Undergraduate History 2026-2027

Course introduces students to the crucible of the modern age. Hinging on the American, French and 1848 Revolutions, it explores how men and women in elite and popular communities generated new modes of living, experience and expression and how they understood and manipulated the natural world. Attention will be given to the Enlightenment, Revolution, Empire, Romanticism and Ideology with interrelated developments in politics, culture and science also being explored. Students will be introduced to the works of figures such as Newton, Voltaire, Paine, Goethe, Marx, Darwin and Nietzsche. Topics will include Salons, the Terror, nationalism and secularisation. Download course guide

Between 1100 and 1500 western Europe underwent fundamental transformations: new technical, economic and political challenges, fresh developments in religious and intellectual life and catastrophes like wars, diseases and climate change fundamentally shaped European societies for centuries to come. This course offers a thematic survey of medieval western societies, focusing on religion, kingship and warfare, economy and environment, cultural renaissances and intellectual novelties, the emergence of national states and identities and the discovery of new worlds. Download course guide.

The long nineteenth century (c.1760-1914) saw dramatic rises and falls in political units and power systems (empires) bringing together a range of peoples and territories.  Generally, but not exclusively, they were dominated by Europeans (or those who at least claimed European descent). These global empires are now recognised by historians as a key feature of modern history, and have generated an increasingly rich and varied literature. This course offers you the chance to examine this crucial and controversial phenomenon which, for better or worse, made the modern world. 

This course examines Scotland in the last two centuries of its dynastic independence. Organised chronologically, it will address the rule of the realm under the Stewart dynasty. Kingship, nobility and the exercise of power on the national, regional and local levels will form major themes of this course. It will also examine regicide, regency, and resistance to authority, the relationship between crown, church and nobility, and the development of governmental institutions and offices. Attention will also be given to exploring social and political change, especially with regard to landowners and other power-holders. In addition, the course offers a window into the day-to-day life of a Scottish town in this period, through study of Aberdeen’s late medieval records and recent research using these records.

This course examines the history of the First World War in an international comparative perspective through detailed study of contemporary as well as secondary sources. Following introductory lecture material on various aspects of the war, the students taking this course will be divided into sub-groups with normally a maximum of 20 students per group. Each group will focus on either the war experience of a particular country such as Russia or France or undertake comparative study of selected themes such as political, social and cultural transformations and the peacemaking process.

In 2025/26 this course will have one group with a focus on Russia only.

Food is such a basic human necessity that we can easily take for granted the huge variety of produce available in our supermarkets. This course explores how familiar foods like coffee, chocolate and citrus were introduced to European tables. Why, in past cultures, has food been so bound up with questions of ethnicity, class, race and religion? How have recipes and diets changed with time, how have people written about and discussed food? And what meanings have been ascribed through the ages to food, eating and cookery? If you are hungry for knowledge, this is the course for you. 

This course looks at how history is written. It considers the problems involved in studying and explaining the past, and the many dilemmas faced by historians in reconstructing it. By examining the ways in which history has been written from the Ancient Greeks to Postmodernism, it considers the limits of historical study, asks whether history can ever be a science, and reveals the assumptions behind the various approaches to history that inform its writing. It is designed to provide honours history students with an essential understanding of what they are doing when they study history.

Historians concur that ideas about the nature of children and the place of childhood have changed over time. This course explores both how modern societies have understood childhood and the way in which this has shaped the treatment of young people. It places a particular focus upon how ideas and understandings of childhood have spanned regional and national borders, as well as the ways in which the concept of youth has been adapted to suit new cultural contexts.