About the Department of History

The Department of History covers a wide range of British, European and world history from the early medieval period to the present.

Birmingham city centre
Research interests include cultural and social history, political development, economic and religious history, environmental history and imperialism.  Moreover, historians in other departments in the University expand the range of courses on offer, notably in the fields of Byzantine, African, American and Canadian history. 

Whatever your interest – whether cultural, social, political, economic history – there is someone doing that kind of history in the department.

The biggest advantage of having so many historians at Birmingham is the very wide range of specialist courses on offer at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Students are offered choices from around thirty options in their second year and twenty special subjects in their third year. Topics range from Women’s History in the 20th century to medieval Iceland, from the English Civil War to the CIA and International Relations, from the Crusades to the heyday of European empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

The Department of History at Birmingham is one of the largest and most diverse in Britain. Its teaching was ranked as excellent in the last official survey and it also has the high official research ranking of "5". If you want to study history at university, the University of Birmingham is a great place to do so.