Courses

You will take two compulsory courses, which will provide a general introduction to graduate study in history and give you the opportunity to develop your research skills. 

The compulsory courses for this programme are:

You will choose a further four courses from a wide selection on offer.

We aim to offer in the region of 8-10 option courses each academic year. Our courses change from year to year and generally rotate on a two to three year cycle. This gives part-time students wider access to our full range of options across the duration of their studies. Option courses previously offered include those listed below.  Option courses change from year to year and those available when you start your studies may be different from those shown in the list.

Option courses for those beginning in September 2025 will be available from May 2025.

* * Please note that the list of courses below is provisional and subject to change.  

In addition to the above History courses, students enrolled on the MSc in History (online) can take up to two courses from the MSc Ancient Worlds (Archaeology and Classics) (Online Learning).  A list of their courses can be found on the Ancient Worlds courses page.

We hope to be able to run some of these courses again in the coming years.

• An Age of Great Dreams: The 1960's in the United States
• An Imperial Game? Cricket, Culture & Society
• Athens of the North: the Origins and Ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment
• British Empires, 1601-1948
• British Politics and Policy in the Second World War
• Charles Martel in the Digital Age
• Consensus to Thatcherism: Government and Politics in Post-War Britain
• Crisis and Conflict in Late-Victorian Britain
• Debating Marriage Between Antiquity and the Middle Ages
• Empire or Continent?: British Foreign Policy in the Era of the Great War
• Freedom and Coercion in the Making of the Atlantic World
• Gender, Empire, and Labour in the Nineteenth Century: Perspectives from the Wider World
• Genocide in Contemporary History
• Global Environmental History
• Ideology and Politics in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Space
• Islamic Africa
• Malfeasance and Misbehaviour in Finance - Perceptions and Realities, c. 1500 to the Present
• Material Histories of Asian Societies in the Early Modern Period
• Medicine and Society in Modern Britain
• Modern Latin American History
• Narrating Native Histories
• Seeking 'Japan' in a Westernizing World: Revolution, Romance, and Imperialism, 1868 - 1945
• Society and Culture in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Space
• The Lords of the Isles: Clan Donald, c.1336 - c.1545
• The School of Statecraft: History, Leadership, and Policymaking
• The Shadow of Versailles: Interwar Europe, 1918-1939
• The Trial of the Templars
• Willingly to War? The Origins of the First World War

You can see more details about the 2024/25 programme structure on the Degree Programme Table for the online MSc in History. 

We have also compiled a summer reading list should you be interested in get ahead of your studies.