Since 2009 the Department of History at the University of Bristol has published the best of the annual dissertations produced by our final-year undergraduates. We do so in recognition of the excellent research undertaken by our students, which is a cornerstone of our degree programme. As a department, we are committed to the advancement of historical knowledge and to research of the highest order. Our undergraduates are part of that endeavour.

Listed below are the the best of this year’s undergraduate history dissertations, with links to the dissertations themselves where these are available. Please note that these dissertations are published in the state they were submitted for examination. Thus the authors have not been able to correct errors and/or departures from departmental guidelines for the presentation of dissertations (eg in the formatting of footnotes and bibliographies). In each case, copyright resides with the author and all rights are reserved. 

Student	Title	'Best dissertation' prize
Myfanwy James	The Refugees of Eastern Zaire: the Forgotten Chapter of the Great Lakes Conflict Winner of the 'Best History dissertation of 2015' prize
Nathan Beesley	‘Out of Place?’ An Oral History of Palestinian Refugees in Bristol
Hunter Charlton	Landscape and Change: Shipbuilding and Identity on the Tyne 2015charlton (PDF, 1,369kB)
Natasha Drax	Stoke Park Colony: A Re-Examination of the Role of the Doctor within Institutions for the Mentally Disabled c. 1908-1948
Elsa Esberger	The Family Endowment Society: Dismantling a Feminist Myth
Ruby Huett	‘Strangers’ in Japan: A Personal History of the English Trade with Japan 1613-1623 2015huett (PDF, 709kB)
Cory Jones	A Year of Incoherence: Germanophobia in the Thatcher Administration and British Policy Regarding the Prospect of German Re-unification between November 1989 and November 1990 2015jones (PDF, 808kB)
Isabelle Kerr	Flying Saucers and UFOs: An Investigation into the Impact of the Cold War on British Society, 1950-1964 2015kerr (PDF, 975kB)
Lauren Landon	Rethinking Right-Wing Women: Conservative Feminism in the Long 1970s
Charles Lewis	In the Shadow of the Shoah: The Ukrainian Diaspora and the Holocaust 2015lewis (PDF, 423kB)
Lewis Malkin	‘All For Front Line, All For Victory’: An Examination and Evaluation of Leaflets used by the North Vietnamese National Liberation Front during the Winter-Spring Campaign 1967-1968 2015malkin (PDF, 4,049kB)
Sophia Nicolov	‘Envoys from the real world’: Changing Perceptions of the Relationship Between Captive Polar Bears in Britain and Wild Polar Bears and the Arctic since 1949‌
Anna O'Kelly	Candles, Charity and City: Guild Communities in Medieval Norwich and the Surrounding Area, 1300-1550
Lucy Rodrick	War and progress? The Impact of the Nine Years War 1689-1697 on the Role and Function of Parliament
Samuel Salt	A Scar Impossible to Hide? Memory and Modernity in Post-Genocide Rwanda
Lydia Salter	Vocational Education for Assimilation: Discussions of Indian Educational Policy in the Indian School Journal 2015salter (PDF, 405kB)
Neel Shah	Poverty and Progress: A Reassessment of the Malthus-Godwin Debate 2015shah (PDF, 453kB)
Laura Simmons	Taking Centre Stage: Margot Fonteyn, ballet boom, and renegotiating western gender norms in the late 1940s and 1950s 2015simmons (PDF, 729kB)
Alexander Windsor-Clive	Clive of India; A Reception History 1767-1940 2015windsorclive (PDF, 587kB)
Oliver Worsfold	Planning for a ‘World War Every Second’: Reviewing Civil Defence Policy in the Shadow of Impending Nuclear Apocalypse, 1977-84 2015worsfold (PDF, 413kB)