economic and political environments are studied comparatively: especially the contrasts between northern and southern Europe. Among the topics considered are the forms and practice of monarchy, the role of representative institutions, the reform movements in the Church, the flowering of Gothic art and the changing patterns of trade.

HS2013
European History 1890-1917
Tutors: Dr Rudolf Muhs, Prof. Helen Graham, Dr Daniel Beer
Value: half unit
Teaching: 11 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment: 2-hour exam (100%)
The course covers all the big themes of these crowded European years; nationalism; imperialism, the first World War; and the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. The course is taught comparatively to encourage students to identify processes and problems common to the European experience and it will integrate perspectives from social, economic and cultural history to expand students' critical understanding of this complex and turbulent period.

HS2014
The European Crucible, 1914-1945
Tutor Dr Rudolf Muhs, Prof. Helen Graham, Dr Daniel Beer
Value half unit
Teaching 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (100%)
This course covers the repercussions of the First World War and the Bolshevik revolution; economic crisis; the collapse of parliamentary regimes in the inter-war period; Italian fascism; German Nazism; Stalinism in Russia; the civil war and the origins of the Franco regime in Spain; and the Holocaust. The course is taught comparatively to encourage students to identify processes and problems common to the European experience.

HS2015
The Politics of Postwar Europe, 1945-2000
Tutor Prof. Dan Stone
Value half unit
Teaching 11 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (100%)
This course aims to encourage students, through intensive study of a broad range of events and themes of the post-war period, to understand the ways in which Europe has and has not changed since 1945, and thus to situate themselves historically. The course focuses chronologically on the major political and institutional developments, from the end of World War II, the onset of the Cold War, and the communist take-over of Eastern Europe, to decolonisation, the collapse of the southern dictatorships, the fall of communism, and the Yugoslav wars.

HS2016
Safe European Home? Post-war Society and Culture,1945-2000
Tutor Prof. Dan Stone
Value half unit
Teaching 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (100%)
*Students must have taken HS2015 in term one to be eligible for this course
The course examines many of the major themes in post-war European social, cultural and intellectual history: welfare states and social change, changes in gender roles in European societies, attitudes towards immigrants and refugees, the far right, the 1968 student rebellion, the new left, terrorism, the rise of the 'heritage industry', including attitudes towards museums, cities and landscapes, postwar memory politics, and changes in postwar historiography.

HS2017
Twentieth-Century World History: The Asian Resurgence
Tutor Dr Sarah Ansari, Dr Akil Awan
Value half unit
Teaching 11 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (100%)
This half unit looks at the major political developments that took place in different parts of Asia during the twentieth century, focusing on China, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Asia. It explores the impact of imperialism, nationalism, decolonisation, and independence in order to understand the resurgence of Asian nations by the end of the 1990s. It is taught by way of weekly lectures and tutorial discussion classes.

HS2018
New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Tudor Monarchy 1485-1603
Tutor Dr. Anna Whitelock
Value half unit
Teaching 11 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (100%)
The reigns of the Tudor monarchs saw fundamental changes in the power and influence of the state, in religious beliefs and practices and in the economy and society. This course considers the importance of the sixteenth century in the changing nature of political power and explores how the exercise of monarchical authority was shaped by the politics of personal monarchy, royal personality, minority, female monarchy and religion. England is the principal focus of study although Wales, Scotland and Ireland are also discussed where relevant to the main narrative.

HS2019
From Nation State to Multiple Monarchy (2): British History 1588-1649
Tutor: Dr. Anna Whitelock
Value: half unit
Teaching: 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment: 2-hour exam (100%)
This course aims to build upon the term one course From Nation State to Multiple Monarchy, 1485-1588. The main focus is upon English history, although it broadens to include Scotland following the Union of the Crowns in 1603. Key themes include the constitutional consequences of the accession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne in 1603, and the origins, outbreak and course of the 'British civil wars', concluding with the execution of the king, Charles I in 1649, and the abolition of the House of Lords.

HS2020
The Georgians: Society, Economy, and Culture, 1688-1832
Tutors: Dr Amanda Vickery
Value: half unit
Teaching: 11 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment: 2-hour exam (100%)
This course concentrates on Britain between the Glorious Revolution and the French Revolution. It will examine the growth of trade and industry; the concepts of industrial revolution and the birth of a consumer society; the impact of towns and the ‘renaissance’ of provincial urban culture; the progress of politeness; the rise of literacy, print culture, newspapers and novels; the social structure and relations between ‘patricians’ and ‘plebs’ and the emerging ‘middling sort’; crime, the bloody penal code, riot and disorder. Were the British a polite and commercial people, or an ungovernable rabble? Was this an 'Ancien Régime', or the first modern, industrial society? The course embraces culture, society and economy to offer a vivid picture of one of the most vibrant centuries in British history.

HS2021
Culture and Politics: Britain 1688-1832:
Tutor: Dr Amanda Vickery
Value: half unit
Teaching: 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment: 2-hour exam (100%)
This course builds upon the term one course: Economics and Society: Britain 1688-1832. This course explores the impact of political and cultural change, aiming to enable students to explore and analyse the cultural and political history of eighteenth-century Britain. The political and religious settlements that followed the 'Glorious' Revolution of 1688 were believed by many to have provided the foundation for the ideal balanced constitution and ushered in an era of extraordinary political stability. Yet the 'long eighteenth-century' witnessed Jacobite rebellions and periods of intense political rivalry between Whig and Tory parties. Politicians increasingly made use of newspapers and graphic satire to attack their opponents, radical reformers challenged the electoral process and dissenting sects undermined the power of the Anglican Church. This course explores not only parliamentary politics, but wider political culture and the development of popular public opinion. It questions to what extent Britain retained the church, state and ideological conservatism of absolutist 'Ancien Regime' states on the continent, or forged its own unique model of government

HS2022
Nineteenth-Century Europe: A Narrative of Society and Political Culture 1789-1890
Tutors: Dr Florian Schui with Prof. Helen Graham, Dr Rudolf Muhs and Dr Daniel Beer.
Value half unit
Teaching 11 lectures, 11 tutorial classes
Assessment best coursework essay (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
A narrative-based romp through nineteenth-century European political history. The 19th century is often designated an age of revolutions: the revolutions of 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871 and other years were violent caesuras that left their mark on the political landscape of Europe. But the 19th century was not only a century of serial revolutions. It was also the period in which the political movements that dominated the whole of the modern period were shaped. The course will explore the rise of liberalism, nationalism and socialism in the 19th century and the ways in which these political movements were associated in the great political transformations of the period. The course starts with the French Revolution of 1789 and ends in 1890.

HS2023
Nineteenth-Century Europe: Society and Culture 1789-1890
Tutors: Dr Florian Schui
Value: half unit
Teaching: 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment: best coursework essay (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
This course explores how the rise of industrial capitalism changed the life of Europeans during the 19th century. Among the material and cultural transformations of the period to be discussed will be: globalisation in transport, trade and communication, trends in demography and the standard of living; religion and secularisation, Jewish emancipation and antisemitism, the role of women and the development of the arts. For further information please contact Dr Florian Schui.

HS2028
Twentieth-Century World History: The Middle East, Africa and Latin America
Tutor Dr Sarah Ansari, Dr Akil Awan
Value half unit
Teaching 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (100%)
*Students must have taken HS2017 in term one to be eligible for this course NB - Not to be taken in conjunction with HS2003 The British Empire 1899-1963
This half unit looks at the history of the non-western twentieth-century world from the vantage point of developments in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. It complements and builds upon HS2017 Twentieth-century world history: the Asian resurgence by exploring political developments in other continents where the long term trends were noticeably different. It also considers revolution in the twentieth century and connections between imperialism and twenty-first century 'globalisation'. It is taught by way of weekly lectures and tutorial discussion classes.

HS2105
Principles of Archaeology
Tutor Dr Hugo Blake
Value half unit
Teaching 11 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment two assessed coursework essays (100%)
The archaeologist tries to build a picture of past human society by studying its material remains and the environment within which these remains were made and used. This course is about how archaeological evidence is collected, studied and interpreted. The topics covered include the history of the discipline, fieldwork methods, the kinds of surviving man made and natural remains, their classification and laboratory examination, dating , and traditional, 'new' and post-modern explanations, and ownership of the past.

HS2111
Further Latin for Historians
Teaching: 20 hours of classes
Assessment: 2 hour examination
This course can be substituted for one Foundation course. The classes are held weekly over two terms.
This course takes students with GCSE level Latin up to Advanced Level knowledge of the language in one year. It may be taken either in the first year by students with the appropriate entry level knowledge of Latin, or in the second year by students who have passed HS1111. The objective of the course is to enable students to read Latin with reasonable fluency, with the help of dictionaries, particularly to assist students planning to take a Group 3 course in ancient or medieval history.

HS2123
The Christianisation of the Roman World: Constantine to Justinian
Tutor Dr Sam Barnish
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
In this period (AD 306-565), the religious life of Roman and post-Roman civilisation was transformed. A patchwork of traditional, non-dogmatic, and coexistent pagan cults, closely interwoven with local societies, was replaced by Christian monotheism, highly organised, dogmatically argumentative, and proclaiming a universal way of salvation. The course explores how far, and by what means the change was achieved, and its relation to various groups and social and political institutions: intellectuals, clergy, upper and lower classes, cities and countryside, central government. Primary sources are read in translation.

HS2148
Daily Life in Renaissance and Baroque Italian Cities
Tutor Dr Hugo Blake, Dr Sandra Cavallo
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment best two coursework essays (30%) plus 3-hour exam (70%)
Not to be taken with Group 1 half-units HS2149 or HS2150
In recent years a wealth of exciting interdisciplinary studies has explored the minutiae of the public, religious and domestic experience of city-dwellers in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, making use of methods and analytical categories drawn from anthropology, art history, archaeology and historical geography. This course will be based on this new stream of research and will analyse in depth a number of key aspects of urban life in this period of Italian history. These include: the use of space and street life; buildings and their symbolic meaning; the rituals of civic pride and religious devotion; the interior of the home and its functions; the ornament of the body; marital choice and disputes; convent life; neighbourly ties; sexual deviance; life in the 'ghetto'; the use of magic in everyday life. Reflecting the expertise of the tutors, a historical archaeologist specialising in Italy and a social historian of Baroque Italy, the emphasis will be placed on socio-cultural issues and on the material and visual aspects of daily life.

HS2149
Daily Life in Renaissance and Baroque Italian Cities I: Social and Domestic Life
Tutor Prof Sandra Cavallo
Value half unit
Teaching 11 lectures / 10 tutorials
Assessment best coursework essay (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
The Italian Renaissance is conventionally portrayed as a period characterized by an extraordinary cultural and artistic renewal, an unprecedented economic prosperity and the experimentation of republican forms of government unique in Europe. This course will verify the validity of this picture by focusing on the experience of town-dwellers in the city-states of Northern and Central Italy between 1350 and 1650. It will explore the extent to which women, workers and religious minorities participated in these developments, and ask whether the ideals of equality and self-government promoted by the city-state really widened political participation and reduced social divisions. The course will also assess the impact that prolonged warfare, the formation of regional states and the policy of the Counter-Reformation had on various spheres of people’s lives, namely on: crime and violence, artistic expression, marriage, prostitution and concubinage, female convents, the employment of slaves, the use of magic.

HS2150
Daily Life in Renaissance and Baroque Italian Cities II: Material and Visual Culture
Tutor Dr Hugo Blake
Value half unit
Teaching 10 x 2-hour seminars
Assessment best coursework essay (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
Not to be taken with the Group 2 paper HS2148
This part of the course is concerned with material aspects, whether surviving, represented in images or recorded in writing, which reflect and influence human behaviour. The use and perception of the landscape and town, the changing and distinctive form of housing, its furnishing, and the daily, occasional, and special activities which took place in the domestic and public spheres, together with the way the body was displayed, will be examined.

HS2151
The Silk Road 1: Genghis Khan and the Mongol Legacy in Western Asia (1200-1500)
Tutor: Dr. Evrim Binbaş
Value: half unit
Teaching: 11 lectures and seminars
Assessment: best one of two coursework essays (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
This course examines the formation of the Mongol Empire and its impact on the social, political, and cultural life in Western Asia. Although the Mongol Empire was founded in Inner Asia, the Mongol presence in Western Asia influenced and shaped the Islamic religion, politics, and culture for centuries to come. The execution of the last Abbasid caliph and the abolition of the caliphate in Baghdad in 1258, and the penetration of the Mongol law, i.e. the yasa, can be considered the most enduring legacies of the Mongols in Western Asia. While discussing the Mongols and their presence in Western Asia, the course will also consider other intellectual and social changes that occurred in the late medieval period. Among the themes which are explored in this course are the formation of the Mongol Empire rise of institutional Sufism, the interaction between tribal and sedentary populations in Central Asia, Ibn Khaldun and the politics of historiography, the development of Safavid Messianism, and the rise, rule, and empire of Tamerlane.

HS2152
The Silk Road 2: Regional Empires in Western Asia (1500-1700)
Tutor: Dr. Evrim Binbaş
Value: half unit
Teaching: 10 lectures and seminars
Assessment: best one of two coursework essays (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
This course examines the formation of regional empires, i.e. the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires in Western Asia in the Early Modern period. It is now accepted in modern scholarship that these three empires should be studied in relation with each other. Among the critical topics covered in this course are the rise of Sunni and Shi'i Islam as two "state religions" in the Ottoman and Safavid empires, the emergence of centralized bureaucracies, the bureaucratization of religious and scholarly institutions, the propagation of a distinct absolutist ideology conceived in religious terminology, and finally the territorialization of the state and the representation of power through art and architecture.

HS2160
Europe under the Old Regime, c 1648-1789
Tutor: Dr. Florian Schui
Value: half unit
Teaching: 11 lectures and 10 seminars
Assessment: best one of two coursework essays (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
The course explores the political, economic, social and cultural characteristics of European states and societies between the Thirty Years’ War and the French Revolution. In particular the course examines the historical transformations that led to the erosion and eventually to the collapse of Old Regime polities. Lecture topics will include among others: the costly art of warfare, religious conflict, state-power and state-formation, the making of capitalism, the rise of consumer culture, public and private spheres.

HS2209
International Economic Relations, 1917-1991
Tutor Dr Emmett Sullivan
Value half unit
Teaching 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment best coursework essay (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
This course covers the economic developments affecting the international economy thought the twentieth century. The course picks up from the Russian Revolution and the Treaty of Versailles, and covers the wider developments in the world economy, with particular reference boom of 1920s, the Great Depression, the rise and decline of the Soviet economy, to the ending of free trade and the rise of economic protection in the 1930s, and the factors making for the reconstruction and revival of the world economy since 1945, culminating in the recent performance and problems affecting the world economy since the 1980s. The course will take a decade-by-decade approach, concentrating on one major event in the international economy each week in tutorials (including the Treaty of Versailles; the collapse of the US economy from 1929; five year plans in the USSR during the 1930s; economic management and the Second World War; the Marshall and Dawes Plans; the 'Golden Age'; OPEC and the fall of the Keynesian consensus; stagflation and the rise of the New Right; the rise of the less-developed economies; and the collapse of the USSR).

HS2212
British History 1837-1914
Tutor Dr Alex Windscheffel
Value half unit
Teaching 11 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment best coursework essay (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
Who were the Victorians? What did they believe in? What was the legacy of the Victorian years? And what do they continue to mean and signify to us today? This self-contained half-unit offers a general overview of the dramatic political, cultural and social contours of life in Britain during the Victorian period, often seen as the zenith of British progress and self-confidence. The course is framed between the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne in 1837 - aged just eighteen – and her death in 1901. Topics studied along the way include the role and image of the monarchy; the decline of the aristocracy; the lives of the urban and industrial working classes; the rise of social observation and the 'discovery' of poverty; Liberalism and Conservatism in the age of Gladstone and Disraeli; the Victorian women's movement; marital relations and Victorian sexuality; democracy, citizenship and the demand for the vote from various voices; religion, science and doubt; Victorian art and visual culture; and famine, loyalism and nationalism in Victorian Ireland. This is a course that is essential for anyone wishing to understand not just the Victorian era, but the nature of the world we live in today.

HS2213
British History, 1914-1973
Tutors DrJane Hamlett.
Value half unit
Teaching 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (100%)
Teaching 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes Assessment 2-hour exam (100%) This course seeks to investigate politics, society and culture in modern Britain. The half-unit covers the sixty-year period encompassed between the outbreak of World War One in 1914 and Britain’s entry into the European Economic Community in 1973. Along the way, topics studied include the impact of two world wars upon Britain upon cultural life and gender roles, appeasement and inter-war culture, the decline of Liberalism and rise of Labour, the growth of leisure and the mass media, the foundation of the Welfare State by the post-war Labour administration led by Clement Attlee, the Festival of Britain in 1951, post-war immigration, the end of the British empire, and Britain’s engagement with the European Economic Community. Take this course to be able to understand better the complexities of modern Britain.

HS2217
History of the USA, 1787-1877
Tutor: Dr Bruce Baker
Value: half unit
Teaching: 11 lectures, 11 tutorial classes
Assessment: best coursework essay (30%) plus 2-hour exam (70%)
This course surveys the history of the United States from the Constitutional Convention in 1787 to the end of Reconstruction in 1877. In addition to looking at the establishment of political institutions and practices, the course focuses on economic change and the sectional crisis over slavery that culminated in the Civil War of 1861 to 1865. Within this political and economic framework, the course examines the experiences of women, people of colour, and workers, considering the antebellum reform movement, Native American removal, the Mexican War, nativism, and the beginnings of industrialisation and labour organisation.

HS2218
History of the USA since 1877
Tutor: Prof. John Kirk
Value: half unit
Teaching: 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment: 2-hour exam (100%)
This half-unit offers an overview of US history since 1877. It examines the social, cultural, economic and political contours of that history, incorporating topics such as westward expansion, industrialisation and urbanization, the progressive era, the First World War, the Great Depression and the New Deal, the Second World War, the Cold War, domestic developments in the 1960s and 1970s, and the rise of the New Right in the 1980s. It concludes with a contemporary examination of US foreign and domestic policy. Particular attention is given to the shaping experiences of race, ethnicity, gender and class in the American experience.

HS2223
Spain, 1898-1939
Tutor Prof. Helen Graham
Value half unit
Teaching 11 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (100%)
This course examines the difficult years of the early 20th century in Spain. It seeks to explain the causes of Spain's superstructural instability by looking not only 'top-down' at political tensions and economic contradictions, but also 'bottom-up' at the social and cultural fragmentation of Spain during this period. Main topics covered in this term include: clientelism and state power under the Restoration Monarchy; the loss of empire and the crisis of the old regime; Basque and Catalan nationalisms; industrialisation and the making of the working class; anarchism and peasant rebellion; the politics of Catholicism; anticlericalism; the rule of the army; social reform and mass mobilisation in the 1930s; civil war.

HS2224
Spain from Dictatorship to Democracy, 1939-1989
Tutor Prof. Helen Graham
Value half-unit
Teaching 10 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (100%)
This course adopts a thematic approach within a broadly chronological framework. It explores state and society under the rule of General Franco, and traces the processes of social, economic and cultural change which precipitated the crisis of the dictatorship and Spain's transition to democracy. The transition is explored in detail in both domestic and international contexts. The course also looks at Spain's institutional integration into western Europe (EEC and NATO); the politics of the PSOE in power (from 1982); and social/cultural developments in liberal democratic Spain.

HS2227
Awakening China: From the Opium Wars to the Present Day
Tutor: Dr Weipin Tsai
Value half-unit
Teaching 11 lectures, 10 tutorial classes
Assessment 2 hour exam (70%); best of two essays (30%)
This course explores how China made its transition from isolated, self-contained 'Middle Kingdom' in the middle of the nineteenth century, to its present day status as emerging global superpower. The course begins with the Opium Wars, which announced the arrival of foreign powers in China, but also marked the beginning of its opening up to a new age. It then follows China's development, navigating the major themes of Chinese Modern History including the social stresses and political movements that led to the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in the Revolution of 1911, and the May Fourth Movement of 1919; the origins and effects of the Sino-Japanese War; the rise of Chinese Communism and its impact after Mao came to power, from the Long March to the Cultural Revolution; and China's progress since 1978 in balancing communist principles with market-driven economic growth. Overall the course examines how a new nation was built, not just in political and social terms but also through the experiences of the people who lived through it.

OPTIONAL LATIN COURSES TAUGHT IN THE DEPARTMENT

HS1111
Introductory Latin for Historians
Tutor Dr Hannes Kleineke
Value half-unit
Teaching 30 hours of classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (dictionaries permitted)
N.B. Students can only take Introductory Latin in their first or second years.
This course takes students with little or no previous knowledge of Latin language up to approximately GCSE standard in one year. It is particularly recommended for students with a strong interest in the ancient or medieval parts of the History degree. The classes (1.5 hours) are held weekly in terms one and two.

HS2111
Further Latin for Historians
Tutor Dr Hannes Kleineke
Value half-unit
Teaching 30 hours of classes
Assessment 2-hour exam (dictionaries permitted)
N.B. Students can only take Introductory Latin in their first or second years.
This course takes students with GCSE level Latin up to Advanced Level knowledge of the language in one year. It may be taken either in the first year by students with the appropriate entry level knowledge of Latin, or in second year by students who have passed HS1111. The classes (1.5 hours) are held weekly in terms one and two. The objective of the course is to enable students to read Latin with reasonable fluency, with the help of dictionaries, particularly to assist students planning to take a Group 3 course in ancient or medieval history.

YEAR 2 AND FINAL YEAR COURSES

GROUP 2 COURSES

Descriptions of intercollegiate Group 2 History courses can be found in the 2008-09University of London White Pamphlet, available online at http://www.history.ac.uk/syllabus/group2.html. A list of courses confirmed as available for 2008-09 is circulated separately at the course choice meeting and can be found HERE (WHERE'S THE LINK FOR THIS?). Please ensure that you do NOT request a place on an inter-collegiate course unless it has been confirmed as running for the 2008-09 session!

HS2124
The Later Roman Empire, AD 284-602
Tutor Dr David Gwynn
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 70% exam and 30% best 2 of 4 essays
This course can only be chosen as a first or second preference.
This course opens with the transformation of the Roman Empire under Diocletian (284-305) and Constantine (306-337) and the conversion of Constantine, the first Christian Roman Emperor, in AD 312. We will explore the fundamental political, social and religious developments of the fourth century and then examine the contrasting fortunes of the Roman world in the fifth and sixth centuries, with the emergence of the western Germanic kingdoms and the revival of the Empire in the east under the Emperor Justinian (527-565).

HS2127
Byzantium and its Neighbours, 602-1071
Tutor Dr Jonathan Harris
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
By the early years of the seventh century, the Eastern Roman Empire was at the point of collapse. It was no longer able to defend its frontiers against Slav and Persian invaders and even its capital city of Constantinople was under attack. Yet the empire not only weathered this period of crisis but in the process transformed itself into a completely different, more compact and stronger society, known as the Byzantine empire or Byzantium. This course traces the reasons why the empire survived and investigates the profound changes that took place in its military organisation, society, religious life, art and culture. It will also examine how the key to the empire's survival was the way in which it interacted with the world around it, particularly western Europe, the Islamic caliphate and the Slavonic world. Although the Byzantines frequently fought their neighbours, they preferred where possible to influence them through diplomacy and conversion. As a result, the profound impact that Byzantine political thought, art and religion was to have in these centuries, particularly on Eastern Europe and Russia, is still very apparent today.

HS2131
The Nobility and Gentry of Medieval England, 1150-1500
Tutors Prof. Nigel Saul; Dr David Carpenter (KCL)
Value: one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
This paper considers the transition from the barons and knights of the 12th century to the nobility and gentry of the later Middle Ages. Its main concerns are with the 'rise' of the gentry, the development of the parliamentary peerage, and the changing relationships involved in the shift from 'feudalism' to 'bastard feudalism'. A variety of other themes are studied, among them the economic activities of the nobility and gentry, their domestic architecture, patterns of spending, literacy and education and religious belief.

HS2132
London Urban Society, 1400-1600
Tutor Dr Clive Burgess
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
This course is taught in central London.
In this period London grew from a town of 50,000 inhabitants to a capital city of some 200,000. The Reformation not only swept away 'superstitious' beliefs, but destroyed much of the fabric and topography of the medieval city. This course will consider how Londoners coped with these changes; their relations with the Crown and with the surrounding communities in the suburbs and countryside. How were Londoners fed and watered? How were crafts organised? How was the City governed? How were orphans, the old, the sick and the destitute cared for? How did Londoners amuse themselves and how did they care for their souls? What education was available and what were the opportunities open to women? The course includes a guided walk around the medieval walls and other visits.

HS2133
Tudor Parliaments 1485-1603
Tutor Prof. Pauline Croft
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
Tudor parliaments have long been a subject of controversy among historians. The main topics explored on the course are: the biographical background of MPs and how it changed over the period: the evolution of parliamentary procedure and the role of the Speaker; the most commonly used sources for parliamentary history, including the official Journals of the Lords and the Commons, the collections of the antiquary Sir Symonds D'Ewes, and members' private diaries: the management of parliamentary business, and the role of lobbying. The importance of parliament in enacting religious change, and also legislating for the royal succession, is emphasised, and also the impact of legislation on economic, social and family matters.

HS2135
Experience, Culture and Identity: Women's Lives in England, c.1688-1837
Tutor: Dr Amanda Vickery
Value: one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
This course examines the mental and material world of English women in a period of rapid social, economic and cultural transformation. It exploits the wealth of secondary literature which has appeared on the subject in recent years, and evaluates the dominant interpretations of continuity and change in women's history. Attention focuses on the diversity of roles women played, the changing scope of female experience, and the different languages available to articulate that experience. Topics covered include: Love and Marriage, Sexuality, Masculinity, Divorce, Motherhood, Work, Consumerism, Material Culture, Print, Polite Culture, Feminism, Politics and Religion. Students will be encouraged to engage critically with the categories, modes of explanation and chronology of recent women's history.

HS2137
Tudor Queenship: Mary I and Elizabeth I, 1553-1603
Tutor: Dr Anna Whitelock
Value: one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment unseen three hour examination, 100%
This course can only be chosen as a first or second preference.
Between 1553 and 1603 England found itself in the unprecedented situation of being ruled by two queens, Mary and her sister Elizabeth. Focussing on issues such as politics, religion, personnel, ceremony and foreign relations, students will explore new ways of understanding both queens, focusing on continuities as well as change and challenging commonplace arguments as to their relative success or failure. Students will also examine the reputation and subsequent representation of these queens in text, image and film. Underpinning the course is an attempt to recast the traditional trajectory of Tudor monarchy by reconsidering the queens in relation to their male counterparts and in the broader context of European Renaissance monarchy.

HS2142
The Crusades and the Eastern Mediterranean, 1095-1291
Tutor Prof. Jonathan Phillips
Value: one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
The triumph of the First Crusade (1099) resulted in the establishment of a Latin Christian community in the Levant for almost two hundred years. This course is primarily concerned to examine how the settlers maintained their hold on a region which was spiritually, economically and politically important to the Byzantine empire and the Muslim world as well. The reaction of these groups to the crusades and the development of their relationship with the settlers is an integral part of the subject. The 'jihad' became the channel for Muslim opposition and the Latins discovered that their own resources were insufficient to meet this threat and they appealed for help to Western Europe. The response and the consequences of this reaction for settlers' tenure of the Holy Land will be analysed. The Frankish way of life will be studied; its institutions, the economic position of the Christian settlements; the role of women, and whether the Latin states represent an early form of western colonialism will be discussed. The preaching and preparation of crusading expeditions, the evolution of the crusading idea, crusading warfare and criticism of crusading will also be studied. The course will utilize a variety of primary material from European, Byzantine, Muslim and Syriac sources in translation. A booklet containing copies of these will be provided.

HS2143
Medicine and Society in Medieval Europe
Tutor Prof Peregrine Horden
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment best two coursework essays (30%) plus 3-hour exam (70%)
This course explores major themes in the social history of medicine in Europe from the collapse of the Roman empire to the eve of the Renaissance: the response to diseases such as leprosy and plague, medical education and the split between the medical profession and 'alternative' practitioners, the problems faced by female healers, and by Jewish practitioners, the interplay of institutional and community health care and of secular and religious sources of healing. Besides opening up central topics in medieval studies, therefore, the course also deals with subjects of current political debate and students should have no difficulty in finding their feet. No prior knowledge of the subject is expected.

HS2219
Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, 1955-1968
Tutor: Prof. John Kirk
Value: one unit
Teaching: 21 two-hour seminars
Assessment: 100% 3-hour examination
'Martin didn't make the movement, the movement made Martin' noted veteran civil rights activist Ella Baker. Baker's perceptive comments strike at the very heart of contemporary historiographical debates. On the one hand, scholars have increasingly viewed the mass black movement for civil rights in the United States as a grassroots phenomenon that was rooted in local communities and based upon local leadership and local needs. On the other hand, scholars still emphasise the vital national leadership role played by Martin Luther King, Jr. in the civil rights struggle, particularly from the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott to King's 1968 assassination in Memphis, Tennessee. This course looks at both strands of this scholarship and seeks to assess the dynamics of the movement at both local and national levels, and to examine the tensions that often existed between them, as well as addressing the central controversies and debates surrounding King’s movement leadership.

HS2231
Identity and the City: Modern China, Hong Kong and Taiwan
Tutor: Dr. Weipin Tsai
Value: one unit
Teaching: 21 two-hour seminars
Assessment: best two of four coursework essays (30%) plus 3-hour exam (70%)
Many thousands of tourists visit China, Hong Kong and Taiwan every year. But what do they really know about China’s cities and their people? This course is an introduction to modern Chinese cities, with emphasis on political identity, nationalism, migration and modernisation. It examines Chinese cities from the 19th Century to the present day, providing students with an opportunity to explore how Chinese people interacted with foreign influences (particular from Russia, Britain, and Japan) during the nation-building process. This course will particularly pay attention to cities that once had foreign settlements, including Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Harbin, Guangdong, Nanjing, Hong Kong and Taipei. It provides an introduction to the disciplines of urban historical study, looking at architecture, political ideas, social movements, and the changing patterns of people’s daily lives, using photos, maps, and literature, with the aim of providing fresh perspectives for historians and would-be travellers by viewing today’s metropolises through the lens of the history that created and shaped them.

HS2232
Lahore and Istanbul: modernity in the Muslim Imperial city, c.1850-1960
Tutor: Dr. Markus Daechsel
Value: one unit
Teaching: 21 two-hour seminars
Assessment: 30% coursework (best one of two c.5000 word essays) and 70% exam
This course compares how city dwellers in two very different regions of the Muslim world – Turkey and South Asia – engaged with the political, cultural, social and economic changes of 'modernity'. We will focus on two distinct cities with great historical personalities: Lahore – often called the 'Paris of the East' – with its Mughal past, its role as one of the most vibrant and colourful cities of British India, now the cultural capital of Pakistan; and Istanbul - the jewel of the Ottoman Empire – with its cosmopolitan and multi-religious populations, its role as contact point between East and West and now one of the fastest growing megacities of a globalised world. We will explore the histories of these places with a whole range of questions and approaches: the changing face of city geography and architecture; the impact of political and economic change; material culture and its impact on social identities: urban housing and domestic life, mass entertainment in print and cinema; literature and art and their impact on political culture; finally, religious practice in urban space, processes of 'secularisation' and the question of religious pluralism. In assembling a comprehensive mosaic of urban cultures and in inviting students to explore their interconnectivity, this course aims at opening up 'Muslim modernity' as a social and historical experience, which is far richer and more contradictory than the usual vision of a textual and primarily 'religious' response to a Western 'challenge'.

HS2233
The Bomb: Atomic Weaponry and Society in the 20th Century
Tutor: Dr. Emmett Sullivan
Value: one unit
Teaching: 21 two-hour seminars
Assessment: best two of four coursework essays (30%) plus 3-hour exam (70%)
This course will examine the development of atomic weaponry and its effects on Western society during the twentieth century. The A- and H-Bombs are arguably to the most influential technological developments of the last century, affecting geopolitics, military strategy, and the shape of post-1945 society, and well as putting in the hand of a few the power to render the Earth uninhabitable. This had a profound effect on politics and society. The emphasis will be more on the way that geopolitics shaped the creation and use of "the Bomb," rather than the scientific history of its development However, other perspectives on how technology shaped society will be considered, as with the writings of H G Wells or using modern reinterpretations of events, such as Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen or the BBC’s Hiroshima. Term one concentrates on how "the Genie got out of the bottle," while term two will deal with the effects on World politics and Western society of "the Bomb." The focus of the course will be predominantly on the United States and Britain, but in the context of post-1945 Super Power conflict, and arms proliferation, with France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and South Africa becoming atomic, if not nuclear, weapon states. The main historical material considered will be from the 1930s through to the 1970s.

HS2234
Modern Girls: Women in Britain, c. 1914- 1984
Tutor: Dr. Amanda Vickery
Value: one unit
Teaching: 21 two-hour seminars
Assessment: 70% three-hour exam and 30% best two of four coursework essays
The slender flapper, cigarette holder in hand, off to cocktails or a night at the flicks epitomizes the surface glamour of modernity. With an office job, a swimsuit, sex appeal (known as 'SA' or 'It') and a voguish knowledge of Freud, she was ready for anything. But how real were her gains? This course explores the words and experiences of British women in a century of rapid social, economic and cultural transformation. We will determine the constraints on women in war and peace, politics, law and citizenship, education and paid work, marriage, motherhood and family. But we will also explore women's dreams and disappointments in courtship and romance, sexual relationships and desire, domesticity and home-making, consumerism and fashion. The elaboration of femininity and gender roles in the glossy media of advertizing, women's magazines, paperback books, broadcasting and film is a continuous theme of the course. Together we will look at expectations and outcomes, promise and its containment. Perhaps the Hoover and the hostess trolley were not the answer to a woman’s prayers?

HS2235
From blood and guts to the worried well: medicine in modern Britain
Tutor: Dr. Graham Smith
Value: one unit
Teaching: 21 two-hour seminars
Assessment: best two of four coursework essays (30%) plus 3-hour exam (70%)
Is medicine in modern Britain a story of progress or decline? This course is intended to encourage students to think critically about the history of medicine. Students will be introduced to the ways in which medical and health knowledge and practices have been constructed in Britain since the eighteenth century. We will investigate medicine from the changing perspectives of health professionals and patients, as well as thinking about the continuities in health care delivery and policy within broader historical processes and developments. Significant organisational, scientific and structural changes will be examined in the ways in which medicine and healthcare have been delivered. This includes the development of medical professions and specialisation, changing models of medical care and the formation of the National Health Service. There is also an emphasis on the social and cultural continuities and changes in understandings of health, illness and the gendered body. Scientific and lay beliefs about disease and treatment will be explored including the impact of religion and politics on medicine. The course locates medicine in Britain within international contexts, including the relationship of war and medicine, Nazi medicine and medical ethics, and the movement and resistance of ideas and practices across national boundaries.

HS2246
From Rakes to Respectability: Society and Culture in Britain, 1815-51
Tutor: Dr. Jane Hamlett
Value: one unit
Teaching: 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment: 3-hour exam (70%) Best two coursework essays (30%)
Were the early Victorians really dull and stuffy? Of course not. This course explores changes in British society and culture in the early nineteenth century, and the apparent transition from the eighteenth-century era of the rake to the respectability of the mid-Victorians. We will consider how British society was divided between rich and poor, young and old, male and female, master and servant, Anglican and nonconformist, and nation and region. We will look at how reforming Liberal governments shaped social life, and popular responses to these. How did the industrial revolution and the growth of towns and cities change nineteenth-century life? Were early Victorians really repressed sexual hypocrites? How was death celebrated in early Victorian Britain? And how was crime punished? We will examine the changing face of nineteenth-century culture, including popular politics, education, consumption, medicine as well as in visual culture and printed media. The course will draw on a variety of source materials including engravings, portraiture and early photography, alongside texts and will include trips to London museums. Overall the course will assess how the early Victorians subsequently acquired their strait-laced image, and the relationship between contemporary understandings and longer-term historical reputations.

HS2248
The Russian Empire in the Age of Reform and Revolution 1856-1917
Tutor Dr Daniel Beer
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
The course will examine the intellectual and cultural history of Russia in the turbulent years from the Great Reforms of the 1850s and 1860s to the 1917 Revolution. During this period, the Russian society experienced industrialisation, urbanisation, secularisation and the erosion of traditional values and social distinctions. The spread of literacy, the rise of popular culture, and mass politics all contrived to change the nature and the values of Russian society. In the absence of any established system of political freedom until the 1905 Revolution, Russian literature was a barometer of popular sentiment and a forum in which the great moral and political issues of the day were debated. The tension between reformism and revolution dominated the period. For many, the obduracy of the autocracy precluded the possibility of seeking a gradual reform of the state. Others struggled to reform the Empire whilst staving off violent revolution. The 1905 Revolution was a seminal moment in Russian history in this period. It heralded the explosion of mass movements onto the political stage confirmed for many observers their worst fears of the anarchy and violence that would accompany social revolution. The emphasis throughout will be on the dynamism of Russia in this period as all sections of society struggled to cope with change on an enormous scale at dizzying speeds.

HS2250
Politics of Sport: Power, Identity and Race in Britain, 1880s-1990s
Tutor Prof. Humayun Ansari
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 30% coursework (best one of two c.5000 word essays) and 70% exam
This course examines the role of sport as a major political accompaniment of the modern age. It explores how politics and sport have become increasingly intertwined in Britain, and investigates the role which sport has played in the construction of British national identity. Sporting activity has provided a common reference point for diverse groups in British society, yet sport has persisted in reproducing divisions in class, gender and race relations. 'Politics and Sport', therefore, looks at the changing meaning of sport in people's lives in modern Britain.

HS2254
Ethnicity, Identity and Citizenship in Modern British Life
Tutor Prof. Humayun Ansari
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
The course provides a comprehensive introduction to the history and functioning of multi-ethnic Britain. Students are encouraged to develop a shared understanding of a range of concepts attending the study of ethnicity and 'race', to reflect on the origins of race thinking and to develop a critique of 'race' science. It covers the history of immigration and settlement of minorities, particularly from the beginning of the nineteenth century and explores contemporary political and social issues which concern a wide range of minority ethnic groups. The focus, however, is very much on the more recent, 'visible' additions to the British cultural and racial kaleidoscope. Students examine and develop an understanding of the dynamics of migrant and settler experiences, identity construction (including 'Britishness') and ethnic conflict in the context of modern multicultural Britain. Finally, the ways in which racism and ethnicity have affected Britain, the effectiveness of public policy, issues of citizenship and the reactions of different ethnic groups to the re-configuration of British society are considered in some depth.

HS2257
Spain in Conflict, 1930-1953
Tutor Prof. Helen Graham
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
NB: Either HS2223 or HS2014 is a prerequisite for this course.
The course covers the democratic Second Republic (1931-6) the Spanish Civil War (1936-9) and the first and most brutal phase (1939-53) of the Franco dictatorship. In Spain, as in Europe, the 1930s and 1940s saw the explosion of modern mass political mobilisation and antagonistic visions of national development vied for dominance. The course explores the significance of Francoism in relation to these broader European themes focusing especially on the Franco regime's murderous attempt to create a Spanish version of the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft even after the collapse of Hitler's New Order in Europe.

HS2263
Gender and Society in the Non-Western World
Tutor Dr Sarah Ansari
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
This course examines the concepts of continuity and change in the non-western world by focusing on issues connected with gender. Processes of modernisation since the early 19th century have very often interfered with the balance of social, economic and political relations within non-western societies, producing knock-on effects in terms of women's lives in particular and gender issues more broadly. One important question explored by the course is the impact of interaction with the West and western ideas, both in places directly incorporated into the various European empires that emerged during this period, and in others that were more indirectly and to different degrees touched by western imperialism. The course also investigates the kinds of indigenous or local forces that have inhibited and encouraged change, including the role of religion, the influence of existing social and moral norms, and economic and political factors. A key issue under discussion everywhere is the complex relationship between the issue of female emancipation - 'the Woman Question' - and nationalism.

HS2264
Nationalism, Democracy and Minorities in central Europe, 1918-1939
Tutor: Dr Rudolf Muhs
Value: one unit
Teaching: 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment: 3-hour exam
During the two decades after the First World War the newly established or reconstituted countries of Central Europe (Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary) were troubled by a multitude of problems. The aim of this course is to highlight the causes and consequences of the failure of parliamentary government and liberal institutions to take a firm hold: the legacy of war with its cult of violence and the militarisation of politics; the dilemma of counterrevolutionary regimes in pre-revolutionary societies; the difficulties of nation-building in multi-ethnic states; the pathology of modern culture and the handicap of backwardness; the flaws of authoritarian rule and the attraction of Italian fascism as a model for the New Right; the perils of mass politics without democracy; the appeal of communism and the reasons for its defeat. Setting the case of Germany in a wider context will help you realise what this country had in common with its smaller neighbours and what made it different, culminating in the triumph of Nazism and the unleashing of the Second World War.

HS2268
History and Memory in the United States
Tutor Dr Bruce Baker
Value: one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment best two coursework essays (30%) plus 3-hour exam (70%)
This course examines how Americans have thought about their past and how that is significant to our understanding of American history. Beginning soon after independence, Americans worked to shape the historical memory of the nation's origins in order to help define a distinctively American identity. As divisive issues arose, so too did conflicting ideas about the national past. The course begins with a thorough consideration of the origins of the study of historical memory and the wealth of recent literature that provides a methodological and theoretical framework for these studies. Overviews of historical memory in the United States set out the major topics and issues and their interrelations. The course then gives special attention to how memory and identity have been mutually constituted by looking at case studies associated with particular regions, social groups, and events.

HS2271
Modern Political Ideas
Tutors Prof. Greg Claeys
Value one unit
Teaching 18 lectures, 18 tutorial classes
Assessment 3-hour exam
The course examines the main currents of political thought in Modern European and World History from Rousseau to the present:
  1. The Eighteenth Century and the French Revolution; Commercial society and its enemies (Hume, Smith, Rousseau); the French Revolution (Paine, Wollstonecraft); reactions to the revolution (Hegel).
  2. The Nineteenth Century: Early socialism (Owen, Fourier, Saint Simon); Tocqueville and the American model; Marx and communism; Mill and liberalism; Nietzsche and modernity; Bakunin and anarchism.
  3. The Twentieth Century: Anti-imperialist theorists (Fanon, Gandhi); Orwell and dystopia; green political theory

HS2278
The Western Powers and East Asia, 1839-1945
Tutor Dr Chi-kwan Mark
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
This course deals with the involvement of the two principal Western powers - Britain and the United States - in East Asian affairs during the period 1839-1945. It examines the way Britain and America established their power and influence in the region, and how their predominance was challenged by the local forces of nationalism, communism and militarism. While providing a comparative study of British and American policies, the course will also consider the perspectives and responses of Asian countries, especially China and Japan, as well as the wider regional and international trends such as opium trade and racism. Topics covered include the establishment of Britain's and America's formal and informal empires in the Asia Pacific, the Anglo-Japanese alliance and its demise, the challenges of Chinese nationalism and Soviet communism, and the rise and fall of the Japanese empire in East and Southeast Asia.

HS2280
"The Devil's Decade:" Britain, America and the Great Slump, 1929-41
Tutor Dr Emmett Sullivan
Value one unit
Teaching 21 x 2-hour seminars
Assessment best two coursework essays (30%) plus 3-hour exam (70%)
This course will review the modern literature on the causes and consequences of the Great Slump for Britain and America during the 1930s. The period of the Great Slump (1929-33) and the recovery up to the Second World War (1933-39/41) presented the greatest challenge to capitalist industrial society. Politicians, government advisors, and academics in the west were unable to explain why capitalist society was plunged so deeply in to depression, and they were also perplexed as to why the usual remedies failed to generate forces of recovery. The 1930s represented a low point in the formation and application of Government policy in the west, and was blighted by the emergence, and persistence, of a new problem: long-term unemployment. At the height of the Great Slump (1932/33) a quarter of the UK working population were unemployed, and perhaps a third of the US workforce were without a job. The course will examine the economic and social history of the period from a chronological perspective: each seminar will centre on a major issue or crisis affecting one or other of the countries, or dealing with the international economic relations between the two. These topics will include the Wall Street Crash, the Dust Bowl, the New Deal, the fall of the Second Labour Government, the Ottawa Agreement and the Jarrow March, allowing the course of the depression and recovery to be examined in depth by focussing on these case studies each week.

HS2289
The Islamic Revival: from C18 Reform to C20 Political Action
Tutor Prof. Francis Robinson
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
Over the past two centuries Muslim societies have been experiencing a major process of religious revival and reform, of which a dominant feature has been an increased emphasis on action in this life to achieve salvation. This course will examine how Islamic reform was expressed differently in different contexts in the C19th, how it came in many cases in the C20th to evolve into Islamism and competition for power in the modern state, and how this came in the last decades of the C20, in the context of globalisation and the breakdown of Cold War international order, to be expressed by some in violent action against Western targets. In following this course students will engage with the main figures in the movement from Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab to Usama bin Laden, and some of the main organisations from the Deoband School to al-Qaeda. They should be able to assess for themselves whether or not there really is a `clash of civilisations'.

HS2290
The Modern Middle East since 1880
Tutor Prof. Vanessa Martin
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
What lies behind the current crises in the Middle East? The course looks at the background to the on-going war in Iraq, the struggle between Israel and the Palestinians, and the rise of al-Qa'ida. It considers the crucial changes in the Middle East during World War I, and the resultant dominance of the British until 1948, including their role in the shaping of the Modern Middle East. Why is the Middle East so significant in international politics? The course examines its strategic importance and the vital nature of its principal resource, oil, and then we trace how the Middle East was structured to serve the commercial and strategic interests of the great powers. In the post World War II period, geopolitical factors made the Middle East particularly vulnerable to superpower struggles and rivalries. These interacted with internal and regional factors to produce political complexity and instability. The impact of the West was countered by western ideas particularly, nationalism both secular and religious, demonstrated in the quest for strong state systems that could ensure defence of the country in the Arab lands, Turkey and Iran. All of this was originated in the reform movements in Iran and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century.

HS2294
Modern France: From 1918 to the Present
Tutor Prof. Pam Pilbeam
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment best 2 coursework essays (30%) plus 3-hour exam (70%)
The course will investigate aspects of modern France in order to understand what makes France tick today. Topics will include the impact of the First World War, how successfully democracy survived in the inter war years the Socialist and Communist Left, the right wing Leagues; Vichy ; the failure of the Fourth Republic; the emergence of a Presidential regime under de Gaulle after 1958, the National Front, the Greens and the position of France in the EU. We will examine social change in France, including demography, the status of women, immigrants and citizenship, changes in education and religion.

HS2296
Genocide
Tutor Prof. Dan Stone
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
This course can only be chosen as a first or second preference.
This course examines the occurrence of genocide from the colonial period to the present day. It deals with the development of the concept of genocide, and the debates over definition. Then it examines the following case studies: the colonization of Australia and North America, the Herero genocide, the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, Stalin's Great Terror, post-1945 genocides of indigenous peoples, Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia. Finally, it examines the merits of different explanations for genocide, including issues of nation-building, race-theory, gender, and mass violence, and examines the problems of genocide prevention and humanitarian intervention.

HS2297
Memory and Modern Europe
Tutor Dr. Zoe Waxman
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment 3-hour exam
This course examines the role of memory in modern European history and culture. There is a difference between how history happens and how the events of history are reconstructed and remembered. Students will explore the relationship between individual and social memory, the ways in which different narratives of the past are constructed, the role of personal testimony in history, how different memorials and museums relate to different understandings of the past, the role of the media in shaping historical consciousness, the limits of representation, the politics and culture of forgetting, and the future of memory (what happens when memories fade).

HS2298
A History of Terrorism: From French revolutionary terror to al-Qaeda
Tutor Dr. Akil Awan
Value one unit
Teaching 42 hours teaching in seminars
Assessment best two coursework essays (30%) plus 3-hour exam (70%)
This course can only be chosen as a first or second preference.
This course provides a comprehensive treatment of the history of terrorism, beginning with its origins and etymology, tracing its evolution and development, to its employment as a form of political violence in the contemporary period. Students will examine the reasons and rationale for the use of terrorism by various individuals, groups, and state actors, and engage with and comprehend debates on its causes and consequences. Students will study a diverse range of geographical and historical contexts through key case studies with a particular focus on: actors involved, the socio-political milieu, rationale for employing terrorism, causes and consequences of terrorist acts, political outcomes, and counter-terrorism measures.

HS2311
The Lever of Riches: Perspectives on the Making of Capitalism
Tutor Dr. Florian Schui
Value one unit
Teaching: weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment: 3-hour exam (70%); best two of four 2500-word essays (30%)
The rise of capitalism was one of the greatest transformations in human history. Its impact can only be compared with events such as the emergence of written language or the advent of monotheism. While there is general agreement about the far reaching consequences of the rise of capitalism there is little agreement about the causes of this transformation. The course explores and compares the most important theories that have been put forward in the last 250 years. The reading list includes classic works by Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Max Weber as well as recent contribution such as Gregory Clark's ‘A farewell to alms’, Eric Jones’s ‘The European miracle’ and Kenneth Pommeranz’s ‘The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the making of the modern world economy’. For further information please contact Dr Florian Schui.

HS2312
The Edwardians and their Legacy
Tutor Dr. Alex Windscheffel
Value one unit
Teaching: weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment: 3-hour exam (70%); best of two 5000-word essays (30%)
This course will examine in depth the cultural and social history of Britain during the ‘Long Edwardian Age’, covering the eventful years between the accession to the throne of Edward VII in 1901 and the abdication of his grandson, Edward VIII, in 1936. These years were a turbulent and transitional time in British politics, society and culture: these were the years when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank; Captain Scott was beaten to the South Pole by some Norwegians and subsequently died in the Antarctic; militant suffragettes chained themselves to railings and went on hunger-strike; Irish Nationalists and Unionists took up arms; Ireland was eventually partitioned and declined into civil war; and Oswald Mosley and his Fascist Blackshirts paraded through the streets of East London. And of course these were the destructive and terrible years of the First World War, which resulted in the deaths of some 750,000 British men. Yet the ‘Long Edwardian’ years were ones of long summers and weekend shooting-parties; the days when one could still get servants; when royal mistresses were discreet; and the Empire still seemed sound. In cultural life, these were also the years of the ballets russes; of EM Forster, TS Eliot, Bertie Wooster, and the celebrated ‘Bright Young Things’; of the rise of modernism in music, art and architecture. Almost every relationship within British society was in question during these years, which witnessed an unresolved tension between the memory of the past and the challenge of the ‘new’. This course covers all of these events – and many more - and students will explore ways to make sense of them.

HS2313
"Dragon Ladies"? Society, Politics and Gender in Modern China
Tutor Dr. Weipin Tsai
Value one unit
Teaching: weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment: 3 hour exam (70%); best two of four 2500 word essays (30%)
This course will look at Modern Chinese political and social history from the second half of the 19th century to the contemporary period, through the stories of three powerful and well-known public figures: the Empress Dowager Cixi; Soong Mei-ling (the wife of Chiang Kai-shek); and Jiang Qing (Madam Mao). The core object of this course is to explore the connections between events and historical figures through, but it will also introduce a thematic approach to learning modern Chinese history. The first part of the course will focus on these three women in chronological and historical biographical dimensions; the second will look at various important political, social and cultural themes related to these prominent female figures. The course will use English-language sources, including documents, films, newspapers, documentaries, secondary literature, and biographies.

HS2314
Nomads, Heretics and Crusaders: The Medieval Islamic World, c.1000-c.1300
Tutor Dr. Alex Mallett
Value one unit
Teaching: weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment: 3 hour exam (70%); best two of four 2500 word essays (30%)
In the years from the death of Muhammad in 632 until the beginning of the 10th century, the Islamic state grew to become the largest political entity in the world. This had been made possible in part by a lack of external threats. However, in the three centuries after the year 1000, the Islamic world was attacked by a number of different groups – nomadic Turks and Mongols from the East, Byzantines and Crusaders from the West, and by numerous heretical groups internally. This course examines how the Islamic world was able to survive these myriad challenges, by adapting its culture, religious outlook, politics, economics, and military. It will then also highlight the after-effects of these events on the Muslim world, through examination of evidence from later centuries, including those current, and ask how these medieval threats shaped later and contemporary Islamic attitudes.

HS2300
Independent Essay of 5,000 words
Tutor: Dr A. Windscheffel (co-ordinator); established academic members of staff
Value: half unit
Teaching: introductory lectures; appropriate supervisory guidance
This essay is freestanding. The subject of the essay must be outside the direct remit of the various Group 1 and Group 2 taught courses that the student is taking. The essay is intended to facilitate and develop the student's powers of independent thought and research, exercised in a field selected by the student for its particular attractions to him/her and where regular supervisory guidance is available.

FINAL YEAR COURSES

GROUP 3 COURSES

Descriptions of intercollegiate Group 3 History courses can be found in the University of London White Pamphlet, available online at http://www.history.ac.uk/syllabus/group3.html. A list of courses confirmed as available for 2008-09 is circulated separately at the course choice meeting and can be viewed HERE (WHERE'S THE LINK FOR THIS?). Please do NOT request a place on an inter-collegiate course unless it has been confirmed as running in the 2008-09 session!

HS3103
Comparative History and Historiography
Tutors: Prof Peregrine Horden (co-ordinator) et al.
Value: half unit (term two)
Teaching: lectures and appropriate tutorial guidance
Assessment: 2-hour examination (100%)
This option is a compulsory unit for all final-year students on the BA programmes in History; History, Ancient and Medieval; and Modern History and Politics. It provides a structured opportunity for students to draw together what they have learned over the previous two years, making comparative connections between the outcomes of individual courses, and thinking creatively about their interests. The course also enables students to return to the historiographical perspectives opened up in their first year by History and Meanings, but to re-evaluate those perspectives in the light of their own practical experience as historians. This is not a course that requires substantial new research. Rather, it invites mature reflection on what students have already learned, and is based on course material which students will, in many cases, be revising for their final exams.

HS3105
Dissertation Research Skills
Tutors: Dr Emmett Sullivan and Group 3 tutors
Value: half unit (term one)
Teaching: lectures and appropriate tutorial guidance
Assessment: series of exercises throughout term one
This course is taken in tandem with Group 3 options, and is designed to prepare students with the necessary research skills for writing a 10,000 word dissertation.

HS3129/HS3130
The Reigns of James VI and I, 1567-1625
Tutor Prof. Pauline Croft
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
NB - Not to be taken in conjunction with Group 2 HS2133 Tudor Parliaments
The aim of the course is to look at the two reigns of James VI and I, in Scotland from 1567 to 1625, and in England from 1603 to 1625. All over early modern Europe, one of the most characteristic and dynamic features of successful state-building was the assimilation of peripheral territories. On this key criterion, the years 1567-1625 were crucial in the making of modern Britain, and James I's three-kingdom monarchy endured until 1922 with the secession of the Irish Free State. In the first term the course will mostly focus on politics, using a variety of sources from the state papers, private letters, and contemporary pamphlets or treatises. Particular attention will be paid to the politico-legal crisis which developed over the English succession as it became clear that Queen Elizabeth would not marry. In the second term we shall consider thematic issues such as the development of the Scottish and English state churches (both of which were under some degree of royal control), the culture of the Scottish and English courts, the criticisms of James that can be traced in semi-official sources such as parliamentary papers, and less formal literature such as libels. The king's own publications, especially Basilicon Doron and The Trew Law of Free Monarchies will be studied in some detail.

HS3131/HS3132
England in the Reign of Richard II
Tutor Prof. Nigel Saul
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
NB - Not to be taken in conjunction with Group 2 HS2131 Nobility and Gentry
The aim of this course is to look at the reign of Richard II from as many angles and in as many aspects as possible. In the first term the concern will principally be with politics, and each stage of the reign will be looked at through the eyes of the chroniclers. In the second term consideration is given to a variety of thematic issues, among them Lollardy, courtly literature and art, the Peasants Revolt, and the role of Londoners. It is an advantage, though not essential for a student to have studied the relevant English and European papers. Roughly three quarters of the set texts are available in published English translations. Typescripts (unpublished) of translations are available for the remainder.

HS3134/HS3135
Blasphemy, Irreligion and the English Enlightenment, c.1650 - c.1720
Tutor Prof. Justin Champion
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
This course examines the intellectual and political consequences of the radical ferment (both popular and philosophical) of ideas spawned in the English Revolution of the 1650s. The course texts include clandestine manuscripts, like the subversive 'Treatise of Three Imposters' which argued that Moses, Mahomet and Christ were all religious frauds, and printed works by critics like James Harrington, Thomas Hobbes and Charles Blount. The primary objective will be to study the anticlerical, heterodox and openly irreligious components of the Republican attack upon Christianity. The second line of enquiry will explore how the attack on Christianity of the 1650s developed into a systematic rejection of all revealed religion in the later 17th century. Attention focuses upon arguments that set out to destroy the authority of the priesthood and to reject the authenticity of the Bible, as well as their accounts of 'other religions' like Islam and Judaism which were used to criticise Christianity.

HS3139/HS3140
Religious Culture in England c. 1375-1525
Tutor Dr Clive Burgess
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: to be confirmed; coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
NB - Not to be taken in conjunction with Group 2 HS2132 London Urban Society
This course scrutinises an area of English social history that was once universally disparaged. Recent work, however, suggests that the Church in England from c1375-c1525 displayed remarkable resource in adapting to and satisfying the needs of contemporaries. As well as surveying some of the more vibrant areas of the Church's institutional life (looking, for instance, at school, college and almshouse foundation), the course will dwell on the laity's response, particularly as expressed through the parish. This will provide the opportunity to delve into areas such as popular belief and practice, parish government, and more informal activity in the foundation and management of lay confraternities. It will also afford the opportunity to consider material culture, as produced by a remarkable programme of church rebuilding, and exhibited in the generosity that contemporaries devoted both to equipping and beautifying their churches. To the extent that the laity took the initiative in managing and adapting their religious environment, this course will examine the provenance of their ideas, and the means by which they exercised their collective will in local communities.

HS3142/HS3143
The Origins and Impact of the Second Crusade, 1145-1149
Tutor Prof. Jonathan Phillips
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
NB - Not to be taken in conjunction with Group 2 HS2142 The Crusades and Mediterranean
The Second Crusade was a spectacular failure. It was also the largest military undertaking of the 12th Century and involved campaigns in the Baltic, the Iberian peninsula, and the Holy Land. To understand the origins of the expedition we will set the Second Crusade in the context of development of crusading and the recent history of the papacy. The course will also consider why the Second Crusade attracted such widespread interest. The role of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the contribution of other preachers and methods of raising support (song, visual images, emphasis on traditions of crusading) will be studied. A comparison between the three areas of the crusade may well reveal differences in motivation as well as organization and outcome. A wide range of contemporary sources will be used, all in translation.

HS3145/HS3146
The Causes and Consequences of the Fall of Constantinople (1453)
Tutor Dr Jonathan Harris
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
NB - Not to be taken in conjunction with Group 2 HS2127 Byzantium and its Neighbours
In the early fifteenth century with most of the Balkans under the domination of the Ottoman Turks, Constantinople, capital city of the shrunken Byzantine empire, held out behind its formidable defences. The first part of course examines the background of the decline of Byzantium and the rise of the Ottoman Turks and takes as its starting point the accession of Sultan Murad II (1421-1451). It examines Murad’s unsuccessful attack on Constantinople in 1422 following the ill-judged attempt by the Byzantine emperor to back a rival candidate for the Ottoman throne and the subsequent Byzantine attempt to secure western military aid at the Council of Florence. The second part makes a detailed examination of the many contemporary accounts of the siege of 1453 launched by Murad’s successor, Mehmed II (1451-1481) and considers the political, strategic and military factors that enabled him to succeed where so many before him had failed and to break through Constantinople’s Land Walls. Finally the political and cultural repercussions of Mehmed’s victory will be considered: the response of Italy and the failure to mount any effective counter-attack, the impact of Ottoman success on Italian art and the contribution of refugees from Constantinople to Greek studies in Italy during the Renaissance.

HS3150/HS3151
Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France, c.1140-c.1300
Tutors: Prof Jonathan Phillips and Prof Peregrine Horden
Value: 2 units
Teaching: weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
N.B. Not to be taken in conjunction with Group 2 subjects HS2142: The Crusades and Eastern Mediterranean, 1095-1291 and HS2143 Medicine and Society in Medieval Europe.
Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) was obsessed with crusading and he dedicated his pontificate to defeating the enemies of the Church. A profound challenge to his authority came from the Cathars of southern France - men and women following an austere lifestyle and holding a dualist belief in a Good God and an Evil God. When, in 1208, a churchman was murdered, Innocent unleashed the full force of holy war on the heretics. In the 1220s, the papacy unveiled a further weapon in the war against heresy: the Inquisition. Using a series of vivid contemporary narratives, in conjunction with other documents (including inquisitorial records), this course examines the beliefs and organisation of the Cathars and the progress of the Crusade and the Inquisition against them.

HS3248/HS3249
The Empire in Victorian Britain, c. 1830-1870
Tutor Dr Zoe Laidlaw
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%), plus best two coursework essays (20%) plus 3-hour exam (70%); Coursework unit: 10,000 word dissertation
This course examines the changing place of the Empire in British politics and society in the mid-nineteenth century. Between 1830 and 1870 the political relationship between Britain and the colonies was recast, while understandings of 'race' also changed profoundly. Drawing on a wide range of textual and visual sources - including official papers, cartoons, explorers' diaries, newspapers, maps, parliamentary debates, novels and letters, students will examine British responses to imperial events such as the emancipation of slaves, indigenous rebellions in India and Jamaica; David Livingstone's exploration of Africa; and the settlement of New Zealand. These will be placed alongside debates over emigration, prostitution, convicts, evolution and government which connected metropolitan and colonial societies. Students will be encouraged to address large themes such as the relationship between metropolitan and colonial societies, and changing definitions of 'Britishness'.

HS3251/HS3252
Victorian Social and Political Thought
Tutor Prof. Greg Claeys
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
This course concerns the leading thinkers, and principal themes, of social and political thought in Victorian Britain, with an emphasis upon the development of liberalism and socialism and individualist and collectivist approaches to social and political problems. Examining in particular the question of extending the franchise, poor relief, and attitudes towards commerce and industry, culture and 'character', the course focuses on T R Malthus, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, William Morris and John Hobson, with an excursion into Social Darwinism. Readings are from published primary sources, though an acquaintance with the relevant secondary literature is desirable. The lectures/seminars will, however, also discuss other texts by these writers and other authors, and stray into other areas beyond those central to the prescribed texts. (Other matters touched on, for example, include science and Social Darwinism, the development of political economy, secularism and the crisis of religious faith, and the general issue of 'Victorian values'.)

HS3255/HS3256
The Revolting French: British and French Responses to Revolutions
Tutor Prof. Pam Pilbeam
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment: taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%)
coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
NB - Not to be taken in conjunction with Group2 HS2294 Modern France since 1918
This course compares contemporary British and French responses to the revolutionary upheavals in France from 1830 to the Paris Commune, 1871, via the Lyon silkworkers' rebellions in the 1830s, the events of 1848 and Louis Napoleon's coup in 1851. We shall look at ambassadors' comments, British newspapers, illustrated papers, cartoons and waxworks and a range of French views, lithographs and cartoons. Students will receive photocopied volumes of relevant documents. In addition the newspaper and journal material is now available on the web.

HS3257/HS3258
Berlin: A European Metropolis from Kaiser to Kohl
Tutor: Dr Rudolf Muhs
Value: 2 units
Teaching: weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
NB - Not to be taken in conjunction with Group 2 HS2264 Nationalism, Democracy and Minorities in Central Europe, 1918-1939
Berlin was one of the focal points in the history of the 20th century. The notions associated with the German capital appear far from unequivocal, though. Across Europe and the world it served, and continues to serve, as a byword for both modernity and decadence; for civic pride and civil unrest, reactionary as well as progressive movements; for war and genocide; for tyranny, but also for freedom and, above all, for the unexpected turn of events. Based on a wide and diverse range of primary source material (from diplomatic documents and political discourses via journalistic, autobiographical and literary texts to cabaret songs and feature films), the course extends, chronologically, from the making of metropolitan Berlin before 1914 to the ramifications of reunification after 1990. Topics include, among others: Berlin society, its classes, milieus and communities; women across the decades and regimes; high culture and (ethnic, artistic, sexual and criminal) subcultures; the built environment from Wilhelmine grandeur, Republican sobriety, Nazi and Communist showcase architecture to post-war and post-wall reconstruction; the flowering of Jewish Berlin and its extinction; revolution, counter-revolution and the 'golden twenties'; political activism in the Weimar, Nazi and Communist eras; anti-fascist resistance, East Berlin dissent and West Berlin non-conformism; conquest, occupation and division; four-power-status, cold war and détente; the Wall and its fall; in short - everything from high politics to low life.

HS3260/HS3261
Class, Gender and Nation in Edwardian Britain
Tutor Dr Alex Windscheffel
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%), plus best two coursework essays (20%) plus 3-hour exam (70%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
The Edwardian period (1901-1914) was a turbulent and transitional time in British politics, society and culture. Britain experienced a series of internal conflicts relating to class, gender, and the integrity of the nation, against a backdrop of a 'cold war' with Germany and escalating international tensions and 'invasion scares'. Almost every relationship within British society was in question: between the individual and the state; between men and women; between social classes; between the various nations that constituted the United Kingdom; between the two Houses of Parliament; and between the twin forces of tradition and modernism in art and culture. These were the years when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank; Captain Scott was beaten to the South Pole by some Norwegians and subsequently died in the Antarctic; militant suffragettes chained themselves to railings and went on hunger-strike; Emily Wilding Davison martyred herself underneath the King's horse during the Derby; Dr Crippen murdered his wife; Jewish anarchists took on the police in the East End of London; and Irish Nationalists and Unionists took up arms and seemed on the brink of civil war. Yet these were also the years of long summers and weekend shooting-parties; the days when one could still get servants, and royal mistresses were discreet. Peter Pan, The Wind in the Willows and Howards' End were all published; the heroic Sherlock Holmes was still policing the streets of the capital; Robert Baden-Powell founded the Scouting movement; and the Empire was sound. This course covers all these events - and much more - and students try to make sense of them.

HS3262/HS3263
Politics and Society in Palestine from c. 1900 to 1948
Tutor Prof Vanessa Martin
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
NB - Not to be taken in conjunction with Group 2 HS2290 The Modern Middle East; NB - This course can only be chosen as a first or second preference.
 
This course looks at the interaction of politics and society in Palestine from the late Ottoman period until the establishment of the state of Israel. What was the impact of the politics of the West upon society in Palestine in the late Ottoman period? How did different social and religious groups react? What were the different interpretations of Zionism? What can we learn from the documents about them? Another theme we examine from study of the texts is the struggle of the British to control the situation and build a state in Palestine. How did the Arabs respond? We look at the forms of modern organisation and ideology they used and the problems of Arab identity and nationalism at both the local and regional level. The changes generated by the World Wars are a further theme, and include the debate on the impact of terrorism, as well as the effect of the growing involvement of America. This continued after World War II, alongside the futile British attempts to deal with the situation through the United Nations.

HS3264/HS3265
The History and Historiography of the Holocaust
Tutor Professor Dan Stone; Dr Zoe Waxman
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
NB - Not to be taken with Group 2 HS2296 Genocide or with Group 2 HS2297 Memory and Modern Europe; NB - This course can only be chosen as a first or second preference.
This is an unusual Group 3 course in that its range of primary source material is very broad. Term 1 builds a conventional chronological narrative of the Holocaust, with students learning about the major events, such as the rise of Nazism and antisemitism, ghettoisation and the development of the genocide process. The peculiarities of the Hungarian case, as well as resistance, are also examined. Term 2, however, broadens the course by encouraging students to think of the fierce debates in Holocaust historiography as being as important for our understanding of the events as 'historical study'. Hence, as well as using testimonies, diaries, literature, and photographs as historical evidence, several weeks are devoted to examining key historiographical debates, in order to help students understand the very real political stakes involved in writing about the Holocaust.

HS3270/HS3271
Behind Closed Doors: House, Home and Private Life in England, c.1660-c.1850
Tutor: Dr Amanda Vickery
Value: 2 units
Teaching: weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
N.B. This course cannot be taken in conjunction with HS2234 Modern Girls: Women in Britain, c.1914-1984.
'A man's house is his castle, for safety and repose to himself and his family.' This course unlocks the front door of the Englishman's castle, to peer into the privacies of life at home from c. 1660-1830. It will vividly recreate the texture of life at home, from bed bugs and insects breeding behind the wallpapers, to new goods, fashions and rituals, from the performances of the drawing room to the secrets of the dressing room. Domestic life is coming out of the closet. The course sits on the research frontier, and exploits the new secondary literature coming out of the centre for the study of the domestic Interior, and especially the CSDI Domestic Interiors data base, as well as the relevant classic material in adjacent disciplines such as anthropology, historical geography and the history of architecture and decorative arts.

HS3279/HS3280
The Clash of Powers and Cultures: Sino-American Relations during the Cold War
Tutor Dr Chi-Kwan Mark
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
NB: Not to be taken with Group 2 HS2278: The Western Powers and East Asia, 1839-1945
This course examines the complexities of Sino-American relations during the Cold War. It explores how and why the United States and Communist China were transformed from hostile enemies in the 1950s to tacit allies by the 1970s. Important topics covered include their direct and indirect confrontations over Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam; the role of Britain and the Soviet Union in Sino-American relations; and their divergent policies towards such issues as Third World revolutions, nuclear weapons and international trade. Thematically, the course considers how ideology, personalities, domestic considerations, and alliance politics shaped American and British policies and their dynamic interactions. Students are expected to approach the subject by consulting both American and (translated) Chinese primary sources, such as diplomatic documents, memoirs, public speeches, and political cartoons.

HS3283/HS3284
Class, Culture and Englishness between the wars
Tutor Dr Matthew Grimley
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000 word dissertation
This course examines the social and political history of Inter-War Britain through the medium of contemporary literature. This was the era of the General Strike, the depression, and the policy of appeasement. It was also a period in which longer-term trends, such as the decline of the aristocracy, and the rise of suburbia, first manifested themselves. Inter-war writers chronicled and criticised all these events and social changes, and many of them were themselves actively engaged in political controversy. The documents for this course are mostly novels, poems, and documentary accounts by major authors including George Orwell, J.B. Priestley, Virginia Woolf and Walter Greenwood. The course will also consider particular genres such as women's popular fiction, the comic novel, and the celebration of 'English' national character. The course encourages students to read imaginative literature in the context in which it was written, and to address large themes such as the relationship between high and popular culture.

HS3285/HS3286
Enlightenment Paris, c. 1721-1789
Tutor Dr Florian Schui
Value 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus best two coursework essays (20%) plus 3-hour exam (70%); coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
NB - Not to be taken in conjunction with HS2311 The Lever of Riches
The 18th century Age of Enlightenment forever changed the way in which Europeans thought. It was one of the most exciting and dramatic periods of change in the European history of ideas. Like no other European city Paris was a hotbed of the new ideas that shaped the culture of the Enlightenment. Paris was at the centre of many of the most turbulent debates of the time. This course examines the principal concepts and debates of the European Age of Enlightenment in the specific spatial and cultural context of 18th century Paris. The first part of the course explores the places where many of the ideals and ideas that still inform modern societies today were first written and debated: the streets, salons, ministries, coffeehouses, bookstores, court houses and prisons of 18th century Paris. In this context the patterns of communication that connected debates in Paris with those in other places in Europe and beyond will be examined. The second part of the course looks at the principal debates of the Enlightenment in the areas of politics, economics, religion, arts and sciences in their contemporary context. In the concluding sessions of the course the reception and the legacy of Enlightenment thought in the 20th century will be discussed.

HS3287/HS3288
Stalinism, 1917-1941
Tutor: Dr Daniel Beer
Value: 2 units
Teaching: weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%); coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
NB: Not to be taken in conjunction with Group 2 HS2248 The Russian Empire 1856-1917.
Between the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the outbreak of World War Two, the Soviet Union experienced a programme of forced modernisation, unprecedented levels of state repression, and the devastation of WWII. During this period, the Stalinist state developed radical policies ranging from economic planning, the creation of a welfare state, draconian measures for the regulation and policing of society, and the development of the GULAG on the one hand, to the cultivation of new individual and group identities, and dissemination of its values through art and literature on the other. The course will examine how these policies amounted to an attempt to sculpt a new society through a combination of forging 'Soviet' citizens, and excising undesirable elements from the body social. It will also explore how different constituencies within Soviet society supported, sought accommodation with, or resisted the values and policies of the state.

HS3292/HS3293
Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement in the USA
Tutor Prof. John Kirk
Value: 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
NB - This course cannot be chosen as a third or fourth choice option
'Martin didn't make the movement, the movement made Martin', noted veteran civil rights activist Ella Baker. Baker's perceptive comment goes to the very heart of contemporary historiographical debates. On the one hand, scholars have increasingly viewed the mass black movement for civil rights in the United States between the 1940s and 1970s as a grassroots phenomenon that was rooted in local communities and based upon local leadership and local needs. On the other hand, scholars still emphasize the vital national leadership role played by Martin Luther King, Jr., in the black struggle, particularly from the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott to King's assassination at Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968. This course looks at both strands of this scholarship and seeks to assess the dynamics of the movement at both local and national levels, and examine the tensions that often existed between them, by using a wide range of written, spoken and visual sources.

HS3294/HS3295
Reconstruction, Land and Labour in the United States, 1863-1887
Tutor Dr. Bruce E. Baker
Value: 2 units
Teaching weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation
N.B. Cannot be taken in conjunction with HS2268 History and Memory in the United States.
The United States was transformed in the decades that followed the Civil War. Traditionally, the study of the processes by which this transformation occurred have been broken into separate topics: Reconstruction; industrialisation; westward expansion. This course treats these various aspects of the nation's history as integrally linked. Our focus will be to understand the processes by which control and allocation of resources of labour and land were contested by African Americans, Native Americans, industrial workers, and immigrants on the one hand and the business and political representatives of a maturing system of industrial capitalism on the other hand. Although centred on the political struggles of Reconstruction in the South, it analyses a wide variety of government documents, newspaper and magazine writings, and manuscripts to illuminate connections between what was happening in the South and what was happening elsewhere in the country and to construct explanations that do not rely on notions of regional exceptionalism.

HS3296/HS3297
Christians and Pagans from Constantine to Augustine (AD 306-430)
Tutor Dr. David Gwynn
Value: 2 units
Teaching: 21 x 2-hr seminar classes
Assessment: Taught unit: 3-hr exam (70%); best two of four coursework essays (20%); oral presentation (10%). Dissertation unit: 10,000 word dissertation.
NB – Not to be taken in conjunction with Group 2 HS2124 The Later Roman Empire AD 284-602.
This course explores the crucial transitional period in which Christianity came to dominate the Mediterranean world, from the accession of the first Christian Roman emperor Constantine in 306 to the death of Augustine of Hippo in 430. Students will explore the fundamental political, social and religious developments of these years through the close study of literary and material evidence. Particular attention will focus upon the great authors of this period, including Constantine's biographer Eusebius of Caesarea, the last pagan Roman emperor Julian 'the Apostate', the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, the orator Libanius, and the Christian fathers Ambrose of Milan, Jerome and Augustine. We will also examine lesser known writers such as Ausonius, Prudentius and Claudian, the laws of the Theodosian Code, inscriptions, and an array of surviving examples of Late Roman art and architecture.

HS3298/HS3299
Representing Authority from Henry VII to Charles II (1485-1685)
Tutor: Dr. Anna Whitelock
Value: 2 units
Teaching: 21 x 2-hr seminars
Assessment: Taught unit: 90% 3-hr examination, 10% oral presentation; Dissertation unit: 10,000 word dissertation.
This course considers how the Tudor and Stuart monarchs represented their power and how they have been represented subsequently. Students will explore how successful these monarchs were in controlling their image and how authority was negotiated between ruler and ruled as can be seen in collaborative enterprises such as civic shows, royal entries and parliaments. Whilst Henry VIII and Elizabeth I might be considered masters of propaganda what of the boy king or the first queen Mary I? Might a failure of royal image explain Charles I’s deposition and the subsequent Republican interlude? This course is based on a wide range of sources from architecture, portrait painting and royal pageantry to wood cuts, medals, coinage and dress, royal proclamation, speeches, proclamations, drama and literature. From Holbein to Van Dyck, students will explore representations of power in the midst of the great political and religious changes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

HS3320/HS3321
Victorian Babylon: Life, Work and People in London, c.1840-1890
Tutor: Alex Windscheffel
Value: 2 units
Teaching: 21 x 2-hr seminar classes
Assessment: Taught unit: 3-hr exam (70%); best two of four coursework essays (20%); oral presentation (10%). Dissertation unit: 10,000 word dissertation.
NB - Not to be taken in conjunction with HS2312 The Edwardians and their Legacy
NB - This course can only be chosen as a first or second preference.
Victorians were both fascinated and repelled by their capital city, often at the same time. For the American writer Henry James, London was not only "magnificent", but also a "brutal" city which had "gathered together so many of the darkest sides of life". This course strolls through the sights, smells, and senses of Victorian Babylon, the "dreadfully delightful city" with its extremes of imperial splendour and crushing poverty. On our way, we will study topics including work and labour; poverty and the East End slums; consumption and shopping in the West End; literature, fantasy and the imaginary worlds of the city; London’s economy and the rise of the financial 'City'; Conservative and radical politics; men and women in the metropolis; family life and motherhood in the city; prostitution, obscenity and pornography; crime and policing (explored in particular through the sensational Whitechapel – or "Jack the Ripper" – murders); housing and the burgeoning London suburbs; mobility and traffic; gaslight, electricity and new ways of seeing the Victorian city; and the problems of governing London. To aid us on our journey, we will look at various writers and commentators including Charles Dickens, Henry Mayhew, W.T. Stead, Charles Booth, Bram Stoker, and Beatrice Webb.

HS3330/HS3331
Comparing religious fundamentalisms in the 19th and 20th centuries
Tutor: Dr. Markus Daechsel
Value: 2 units
Teaching: 21 x 2-hr seminars
Assessment: Taught unit: best two of four coursework essays (20%); oral presentation (10%); plus 3-hr exam (70%). Dissertation unit: 10,000-word dissertation.
NB – Not to be taken in conjunction with Group 2 HS2232 Lahore and Istanbul: modernity in the Muslim Imperial city, c.1850-1960.
Ever since the Islamic Revolution in Iran happened to coincide with the greater prominence of Christian nationalist rhetoric in Ronald Reagan's White House journalists, policy makers and academics have suggested that the end of the 'short' twentieth century brought about a global return of religious radicalism. This fashion receded to the background for a while in the 1990s, but in the aftermath of 9/11 has returned with a vengeance, leading to the publication of an avalanche of books about what is 'wrong' with public religion the world over. This course will discuss the utility of 'fundamentalism' as an analytical category as it seeks to explain a wide range of radical political cultures around the globe under one master category: from the new wave of Islamic terrorism to settler intransigence in and religious Zionism in Israel, from communal violence in India committed under the banner of a muscular Hinduism to the neo-Imperialist agenda of the Christian Right in the US. We will investigate the complex pasts of these movements and religious tendencies, which take us back to the 19th century and beyond, and attempt to sketch an ideological landscape of 'fundamentalists' by analyzing their own writings and pronouncements. The overall approach of this course is thematic and comparative, using the findings of this cross-religious and cross-regional survey and debate them in a more general and conceptual framework.

HS3340/HS3341
The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 1935-1955
Tutor: Prof. John Kirk
Value: 2 units
Teaching: weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment: coursework unit: 3-hr examination (90%) oral presentation (10%); dissertation unit: 10,000-word dissertation (100%).
NB – Not to be taken in conjunction with Group 2 HS2219 Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, 1955-1968.
This course examines the origins of the civil rights movement from 1935 to 1955 set against the backdrop of the New Deal, the Second World War, and the Cold War. The course focuses on the development of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP's) legal strategy for racial change in the courts, devised and implemented by NAACP lawyers Charles Houston and Thurgood Marshall, which paved the way for the emergence of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. It assesses critical campaigns in areas such as the equalization of teachers' salaries; voting rights; lynching and criminal justice; and the desegregation of universities, transportation, and housing. Finally, it examines the NAACP’s role in the Brown v Board of Education (1954) school desegregation case, regarded by many as the most important U.S. Supreme Court ruling of the twentieth century.

HS3346/HS3347
Migration, Identity and Citizenship in Modern Britain
Tutor: Prof. Humayun Ansari
Value: 2 units
Teaching: weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment: taught unit: oral presentation (10%), plus best two coursework essays (20%) plus 3-hour exam (70%); Coursework unit: 10,000 word dissertation.
N.B. Students who took HS2254 Ethnicity, Identity and Citizenship in 2009-10 may not take HS3346/HS3347.
N.B. Not to be taken in conjunction with Group 2 HS2250 Politics of Sport
This course aims to provide students with an understanding of the role that migration has played in British life since the nineteenth century, with particular focus on the evolution of identities and notions of citizenship. It looks historically at the arrival, reception and impact of migrants – such as the Irish, Jewish and people from different parts of Britain’s global empire - in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, before focusing on the experiences of those migrant groups that arrived after World War II and the various ways in which successive governments have sought to manage their presence in Britain. From immigration legislation, to race riots, from multiculturalism to Islamaphobia, this course engages with key aspects of modern British life and the various factors, historical as well as contemporary, that have shaped them.

HS3350/HS3351
The Age of Terror: Terrorism from 1945 - Present
Tutor: Dr. Akil Awan
Value: 2 units
Teaching: weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment: taught unit: oral presentation (10%), plus best two coursework essays (20%) plus 3-hour exam (70%); Coursework unit: 10,000 word dissertation.
NB Not to be taken in conjunction with Group 2 HS2298 A History of Terrorism
NB This course can only be chosen as a first or second preference.
Terrorism has become one of the most pervasive and defining features of the second half of the 20th and now 21st Century. Indeed terrorism has transcended time and space and has been employed across a range of historic and geographic contexts by a range of actors, from lone-individuals to anti-colonial revolutionary organisations, and from fundamentalist religious groups to liberal democratic states. The course aims to examine the underlying reasons for the ascendancy of this form of political violence and the immense challenges it has posed to state and society throughout this period. The course adopts a comparative thematic approach examining various manifestations of terrorism including: anti-colonial terror in the post WWII period; the pervasive Red Terror’ of the 1970s; terrorism employed by ethno-nationalist and separatist groups; religious terrorism in various traditions; the state’s employment of terrorism; new-age terrorism; and of course the latest incarnation – al-Qaeda and the global Jihadists. This comparative approach employs various case studies to examine ubiquitous themes including power, identity, politics, society, the state and religion, all vis-a-vis terrorism, and deploys a diverse range of primary source material (both textual and audio-visual) to interrogate these themes.

HS3356/HS3357
When the Kings were Gods: Early Modern Islamic Political Ideas
Tutor: Dr. Evrim Binbas
Value: 2 units
Teaching: weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment: taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation.
One of the unresolved conundrums of Islamic history has been the intellectual, religious, and ideological background of the formation of the early modern Islamic regional empires, i.e., the Ottomans in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Safavids in Iran, and the Timurid Mughals in India. Emerging from a common background shaped by the Islamic and Mongol political ideals in the Late Medieval period, each one of these empires formulated a different solution to the political and ideological problems that Middle Eastern Islamic polities had faced since 1258, when the Mongol armies effectively destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad. This course traces the intellectual and religious lineages of the ideas of empire and discusses the different shapes that they took in the early modern period under the light of a wide range of original texts in English translation, including political, theological, and legal treatises as well as visual, numismatic, and epigraphic sources.

HS3358/HS3359
Nativists, Racists and Fundamentalists: The American Fringe
Tutor: Dr. Tim Stanley
Value: 2 units
Teaching: weekly meeting of 2 hours
Assessment: taught unit: oral presentation (10%) plus 3-hour exam (90%) coursework unit: 10,000-word dissertation.
This course examines over two hundred years of conservative fringe poli tics in America. Students will learn that contemporary far-right and conservative religious organisations are not movements that contradict America’s self-image as a “land of liberty.” They will see how the American revolution married a populist, anti-establishment discourse with patriarchy and cultural chauvinism. In the 19th and 20th centuries, popular concerns about race, gender, secularism, communism and economic change kept alive a radical nativist movement that claimed to protect the flame of revolutionary purity from elitism and rationalism. Students will improve their research skills through critical analysis of primary sources such as pro-slavery tracts, racist novels, firebrand speeches, country-and-western music and agrarian poetry. They will see how the long evolution of radical activism is reflected in the contemporary Militia movements, the Whites' Rights network and even the Sarah Palin story.

Group 3 Dissertation
Tutor: Dissertations are supervised by students' Group 3 tutors
Value: 1 unit
The 10,000 word dissertation is linked to the Group 3 course. The dissertation builds on skills developed in the Independent Essay (HS2300) and HS3105 Dissertation Research Skills. Preparing a dissertation usually involves the critical analysis of primary source materials, as well as advanced engagement with secondary literature. Students are required to demonstrate their ability to construct a scholarly argument and sustain discussion at greater length and at a more detailed level than in other points in the degree programme.


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Department of History, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX
Tel/Fax : +44 (0)1784 443314 /433032