History study guide 2024/5
What you can study
At Bristol you will become part of our community of historians. Our department includes historians of Britain and Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australasia, and even Antarctica. Whether you are interested in cultural history or political history, the very recent past or the pre-modern world, you will be able to explore the topics that inspire you and fire your imagination.
You will find units on:
- slavery and race
- revolutions and activism
- gender and sexuality
- decolonisation, empire, and imperialism
- historiography and the practice of history
Pre-requisites
At UK universities, students specialise from their first year and rarely take units outside their degree subject. This means that:
- Year 1 units are suitable for all students.
- Year 2 units require some university study in the discipline.
- Year 3 units require a strong background in the discipline.
Subject pathway students
If you have been nominated to Bristol on the Study Abroad (History pathway), you must take the majority of your credits from this guide.
Year 1
Pre-requisites: suitable for all students
Teaching Block 1
- Approaching the Past - HIST13015
- Modern Revolutions - HIST10067
- The American Century - HIST10044
- The Early Modern World: Britain and Ireland - HIST10063. Please note that students cannot take this unit with HIST10065.
- The Early Modern World: Europe and the Wider World - HIST10065. Please note that students cannot take this unit with HIST10063.
- War and Society - HIST10045
Teaching Block 2
- Decolonise the Future! - UNIV10009
- Fight the Power - HIST10068
- Gender in the Modern World - HIST10069
- Slavery - HIST10046
- The Medieval World: Britain and Ireland - HIST10064. Please note that students cannot take this unit with HIST10066.
- The Medieval World: Europe and the Wider World - HIST10066. Please note students cannot take this unit with HIST10064.
Year 2
Pre-requisites: some university study in the discipline.
Special Field units are high intensity research specialist units. These units are held in the spring semester (Teaching Block 2). Students are permitted to take only one per semester due to the workload involved.
Special Field Units (all in Teaching Block 2):
- Brief Encounters: Love, Labour and Loneliness in Modern London - HIST20099
- Everyday Life in Tudor and Stuart England - HIST20100
- Health and Medicine in African History - HIST20147
- Mental Health in Modern Britain, 1959-Present - HIST20148
- Political Culture and Communication in Britain, 1867-1939 - HIST26015
- Rebels, Runaways and Revolts: Agency, Resistance, and Slavery in the United States - HIST20129
- Remembering Transatlantic Enslavement - HIST20122
- The Age of Revolutions 1776-1848 in Global Perspective - HIST20128
- The F Word: Understanding Italian Fascism Then and Now - HIST20140
- The Smugglers' City - HIST26010
- Under the Covers: Sex and Modern British Print Culture - HIST20138
Non-Special Field units:
Teaching Block 1
- Africa in Global Context - HIST20141
- Asia in Global Context - HIST20143
- Crusading Cultures - HIST20133
- Fear and Loathing - HIST20117
- Outlaws - HIST20120
- Rethinking History - HIST23101
- The Americas and the World - HIST20142
- The Tudor World - HIST20119
Teaching Block 2
Year 3
Pre-requisites: strong background of study in the discipline.
Special Subject units are high intensity research specialist units. These units are held in the autumn semester (Teaching Block 1). Students are permitted to take only one per semester due to the workload involved.
Special Subject units (all in Teaching Block 1):
- Aftermath: the Wake of War, 1945-1949 - HIST30106
- American Dreamers: Radicalism in the United States from 1776 to Present - HIST30131
- Bristol and Slavery - HIST30078
- Iran 1901-1951: Oil, Racial Capitalism and Decolonisation - HIST30139
- Kingship and Crisis during the Wars of the Roses - HIST37011
- Once Upon a Crime: Law and Popular Cultures in the Age of Empire - HIST30137
- Race and Health in America - HIST30099
- Race and Resistance in South Africa - HIST37010
- Rage Against the Machine: Technology and Anti-Technology in Modern Britain - HIST30138
- Red Power and Beyond: American Indian activism since 1944- HIST30128
- Teenage Kicks: Youth and Subcultures in Britain Since 1918 - HIST30097
- The Age of the Human - HIST30103
- The Italian Renaissance - HIST30110
Non-Special Subject units:
Teaching Block 1
- Britain's Long Nineteenth Century, 1789-1914 - HIST30120
- Memory - HIST30113
- Picturing the Twentieth Century - HIST30114
Teaching Block 2
Application queries
Contact the Centre for Study Abroad inbound team if you have any queries about the application process for the study abroad programmes:
Phone: +44 117 39 40207
Email: cfsa-inbound@bristol.ac.uk