History, BA (Hons)

The History degree at Durham University offers a broad exploration of human experiences across diverse geographies, eras, and themes, including environmental history, visual cultures, and gender studies. It equips students with critical and presentational skills valuable for various careers. In Year 1, students engage in advanced historical study through the core module "Making History," taught via specialized strands, alongside four optional modules from options such as "Decline and Crisis? Europe 1300–1500" or "The Rise and Fall of American Slavery, 1607–1865."Year 2 builds on this by examining historiography and extended arguments, with opportunities for a placement or study abroad year. Year 3 emphasizes independent learning through special subjects and a dissertation on a chosen topic. Throughout, students participate in seminars and lectures, while assessment combines coursework, examinations, and spoken presentations.

We have one core module in Year 1: Making History. But our students do not all study the same thing on this module: we teach it through multiple strands. You will choose a ‘strand’, focused on a particular topic. With the other students on that strand you will meet regularly in a seminar group, following a course of reading and discussion that gives you a grounding in the key skills you will need at later stages of the course to interpret and explain historical information. You will also take four optional modules in Year 1, choosing from a list of around a dozen. Some recent examples of optional modules: Decline and Crisis? Europe 1300–1500 Transformations in the Late Antique Mediterranean, c.300–c.700 CE Connected Histories: Early Modern Europe, c.1450–1750 The Atlantic Archipelago, c.1500–c.1750 Modern Times: A Cultural History of Europe, c.1860–1960 Power in Africa Imagining East Asia in the Modern World Wars and Welfare: c. 1900–1945 The Rise and Fall of American Slavery, 1607–1865