Practising History (A): Skills in History (Autumn semester)
Practising History (B): Approaches to History (Spring semester)

The main aim of this module is to give students a firm grounding in the skills, methods and principles needed for the study of the historical discipline at degree level.

Semester one, Practising History A: Skills in History will offer students the chance to develop their own personal research skills portfolio by giving them supervised practice at note-taking, referencing, group-work, participation in class debate, research and production of a extensive bibliography for their seminar group’s research project. Much of this material will be accessed through a VLE, and the fact that the students will have to collaborate and make research decisions for themselves as a group makes this a valuable introduction to enquiry-based learning techniques they will meet elsewhere in their degree programmes.

Semester two, Practising History B: Approaches to History focuses more on the methodological side of the historical discipline, with lectures on the major schools of historical thought backed up by seminars in which students can see how these schools are represented in their group’s particular project.

Value: 2x 10 credits
Assessment: 2 x 2500 word essay (1 per semester)
Contact: 1 hour per week (mainly small group)

This module aims to introduce students to a broad coverage of early medieval history, including social, economic, military, political, intellectual, religious and cultural history. The module will cover the period from around 500, in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the western Roman Empire, through to c.1050, at the core of what has been labelled ‘the first European revolution’. The focus will be primarily be on western continental Europe, Britain, and Ireland, with some exploration of a wider world where appropriate. Students will examine the developments of the period through lectures and analysis of a broad range of relevant primary and secondary source material, to gain first-hand experience of the key issues involved in the scholarly study of the period.

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: 33% 2500 word essay; 67% 2 hr exam
Contact: 3 hours per week (inc. one small group)

This module aims to introduce students to all aspects of the early-modern world, including its social, economic, military, political, intellectual, religious and cultural history. The module will cover of the period from around 1500 with the discoveries of the new world and invention of printing, up to the late eighteenth century with the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Though the focus will be primarily European (including the British Isles), the wider world will also be explored (eg interaction with the New World; American Revolution). Students will examine the above developments through analysis of a broad range of relevant primary and secondary sources; material such as contemporary letters, diaries, treatises, woodcuts, music and material culture will be given particular emphasis as a means of giving students first-hand experience ofthe key issues involved in the scholarly study of the early-modern period.

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: 33% 2500 word essay; 67% 2 hr exam
Contact: 3 hours per week (inc. one small group)

This module aims to introduce students to a broad coverage of late medieval history, including social, economic, military, political, intellectual, religious and cultural history. The module will cover the period from around 1050, at the core of what has been labelled ‘the first European revolution’, through to c.1500 as a commonly accepted (if arbitrary) date for the ending of ‘the Middle Ages’. The focus will be primarily be on western continental Europe, Britain, and Ireland, with some exploration of a wider world where appropriate. Students will examine the developments of the period through lectures and analysis of a broad range of relevant primary and secondary source material, to gain first-hand experience of the key issues involved in the scholarly study of the period.

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: 33% 2500 word essay; 2hr exam
Contact: 3 hours per week (inc. one small group)

This module aims to introduce students to all aspects of the late-modern world, including its social, economic, military, political, intellectual, religious and cultural history. The module will cover of the period from around 1800 with the onset of industrialisation up to the turn of the twenty-first century with the end of the Cold War and increasing concern with ‘globalisation’.

Though the focus will be weighted somewhat towards Europe (including the British Isles), the wider world will also be explored (eg empire, decolonisation, modern nationalism). Students will examine the above developments through analysis of a broad range of relevant primary and secondary sources; material such as contemporary treatises, state documents, art and material culture will be given particular emphasis as a means of giving students first-hand experience of the key issues involved in the scholarly study of the late-modern period.

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: 33% 2500 word essay; 67% 2 hr exam
Contact: 3 hours per week (inc. one small group)

This module examines the principal themes in British economic history from the mid-Victorian period to the late 1990s. The major issues addressed are the structure and performance of the domestic economy, the role of the State in economic development, the character, development and efficacy of economic policy, as well as Britain’s changing position in the international economy.

Particular consideration is given to Britain’s relative loss of industrial leadership before 1914, the shifting balance of activity between agriculture, industry and services, the economic effects of the First World War, the interwar depression, the economic effects of the Second World War, and the rise and fall of economic management after 1945. We seek to explore these developments in the context of international economic change and the pressures on economic stability.

The material covered during the first semester focuses on the late nineteenth and early twentieth century period; the programme for the second semester addresses themes and questions relating primarily to the second half of the twentieth century.Students are encouraged to extend their understanding of themes addressed in the lectures for this module by working on a study pack containing additional learning resources and exercises designed to help you to read and understand the secondary literature in economic history.

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: 60% 2 hour summer exam; 40% 2 timed class tests
Contact: 24 hours total

The period from the high water mark of Victorian stability in the last third of the nineteenth century up to the 1900s witnessed major changes in the character of British society. The dynamic of industrialisation and de-industrialisation shaped and re-shaped both social structure and social relations. Political relations changed under the pressure first for democracy and then for social rights. Social relations were tested and moulded by two World Wars, by economic prosperity and depression, by a new 'affluence' and by an evolving party politics.

It is this pattern of social change which forms the focus for this module. We begin by looking at the nature of British society in the 1870s, exploring issues associated with the rise of class and party, industrial change and social conflict, the problems of poverty and unemployment, the impact of war and of depression, the rise of the Welfare state and of 'affluence', and finishing with an examination of the changing politics and social order of the 1980s.

Teaching is by a mix of lectures and seminars. Students are guided to extend their understanding of topics introduced and developed in classes by reading widely within the secondary literature and by analysing documents which form part of the focus for seminar discussion.

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: 33% 2000 word essay; 67% 2 hour summer exam
Contact 1 hour small group or lecture per week

Students are offered the opportunity to study 20 credits outside their main discipline in the first year. We encourage you to use this opportunity to develop a language skill, or to broaden your access to modules within the University subject provision. The full list of modules available is too extensive to list here, but to give you a sense of the kinds of modules students take, below are some examples from the options which have been available in previous years.

• Archaeology, Theory and Practice
• Art and Contexts
• British Central Government
• Classical Political Thought
• Contemporary Human Geography
• Early Civilisation of America
• Economy, Space and Policy
• Environmental Economics
• Foundations of Politics
• European Economic Issues
• Greece and Rome
• Good Brain, Bad Brain (Pharmacology)
• History of Birmingham
• History of the Earth
• History and Contemporary Images of 20th century Europe
• Human Societies and Cultural Change
• Impact of Mathematics
• Individual and Society
• International Economy
• Introduction to Christian History
• Introduction to Christian Theology
• Introduction to Economics
• Introduction to European Ethics
• Introduction to European Political Philosophy
• Introduction to Film Studies
• Introduction to Gender Studies
• Introduction to International Relations
• Introduction to Media, Culture and Society
• Introduction to Multiculturalism
• Introduction to Psychology
• Introduction to Social Policy
• Introduction to Study of the Holocaust
• Introductory History to Scientific Ideas in Western Culture
• Languages: e.g. French, German, Latin, Japanese, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish
• Nineteenth century Russia
• Old English
• Russian Politics
• Society, Space and Policy
• The Age of Common Practice (music)
• The Age of Extremes (music)
• The Emergence of Modern Germany: its History and Images
• Weather, Climate and Human History

The module will introduce students to the fundamental problems and concepts involved in the study of war. The module will trace the impact of war and of armies on states, societies and individuals from the Roman Empire until the present day. It will consider how war has influenced the development of the Roman, post-Roman, medieval, early modern and modern worlds and how war and armies have been influenced by broader social, economic, technological and political change

Value: 40 credits
Assessment: 4000 word essay and 3 hour summer exam
Contact: 2 hours per week

This module is an intermediate survey course that examines the foundations of modern British economic and social relations in the period from c1714-c1815, the period of the 'First Industrial Revolution'. It focuses upon the nature and impact of industrialisation and the responses to economic and social transformation. The module will introduce students to the key features and significance of industrialisation in Britain from the early eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries and to its impact upon social relations. The systematic use of primary historical sources within seminars will aid the development of skills in using such sources and assist students in successfully tackling historical problems at the level appropriate for dissertation preparation.

Teaching takes place via mix of lectures and seminars. Seminar discussion focuses on core debates and on specific examples of documentary evidence which illuminate the debate.

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: two essays, 1 x 1250 words, 1 x 3000 words
Contact: 2 hours per week

Students will write one book review (of no more than 1500 words), and an extended review article (of not more than 4000 words) which considers a number of books dealing with a particular historical topic. The books, of which no more than four (or their equivalent in terms of chapters and articles) should be set, should have a clear common concern or focus. This module contributes to skills training which is important to Dissertation Preparation (semester 2).

Value: 20 credits

This module provides students with an exciting opportunity to work in groups to design and execute a collaborative research project. The aim is for students to gain experience in the process of historical inquiry and develop their research skills in a supportive environment in advance of individual work for dissertations. Students also benefit greatly from the opportunity to work in teams and coordinate their own projects effectively. The summer term begins with a second year conference in which all groups present their findings to the rest of the year group and to staff. Students enthusiastically pursue a range of presentational methods and styles to convey their ideas and research. In many cases students choose to learn and utilise IT presentational packages to support their work. There is also a requirement for each student to submit an individual essay on their research. By the end of the module all students will have enhanced their presentational skills, their skills as historians, developed their interest in a particular field of history, and be able to demonstrate to future employers that they have experience of working collaboratively and making professionally acceptable oral presentations.

Students are permitted to choose a project from a wide range of choices. They work in teams of approximately 4-6 students under the supervision of a member of academic staff. The tutor helps the students to embark on the project by providing initial ideas and reading, but the students are then free to design their own projects according to the enthusiasms and capacities of the group. All groups make extensive use of primary source evidence as well as reviewing the secondary literature on their topic.

Group project themes offered in past years included:

• Henley-in-Arden: dissecting a late medieval borough
• Commemoration of the First World War in Britain
• The British infantry officer on the Western Front, 1914-1918
• Race and party politics in the West Midlands
• Women and the English revolution
• Perceptions of Valour: The Award of the Victoria Cross on the Western Front
• Perceptions of Valour: The Death Penalty in the British Army during the First World
• Sex, lies and videotape: the Reformation on screen
• Robert Kett and the camping time in Norfolk
• "Yes, Heisenberg, but.........."
• The Hyde Park riot of 1867
• War and politics, 1706
• The many-headed monster: peasant revolt in late medieval England
• Artefacts of empire
• The deposition of a medieval monarch
• Plebeians, pleasure and profit
• Martyrs and heretics of the Reformation era
• Careerist clerics in pre-Reformation England
• From the Somme to the Sambre: British trench warfare, 1914-1918
• Slaves, witches, copper rods and secret societies
• The strategic air offensive against Germany
• The Macmiilan years
• The 'gun powder of ideas': Birmingham in the French revolution
• Four Students in a Trench: Battlefield Archaeology

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: Group presentation (50%) and essay (50%)
Contact: 2 hours per week (inc. one small group)

This module addresses questions to do with the nature of history and historical knowledge. Topics covered include issues in the philosophy of history (explanation, causality, objectivity etc.); the characteristics of different kinds of history and major trends in historiography. This is not a standard history module with a definite period/place focus, but a broader reflective module designed to aid independent thinking and reflection by students.

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: 2500 word essay; 2 hour exam 50% each
Contact: 2 hours per week (inc. one small group)

The module will begin by examining the work of leading theorists of war since the Renaissance.  This first part of the module will be divided into five sections: The Origins of Modern War (focusing on Machiavelli); The Expansion of War (focusing on Clausewitz); The Industrialisation of War (focusing on Marx and Engels and Moltke and Schlieffen); The Era of the Two World Wars (focusing on Liddell Hart and J.F.C. Fuller); and Strategy Since 1945 (focusing on nuclear strategy and people’s revolutionary warfare).  The second part of the module will examine the intermediate field of military knowledge situated between strategy and tactics and trace the evolution of operational awareness and its culmination in full-fledged theory. The following key landmarks in the evolution of operational theory and practice will be examined:

• 19^th Century Military Thought – the roots of operational art
• The Emergence of the Blitzkrieg concept
• The Evolution of Soviet Deep Battle Theory
• Air-Land Battle Theory 1970s and 1980s

Specific campaign studies will include:

• Operation Michael March 1918
• The Fall of France 1940
• Normandy 1944
• Operation Bagration 1944
• The Arab-Israeli War of 1973
• Desert Storm 1991

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: 3 hour exam
Contact: 2 hours per week

This module will develop in more detail some of the themes begun in the Level 1 module, War, Armed Forces and Society.  The first part of the module begins with ‘The Condition of War on Land in the 17^th Century’.  The second part deals with ‘War and Absolutism’. The main themes will be war in the colonies; European trading empires and India; Europe in Latin America and the Caribbean; ascendant forces of nationhood and the concept of a balance of power; war against the Turk, the Habsburg borders and Russian expansion.  The third part deals with ‘The Experience of War in the Age of Reason’, including the wars of the American and French Revolutions; the course will conclude with an assessment of the impact of ‘Warfare in the Age of Napoleon’.

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: 4000 word essay
Contact: 2 hours per week

This module is designed to support students as they develop a topic on which to write their dissertation in your final year. It not only marks a crucial stage in their degree as a whole, but is also an important module in its own right. The Research Methods module will give students firsthand experience of the work of a historian as they learn to identify and frame a valid, intellectually coherent research question; identify, find and consider what primary sources they will use and how they will use them; consult with a specialist historian in whatever area it is they wish to work on; present their planned project to their peers; write a literature review that analyses what historians have made of the same subject, and start preliminary work on their dissertation proper by conducting two weeks’ worth of research.

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: Individual 10 minute presentation 25%; 3000 word literature review 75%
Contact: 2 hours per week (inc. one small group)

Students are offered the opportunity to study 20 credits outside their main discipline in the first year. We encourage you to use this opportunity to develop a language skill, or to broaden your access to modules within the University subject provision. The full list of modules available is too extensive to list here, but to give you a sense of the kinds of modules students take, below are some examples from the options which have been available in previous years.

• Economic Policy and Performance in Interwar Britain
• From Habsburg to Hitler: Politics, Society and Culture in Vienna from the 16th to 20thC
• Hitler's Social Revolution
• Secret Societies and the Revolutionary Movement
• Totalitarian Europe
• Women and gender in medieval society
• Crime and public order in medieval England
• Popular Culture in Britain, 1850-1950
• Russia in Revolution
• The Economic Transformation of America
• A Woman's place: a history of women in England from 1857 to the 1990s
• English rural society in the 19thC
• History of European integration since 1945
• Industrialisation and Society in France and Germany
• The English town, 1680-1840
• European Labour and Socialist Movements
• Popular and elite culture: Society and writing in Shakespeare's England
• Popular radicalism in Britain, 1789-1832
• Problems of medieval societies: the case of Iceland 800-1300
• The British Army, 1660-1960
• Sea-Power, Empire and Geopolitics in the Age of Sail
• The North American Indian Wars, 1600-1900
• Britain and the Second World War: A Military History
• The Vietnam War

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: various 

A further 20 credits comprises study of a Theme and Areas 2 module which enables students to extend the range of their conceptual training and their discipline knowledge. The choice of this module is a free one outside of the History discipline, but students are particularly encouraged either to study a language module which enhances their opportunities to study documentary evidence in languages other than English, or to pursue a module from the wide range offered within the University. 

Value 20 credits

The module will allow students to study a historical theme or area in depth, under the guidance of an individual member of staff drawing mostly on published sources.  Students will chose from a range of topics covering the medieval, early modern and late modern periods in Europe and beyond. The choice of topics will be wide and closely aligned to the research interests of individual members of staff.  The module will allow students to develop an appreciation of history as a chronologically and geographically and enhance their awareness of the texture and variety of an ever more complex discipline.  The modules chosen in recent years have been:-

• Britain and the Second World War: A Military History
• South Asian Studies
• The Art of Leadership: British political leaders since 1902
• Charles I and early modern Kingship
• Economic Policy and Performance in Interwar Britain
• Crusader Kingdoms
• From Habsburg to Hitler: Politics, Society and Culture in Vienna from the 16th to 20thC
• Hitler's Social Revolution
• Secret Societies and the Revolutionary Movement
• Totalitarian Europe
• Women and gender in medieval society
• The origins of the English
• Crime and public order in medieval England
• The Early English Reformation
• Popular Culture in Britain, 1850-1950
• Russia in Revolution
• Literacy and Literate Culture in Medieval Europe
• The Economic Transformation of America
• Continuity and Change in Russia: Peter the Great and his successors
• A Woman's place: a history of women in England from 1857 to the 1990s
• English rural society in the 19thC
• German nationalism and the unification of Germany
• History of European integration since 1945
• Industrialisation and Society in France and Germany
• The English town, 1680-1840
• The British Army, 1660-1960
• European Labour and Socialist Movements
• Popular and elite culture: Society and writing in Shakespeare's England
• Popular radicalism in Britain, 1789-1832
• The making of modern Ireland, 1534-1691
• Problems of medieval societies: the case of Iceland 800-1300
• Tolerance in the middle ages

Value: 20 credits

Special Subjects are designed to enable students to pursue a particular historical theme in great depth. The focus is on developing an advanced critical appreciation of relevant debates within the field as well as analysing contemporary documentary accounts. The analysis of primary source evidence provides further opportunities to enhance your critical skills as historians, but also helps you to see how historians deal with contested evidence and how these interpretations inform scholarly debate.

The teaching for a special subject takes place within a seminar setting in which students take a lead role in generating discussion, guided by a tutor and a comprehensive bibliography and study support material. Work for this module comprises one third of your final year work.

Examples of special subjects offered in recent years include:

• The origins of the English landscape
• The British army and the western front, 1914-1918
• Poverty amidst prosperity
• Facing the Führer
• The English Civil War and Local Society
• Saints and Stormtroopers: Catholicism in early modern Europe
• From Rule Britannia to Pax Americana: A history of the international economy since 1850
• Healthy, Wealthy and Wise? The origins, development and efficacy of modern British welfare policy
• Radicalism, Protest and Chartism, 1832-1848
• The French Revolution
• Marlborough's war: England and the War of the Spanish Succession 
• Peasants and peasant societies
• Law and society in medieval England
• National Socialism and German Society
• The Russian revolution
• The English church under Henry VIII
• Emotional expression and English culture in mid 20^th century
• Science, religion and empire: Britain and the ancient near east in the 19^th century
• The Sharpe End: the British army and the defeat of Napoleon
• British home front in the second world war
• Anxieties of empire
• Activism, affluence and apathy: citizenship, politics and democracy in postwar Britain
• Big cities and small worlds: the making of the early modern cities
• Rule and Rebellion
• Imperialism and the global environment
• National Socialism and German Society
• Rule and Rebellion
• The British Home Front in the Second World War

Value: 20+20 credits
Assessment: 2 x 3 hour exams
Contact: 3 hours per week (all small group)

The module will allow students to study a historical theme or area in depth, under the guidance of an individual member of staff drawing mainly on secondary sources (and primary where appropriate). Students will chose from a range of specialised historical topics dealing with a spectrum of geographical, chronological, and thematic issues. The exact list of topics available each year will vary, depending on staff availability and workload distributions, and will be subject to the approval of the Director of Undergraduate Studies. The choice of topics will be wide (10 or more), but for the most part closely aligned to the research interests of individual members of academic staff. In conjunction with other modules in the programme, the module will allow students to develop an appreciation of history as a chronologically and geographically varied subject and enhance their awareness of the texture and variety of an ever more complex discipline. The module will require students not only to analyse and explain the past, but also to engage in critical evaluation of key contemporary evidence and the relevant historiography.

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: two essays, 2500 words each
Contact: 3 hours per week (all small group)

The module will allow students to study a historical theme or area in depth, under the guidance of an individual member of staff drawing mainly on secondary sources (and primary where appropriate). Students will chose from a range of specialised historical topics dealing with a spectrum of geographical, chronological, and thematic issues. The exact list of topics available each year will vary, depending on staff availability and workload distributions, and will be subject to the approval of the Director of Undergraduate Studies. The choice of topics will be wide (10 or more), but for the most part closely aligned to the research interests of individual members of academic staff. In conjunction with other modules in the programme, the module will allow students to develop an appreciation of history as a chronologically and geographically varied subject and enhance their awareness of the texture and variety of an ever more complex discipline. The module will require students not only to analyse and explain the past, but also to engage in critical evaluation of key contemporary evidence and the relevant historiography.

Value: 20 credits
Assessment: One 3 hour exam
Contact: 3 hours per week (all small group)

This module addresses general questions relating to the historiography of warfare and considers how the subject has evolved from ancient times to the present. The principal schools of military history are considered together with those individuals who have made a major contribution to the evolution of the discipline.This module is designed to be more general and reflective than other War Studies modules, to aid independent thinking and reflection by students on the subject they have studied for three years at university.

Value 20 credits
Assessment: 3000 word essay from takeaway exam
Contact: 1 hour per week

This module develops from work undertaken in second year Research Methods. Students work to complete research undertaken and focus their energies on preparing drafts of chapters for their dissertations. Students undertake a wide range of research activities enabling them to engage directly with contemporary debates in economic and social history and examine and interpret diverse sources such as letters, diaries, newspapers, government, business, church and parish records, statistical sources and media representations of varying kinds etc...

Students studying this programme are required to prepare a 12,000 word dissertation within the broad field of Economic and Social History. Many students choose modern European economic and social history topics, but there is scope to study medieval economic and social history and to pursue other regions. Some students elect to research an area to which they have already been introduced via a taught module, others develop themes initiated in Group Research Projects, and some students seize the opportunity to pursue a research interest that they have been unable to develop elsewhere in the curriculum.

Some examples of topics recently researched by Economic and Social History students include:

• The economic and social implications of the professionalisation of women's sport
• The devaluation of sterling in 1949
• Economic development and cultural conflict in post-colonial India
• Women in the court of James I
• Anglo-economic policy and the onset of cold war with Soviet Russia, 1944-50
• Public attitudes to the Boer War: a critical evaluation with particular reference to Birmingham
• The changing roles and perceptions of working class women in Manchester during the interwar period
• An assessment of the motivation for education reforms during the last quarter of the nineteenth century
• The genesis and impact of Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK
• Britain and the Abyssinian crisis 1935-6
• Back to home and duty': the backlash against women after the First World War
• The contribution of the second Soho Mint to regional industrialisation
• Family size and spacing in late Victorian rural Suffolk
• Working class leisure and local politics in Birmingham during the Second World War
• Agricultural depression in Northamptonshire, 1873-1896
• The aims of late 19th C 'social purity' movements
• Family planning in 1930s Birmingham
• The pilgrimage of grace, 1536
• The impact of the American Civil War on the Manchester textile industry
• Jewish immigration to London at the turn of the twentieth century
• British perceptions of Stalin's economic policies of collectivisation and industrialisation in the USSR, 1937-38
• Being female in late twentieth century Afghanistan
• The economic consequences of the 1970s oil crisis in the UK
• Kindertransport: a study of the management, settlement and impact of Jewish child migration to Britain during the Second World War
• Welfare policies and single-parent families in post-war Britain
• Workhouse admissions in Warwickshire in the aftermath of the campaign against outdoor relief

Value: 40 credits
Assessment: 12000 word dissertation
Contact: one to one teaching

This module is a  sustained investigation of an historical problem on a subject relevant to the programme of study in the light of current knowledge and current interpretations. This may include the use of primary source material. The findings of this investigation are then presented in an extended form with full argumentation and scholarly apparatus, so that the identity and value of the sources on one hand and the quality and structure of the argument on the other can be clearly understood by the reader.

Value: 20 credits

This module develops from work undertaken in second year Research Methods. Students work to complete research undertaken and focus their energies on preparing drafts of chapters for their dissertations. Students undertake a wide range of research activities enabling them to engage directly with contemporary debates in history and examine and interpret diverse sources such as letters, diaries, newspapers, government, business, church and parish records, statistical sources and media representations of varying kinds etc...

Students studying BA History are required to prepare a 12,000 word dissertation within the broad field of History and students choose to study diverse regions and periods. Some students elect to research an area to which they have already been introduced via a taught module, others develop themes initiated in Group Research Projects, and some students seize the opportunity to pursue a research interest that they have been unable to develop elsewhere in the curriculum.

Some examples of topics recently researched by students on this programme include:

This module develops from work undertaken in Research Methods. Students work to complete research undertaken and focus their energies on preparing drafts of chapters for their dissertations. Students undertake a wide range of research activities enabling them to engage directly with contemporary debates in war studies and examine and interpret diverse sources such as letters, diaries, newspapers, government, business, army and statistical records and media representations of varying kinds etc...

Students taking War Studies are required to prepare a 12,000 word dissertation within the broad field of war. Some students elect to research an area to which they have already been introduced via a taught module, others develop themes initiated in Group Research Projects, and some students seize the opportunity to pursue a research interest that they have been unable to develop elsewhere in the curriculum.

Value: 40 credits 
Assessment: 100% 12000 word dissertation due in late spring
Contact: total of up to 6 hours one-to-one supervision available