HISTORY

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr M ÓSiochrú

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This lecture and seminar course offers a chronological survey of Ireland’s political, social and economic history from the Union with Britain. It will focus on a number of issues: how confessional differences, especially between Catholics and Protestants, have influenced the course of Irish history; the slippery concept or Irish national identity; Anglo-Irish relations; the rise of Irish nationalism; and finally the role of the Irish migrant, especially in America.
1 two-hour lecture and 1 two-hour seminar per week.
Continuous assessment: (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr D Ditchburn

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Notes

This course will only be available in the first half-session as HI 3046.

Overview

A study of Scottish medieval history set against a European background. Aspects covered will include political and diplomatic links, trading connections, cultural influences, immigration/emigration and ecclesiastical contacts.
2 one and a half to two-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr C Dartmann

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

To study the on-going historical debates on the Third Reich. In this course we will study political, social, and economic aspects of the history of Germany between 1933 and 1945, and put them into a historical, comparative, and European background. Recent historiographical trends and conceptual attempts to grasp the history of the Third Reich will form an integral part of this course.
2 two-hour seminars per week.
Continuous assessment (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Professor H Hotson and Dr W Naphy

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

In the second half of the sixteenth century, Calvinism emerged as the most vigorous and violent religious movement of the Reformation. This course surveys Calvinism’s origins in Geneva and the spread of its dynamic and disruptive influence into those areas where it became the dominant Protestant religion (France, Holland and Scotland) and those where it competed with other forms of Protestantism (England, New England and Central Europe). It then turns to examine some of the ideological foundations and international links which sustained and spread the movement, such as anti-Catholic propaganda, resistance theory, anti-Habsburg diplomacy, and international routes of commerce, education and migration.
2 one-hour lectures and 2 one-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr D Ditchburn and Dr A Macdonald

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course seeks to investigate Anglo-Scottish relations in the period between Malcolm III’s enigmatic submission to William the Conqueror in 1072 and the Anglo-Scottish treaty of 1560. The emphasis will be on political and diplomatic developments, especially those of the mid-thirteenth to early sixteenth centuries, but attention will also be given to economic, social, religious and cultural interaction between the two kingdoms, especially those which occurred in the frontier regions.
2 one-hour lectures and 1 two-hour seminar per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr E Ranson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course examines the political, social and diplomatic history of the United States from the Age of Jackson to the Spanish-American War. Major themes will include: the rise and fall of political parties; the impact of key Supreme Court decisions; sectionalism, expansion and the frontier thesis; the causes and consequences of the Civil War; slavery, abolition and changing race relations; military and naval affairs; foreign relations and changes in the diplomatic policy and international standing of the United States.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr R Perren

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

A study of the sources of Britain’s wealth when it was the world’s leading industrial, imperial, and financial power. It had the largest single share of international trade in 1850, and although later overhauled by the USA and Germany, it had acquired a predominant position in international finance by 1914. This was founded on the strength of London as a banking and insurance centre; the country’s navy and merchant fleet; coal, steel and textile industries. But in addition to international wealth, problems remained at home including disease, urban poverty, and agricultural decline, and part of this course will examine these.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr W G Naphy

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course seeks to investigate the methods, beliefs and structures (e.g., Consistories and Inquisitions) developed and used by Calvinism and (Counter-) Reformation Catholicism to defend and increase their sways of influence throughout Europe during the period. It will examine in detail the differences between these two large and powerful confessional groups and the extent to which they borrowed and used ideas and methodologies arising from the opposing camp.
2 two-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr E Ranson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

The nature and problems of military and naval history with special reference to the United States. The European military background. Technological impact. The US military and naval experiences: Indian and colonial wars. War of Independence. Barbary Wars. War of 1812. Mexican War. The American Civil War. Spanish-American War. 19th century Indian Wars. World Wars I and II. Korea. Vietnam. The Gulf War. There will be stress on the “New Military History” involving an examination of the role of the military in American society and economy.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr W G Naphy

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

The course begins with a brief examination of the classical medical tradition which underpins the whole period examined. Attention will shift to a detailed study of specific geographical areas (Italy, France, Germany and the British Isles) in the period from the Black Death to the last major outbreaks of plague. Special attention will be given to the questioning of previous medical theories. The use of plague regulations as tools of social control, and the scapegoating of groups such as Jews and Homosexuals. Through-out the course will stress those socio-anthropological responses and behaviours which are a common feature of reactions to epidemics, including comparisons with modern attitudes to HIV/Aids, BSE/VCSD.
2 two-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr A MacKillop

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course will study the nature of Scotland’s involvement within the Empire of the East India Company. It aims to highlight how the distinctive features of Scotland’s ‘provincial’ society and political management, religion and economic position vis-à-vis England helped shape its particular presence within Britain’s Eastern Empire. It will also focus on the impact of personnel returning home with wealth generated in India, highlighting their often controversial involvement within local and national politics, as well as their ambitious and expensive ‘improvement’ projects.
2 two-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr M ÓSiochrú

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

The course examines the politics, economy and culture of Ireland at the end of the Middle Ages; the impact of the Protestant reformation and counter reformation; the wars and rebellions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; ‘colonisation’ and ‘civilisation’ of Ireland by the English and the Scots; the Cromwellian and restoration land settlements; the ‘Protestant Ascendancy’; the Formation of ‘Irish’ and ‘British’ national identities; Anglo-Irish and Anglo-Scottish relations; and the demise of Gaelic Ireland.
2 one-and-a-half to two-hours seminars per week.
Continuous assessment: 1 essay (60%), class participation (10%), class presentation (10%), source report (10%), documentary commentary (10%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr R Perren

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

How and why Britain’s importance as an independent industrial and financial power has declined over the twentieth century, measuring the performance of its industries and rates of growth against those of other countries. Also an analysis of how the country has been affected by the impact of two world wars and international economic depressions. Among the social topics covered are urban growth, the scope and nature of poverty, the growth of sport and leisure, and the effects of the extension of the mass market for consumer goods and personal services.

3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr M Broers

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Notes

This course will be available in 2002/03 and in alternate sessions thereafter.

Overview

In the late eighteenth century, the rulers of many European states adopted a remarkably similar approach to reform, since labelled with some controversy, ‘enlightened absolutism’, it marks a period when intellectuals and contemporary currents of thought played a major role in politics. This course traces this relationship, and the historical debates around it in virtually all of the European states, and also examines those major states where this relationship between politics and the Enlightenment was less direct, notably Britain. It examines the degrees of support and resistance to enlightened reforms found in individual states, and reflects on the general, comparative issues at key points in the course. Finally, the course draws together the experiences of the different states it has covered, and the major issues, in the context of the French Revolution and the Napolenic wars which engulfed the whole of Europe and brought to a head the relationship between the Enlightenment and contemporary politics.
2 one-hour lectures and 1 two-hour seminar per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr A MacKillop

Pre-requisites

At least 240 Credit Points.

Overview

The period circa 1600-1800 witnessed substantial imperial rivalry and expansion in Europe. The class will examine the role of Scots in the service of the early modern Empires of Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Russia, Holland, France, England and Great Britain. The avenues and particular professional, occupations, such as financiers, merchants, doctors, diplomats, sailors and soldiers, which provided Scots with an opportunity to seek social advancement and position will be examined, as will the aspects of Scottish society that provided such migrants with the required skills. A further area of discussion will be the domestic impact upon Scotland arising from the presence of so many Scots in the overseas imperial service of both foreign and British kingdoms.
2 one-hour lectures and 1 two-hour tutorial per week.
1 two-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr D Ditchburn and Dr A Macdonald

Pre-requisites

At least 240 Credit Points.

Overview

This course seeks to examine the practice and concept of kingship and queenship, between the dark ages and the renaissance. Lectures will concentrate on the exercise of monarchical power, as exemplified by kings and queens in the British Isles, and associated historiographical issues. Seminars will address the subject through a study of the expectations of contemporaries making use of visual representations (in the form of painting, seals and architecture) and written evidence (including the bible, chronicles, biographies, literature and theoretical tracts).
2 one-hour lectures, 1 one-and-a-half to two-hour seminars per week.
Examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr R Perren

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

Economic and social reform and the drive towards modernisation from 1868 to 1914. The effects of the First World War. The interwar years, the rise of the zaibatsu and agricultural stagnation. The effects of the Second World War. Economic and social reforms under Allied occupation from 1945 to 1952. The economic recovery of the 1950s and the country’s subsequent development as an economic leader.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Miss R M Tyzack

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

British expansion into North America and the Caribbean; plantation societies, the slave trade and contacts with Africa; British relations with the American colonies and the American Revolution; exploration in the Pacific and to the Far East; the East India Company and India; settlement overseas and the emergence of settler societies in Southern Africa, Australia and Canada; the impact of expansion on British society and culture.
2 one and a half to two-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Professor A I Macinnes

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

The study of England, Ireland and Scotland from the Union of the Crowns in 1603 to the Parliamentary Union of 1707. Themes to be covered will include the regal union and the plantation of Ulster; James VI and I as a parliamentary monarch; the personal rule of Charles I and the pursuit of “thorough”; civil wars of the 1640s - rebellious Scots, revolting English and reactionary Irish? Cromwellian hegemony in the 1650s; the Restoration settlements, the land issue and religious dissent; Lauderdale and the move towards absolutism on the cheap; the Exclusion Crisis and James, Duke of York; the Revolution and the origins of Jacobitism; the making of the Treaty of Union.
2 one-hour lectures per week, 1 one-hour seminar and 1 one-hour laboratory per fortnight.
1 three-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Professor A I Macinnes

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

Having defined the traditional basis of clanship as the product of kinship, local association and feudal landholding, examination will be given to factors promoting disorder and government offensives from the Union of the British Crowns in 1603. Simultaneously, consideration will be given to the assimilation of the clan elite into Anglo-Scottish landed society as estate management became notably commercialised from the seventeenth century. The subsequent demise of clanship, as much masked as promoted by Jacobitism, led to phased clearances throughout Scottish Gaeldom from the eighteenth century. Particular stress will be given to imperial influences affecting the opening up of the land-market in the first half of the nineteenth century.


2 one-hour lectures per week, 6 one-hour seminars alternate weeks, 4 two-hour laboratory sessions, and 1 eight hour field work on rural settlement.
1 three-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr F Pedersen

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course is divided into four sections. The first examines medieval attitudes to sex, marriage and the family while consideration during the second is devoted to the church and the law of marriage in the middle ages. These are followed by an exploration of sex roles and sexual differences, including discussion of prostitution, homosexuality and the concept of childhood. The course concludes with an examination of modern interpretations of the medieval evidence.
2 one-and-a-half to two-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment: 1 essay (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr E Ranson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course will examine the development of popular culture in the US since c.1865. It will investigate changing attitudes to race and gender and the later growth of a youth culture (or counter-culture). Attention will be given to the growth of sport and recreation (and the roles of race and gender therein); to the history of entertainment as a reflection of and influence upon society (including the circus/Wild West show, radio and TV, the movies) to the growth of a popular press and advertising; to fashion; to the rise and fall of popular heroes/heroines; to popular religion. Also the American fascination with technology and its effects on popular culture will be discussed - the bicycle craze, automobiles, the telephone, etc.
2 one and a half to two-hour seminars per week.
Continuous assessment: 2 essays of c.3000-3500 words each (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr O Walsh

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course will trace the various developments in medical practice throughout the nineteenth century. It will be divided into sections, which will include Lunacy, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Midwifery, and the professionalisation of Medicine. The course will also discuss the gendering of the profession, in terms of recruitment of women to the major teaching hospitals, as well as the differing experiences of males and females within the hospital and asylum systems in terms of admission rates, treatment and diagnosis.
2 one-hour lectures and 1 two-hour seminar per week.
1 three-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Miss R M Tyzack

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

The consolidation of empire in the late 19th century; nationalist challenges in Africa, Asia and South East Asia and the transfer of power; Britain’s relations with the Middle East countries, and China and Japan; the Commonwealth; the impact of empire on British society and culture; the legacies of empire both for countries overseas and Britain.

2 one and a half to two-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr W G Naphy

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course will examine the relationships between nobles and the poor in the period. It will assess changing attitudes to each within the general social context. There will be an emphasis upon evaluating the methods used by each group to maintain or improve their social and political positions. Evolving views on government, society, health, religion and deviance from basic social norms will also be considered as they effect each socio-economic group and its status.
2 two-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr A Macdonald

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course seeks to investigate the impact of war on society in the medieval west between c. 1300 and c. 1450. Those were years when warfare was frequent and its impact profoundly altered the societies of western Europe. Emphasis will be placed on the experience of war in Scotland, England, France, Spain and Ireland, although not exclusively on those areas. The course will seek to explore the impact of war physically and mentally on the people who had to endure it. Cultural developments, concepts of national identity and collective mentalities will be explored, as well as more conventional societal developments.
2 one-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr M Harper

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

Large-scale demographic upheaval has been a major feature of the social, economic, political and cultural history of the modern world. This course examines the causes and repercussions of emigration and immigration over more than two centuries, looking primarily at the British Isles, but also considering other European countries. Particular attention will be paid to the expectations and experiences of participants, and themes to be examined include exploration, military service, the transportation of convicts, indentured servitude, persecution and migration, famine-induced migration, and the impact of immigration on Britain since the late 19th century.
2 two-hours seminars weekly.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Mr R Tyson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course examines the rise of the USA as the world’s largest economy between 1783 and 1914 and its social consequences. A major theme will be the development of a modern industrial economy and its links with Europe. There will also be a discussion of land policy, settlement and agriculture; the economics of slavery; the role of transport in economic development; immigration and urbanisation; and the rise of ‘big business’.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 hour tutorial.
1 three-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr M Harper

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

Although clearance policies were effectively over by the 1850s, the ‘Highland Problem’ re-emerged in the 1880s, with the Crofters’ War and the appointment of a Royal Commission of Enquiry. The course covers a period of unprecedented government investigation and legislation in respect of the Highlands and Islands, and detailed attention will be paid to the effects of this involvement on economic and social developments in the region. Themes to be examined include land legislation, fishing, industrial developments, tourism, transport, migration and emigration.
2 two-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr E Ranson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course examines the political, social, economic and diplomatic history of the United States from the end of the Seven Years War to the emergence of Jackson. Major themes include: the colonial heritage and causes of the American Revolution and its historiography; the genesis and provisions of the Federal Constitution of 1787; the domestic and foreign problems of launching a new government in the Federalist Era; Jeffersonian Democracy and the friction between wings of government; causes and consequences of the War of 1812; the Era of Good Feeling and conflict between nationalism and sectionalism.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Mr T Brotherstone

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

Britain c.1956-c. 999….a United Kingdom? The Suez fiasco signalled post-imperial status, unconcealed behind World War II narratives. From c. 1966 to c.1985 consensus was challenged by class struggles. The Atlee-Wilson Labour Party decayed, to be reborn….via the Thatcherite 1980’s attacks on the unions and the end of much traditional industry….as Blair’s ‘New Labour’. Inter-generational conflict stirred, provoked by the sexuality of 1950s rock-and-roll and the association of pop music with drug culture. Racial conflict became endemic. Women identified men as an obstacle to progress, even the main enemy. Gays demanded rights and parliament usually resisted. ‘Europe’ (in some minds, not others) moved from holiday destination to political bogeyman. Northern Ireland became a war zone. The Scots and the Welsh….centuries on….sought a post-Westminster constitutional settlement. Why?
2 two-hour seminars per week.
Continuous assessment (100%).

Credit Points

Course Coordinator

Drs Ditchburn, Naphy & Withington

Pre-requisites

Only available to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

Students will be involved in a innovative study of the urban world. Using disciplinary approaches to the subject, the course will examine various socio-political and cultural aspects of life in a civic environment. The topics for consideration may include: theories and practices of government; violence and social unrest; religious belief and controlling sexual behaviour; commerce and the arts; family values and minority groups; disease and death. Towns in three key uban areas (Italy, Switzerland and England) will be examined in detail. The study of these core regions will form the foundation for a comparitive study of life in the city.
2 two-hour seminars per week.
Continous assessment (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr O Walsh

Pre-requisites

Only available to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course will examine key aspects of modern Irish history, using gender as an analytical tool. Events such as the Great Famine will be assessed in terms of its impact upon changes in family structure, employment and emigration. The emergence of constitutional and militant nationalism will be examined in terms of male and female responses and participation, and Partition and the creation of the Free State studied to determine their respective impact upon the societies created in the ‘Two Irelands’ after 1921. Non-Irish perspectives will also be drawn upon in determining the extent of social and political change in Ireland during this period.
2 two-hour seminars per week.
Continuous assessment (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr D Smith

Pre-requisites

Only available to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course will focus on the history of medicine during the twentieth century, and will cover such topics as the shaping of the health services, successive therapeutic revolutions, medicine and war, the eugenics movement, the sciences of food and food safety, the rise of patient power and developments in medical ethics, and the trend towards alternative approaches to medicine. A variety of recent approaches to the history of medicine will be discussed.
2 one-hour lectures and 1 two-hour seminar per week.
1 three-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr W G Naphy

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course will examine differing types of sexual behaviour that were often labelled ‘against nature’ and usually punished by the death penalty in the early modern period. These include: incest, child abuse, bestiality, sodomy, prostitution, adultery, lesbianism and violent sexual assault or rape. The course will focus on changes to social and legal attitudes to these crimes from the Reformation to the Enlightenment. Special emphasis will also be placed on views expressed by defendants in trials and stereotypes presented in the literature of the period.
Introductory lectures followed by 2 two-hour seminars per week.
Continuous assessment (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr J Stevenson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course introduces students to the formation of Europe, analysing howe, in the East, the Roman Empire became the Byzantine Empire and how modern political units such as Spain, France and Germany came to exist in the West. The Roman Empire was bureaucratic, centralised and highly organised. In the West, its collapse and the developments which followed eventually produced what is now called the Middle Ages, and also the forms and foundations of the modern world.
2 two-hour seminars per week.
Continuous assessment (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr C Brennan

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

Initial discussion will focus on the revolutions of February and October 1917, the ensuing Civil War and foreign intervention. Thereafter attention will shift to the emergent Soviet state: its institutions, the New Economic Policy, and the leadership struggle, which paved the way for Stalin’s assumption of power. Stalin’s regime and its policies within Russia, including collectivization, industrialisation and terror, will be analysed before the focus shifts to the Second World War (the Red Army after the purges, the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and Soviet Russia’s prosecution of ‘total war’). The final topics to be addressed will include the Cold War, social economic and political developments during the Khrushchev-Brezhnev years and the rise and fall of Gorbachev.
2 two-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr C Brennan

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course examines the main political, social and economic problems confronting the Russian Empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: should government be by an enlightened bureaucracy or by representative institutions? To what extent is modern warfare, which seemingly demands the mobilisation of the whole population, compatible with an autocratic framework? Is democracy a stimulus or a handicap to rapid industrialisation? How important are individual/social/moral values to the modern state? The format of the course is chronological but these and similar questions constantly recur.

2 one and a half to two-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Professor H Hotson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course seeks to provide an introduction to two important related phases of continental European intellectual history, the Renaissance and Reformation, with particular attention to the century around 1500. The series of specific movements discussed include Renaissance humanism, Florentine Neo-Platonism, Erasmus and Northern Humanism, Luther, the radical reformation, and the civic reformations of Zwingli and Calvin. Comparison and contrast of these movements is facilitated by focussing on certain aspects common to each, including their differing social context, their conceptions of human nature, reformation, and the past as well as their expectations for the future.
2 one-and-a-half to two-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment: 1 essay (30%), 1 documentary commentary (10%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Mr T Brotherstone and Mr H Manson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

The course will provide a basic training in the practice of oral documentation. It will include a practical exercise in the researching, recording and processing of interviews. Practical work will be set in the context of discussions about the history of oral history, about its relationship to historiography more generally, and about relevant, current, theoretical and ethical issues (such as: public and private memory, mythology and false narrative, ideology and social purpose, personal and collective identity).
2 two-hour seminars per week.
Continuous assessment (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr C Brennan, Dr C Dartmann and Dr E Ranson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course offers students an opportunity to study World War One in a comparative context. Following a series of introductory lectures on various aspects of the causes, course and consequences of the war, a series of seminars will enable students to analyse either specialised themes or particular perspectives which may include Britain, France, Germany, the United States, and Russia.

12 x 1-hour lectures in weeks 1-4 and 10 x 2-hour seminars in weeks 5-12.

Continuous assessment (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr H Hotson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

The Thirty Years War was one of the most protracted and devastating conflicts played out in central Europe before the twentieth century. Its conclusion in the Peace of Westphalia (1648) marks the single greatest watershed between the Reformation and the French Revolution, neatly dividing the early modern period of European history in half. This course will examine the causes, course and consequences of this great conflict, placing each of these topics in a broad chronological, geographical and thematic framework. Particular attention will be given to exploring the international ramifications of the conflict on politics, society and culture.

1 one-hour lecture and 1 two-hour seminar per week.

1 three-hour examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Professor R Leboutte

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course considers European economic history in the framework of the post-Second World War international economy. The main topics covered will be European economic recovery and the Marshall Plan; the establishment of the mixed economy (especially in France, Belgium and Italy; the re-birth of Germany and the German economic ‘miracle’; the liberation of world trade and the European reaction; first European attempts at integration; the European Coal and Steel Community, 1952-60; the ‘Golden Sixties’ and the European Economic Community; the Common Market; the American strategy towards European integration. The course will also consider social change, demographic trends; migration; welfare states; and labour and capital as growth factors.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.
1 three-hour written examination (60%) and continuous assessment (40%).

Credit Points

20

Course Coordinator

Dr C Dartmann

Pre-requisites

None

Overview

Major events in European history and structures in European societies will be examined thematically. Topics covered include war and peace, democratic and totalitarian regimes, including the rise and fall of communism in Eastern Europe; the Holocaust and ethnic cleansings; the comparative role of women and the family in European societies; the World Depression; social policies and the emergence of welfare states and consumer societies.
3 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.
1 two-hour written examination (50%) and continuous assessment (50%).

Credit Points

20

Course Coordinator

Dr A MacKillop

Pre-requisites

None

Overview

In the period between 1690 and 1820 Scotland experienced significant changes not only in internal political, economic, social and cultural life but also in its relationship with the rest of Britain and the wider world. The Union of 1707 marked a loss of national political identity, but presaged the emergence of new economic, social and cultural identities. Building to some extent on developments in the 17th century, there were notable advances in agricultural, intellectual and commercial spheres, although at the same time political and religious strife continued, the “Highland Problem” moved into a new phase and Scotland at large began to experience some of the dislocating effects of social and economic change. Overall, however, the focus shifted from political and religious strife towards the development of a pluralistic, more economically sophisticated society, as Scotland cultivated important links with the rest of Britain and with the wider world, notably North America.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.
1 two-hour written examination (50%) and continuous assessment (50%).

Credit Points

20

Course Coordinator

Dr J Stevenson

Pre-requisites

None

Overview

In 802 the Vikings mercilessly sacked Iona. This course introduces students to a period of warfare and pilage, political turmoil and social transformation, but also economic expansion and cultural innovation. Scandinavian raiders fanned out from their homelands to most parts of northern Europe, the Mediterranean and America. Analysis of Viking incursions, particularly in the British Isles and Baltic world, will feature the gradual transformation of these pagan raiders into Christianised settlers. The emergence of the post-Viking kingdoms and the contribution of Vikings and Gaels to the emergence of clanship will be traced. So too will the predatory impact of the Normans, descendants of the Vikings, in Scotland, England, France, Southern Italy and the crusading states. The course concludes with, study of the collapse of the Angevin Empire, perhaps the most powerful political entity Western Europe had witnessed since the Roman Empire.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.
2 two-hour examination (50%) and continuous assessment (50%).

Credit Points

20

Course Coordinator

Dr M Broers

Pre-requisites

None

Overview

This course will introduce students to the concept of revolution and some of the major revolutions which shaped European and world history prior to the Russian revolution. Topics to be covered will include the 1688 revolution, revolutions in America, France and China, the industrial, agricultural and demographic revolutions and medical revolutions of the nineteenth century.

3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial.
1 two-hour written examination (50%) and continuous assessment (50%).

Credit Points

20

Course Coordinator

Dr M Harper

Pre-requisites

None

Overview

Nineteenth-century Scotland saw the transition from a predominantly rural to an urban-based society, involving demographic upheaval, industrialisation and new social problems and tensions. Pressure for wider citizenship and for social reform led to major political changes, and to conflict within the Established Church. Highland society was transformed, amidst much dispute. Later came the emergence of the modern labour movement, and, in the 20th century, Scottish nationalism. Other crucial issues include the two world wars, the emergence of the Welfare State, the inter-war depression and the de-industrialisation of the 1970s and 1980s, as well as recurring signs of a renaissance in Scottish culture and intellectual life. This renaissance has recently included stimulating developments in Scottish historical studies.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.
1 two-hour written examination (50%) and continuous assessment (50%).

Credit Points

20

Course Coordinator

To be confirmed

Pre-requisites

None

Overview

This course will provide a broad overview of European interaction with the wider world concentrating on three key chronological and geographical spheres: 1) the Crusades and the related problem of defeating and outflanking the Islamic world (12th-15th centuries); 2) the conquest and colonisation of South America (16th-17th centuries); 3) European efforts to control the political collapse of the three great Islamic empires (Moghul, Ottoman, Persian) while limiting their cultural renaissance and regeneration (18th-19th centuries). In each case-study, particular attention will be paid to the relative importance and success of three basic patterns of interaction: 1) the search for markets and sources of supply; 2) the attempt to conquer states and colonise territories; 3) the attempt to Europeanise indigenous cultures and populations. Before moving from one area and period to another there will be a general assessment of the broad balance and exchange of technology and culture between Europe and the other societies examined.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.
1 two-hour written examination (50%) and continuous assessment (50%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr D Ditchburn

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 2 or above.

Overview

Between 1200 and 1500 Christendom was convulsed by war, plague and climatic regression. The social fabric was undermined by popular revolt while both the political and religious unity of earlier centuries began to crumble. Yet the later medieval centuries also witnessed a cultural renaissance, voyages of discovery, and the development of nation states and national identities. This course offers a thematic survey of the later medieval west as Europe emerged from Christendom. Lectures focus on religion, kingship and warfare, society and culture and the economy and environment. In tutorials these themes are investigated from the perspective of developments in particular countries: students may, for example, choose to specialise in Scotland.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week. Students are also required to spend one-hour per week on prescribed primary and secondary source preparation.
1 two-hour written examination (50%) and continuous assessment (50%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr E Ranson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 2 or above who have at least 20 Credit Points in History.

Overview

The course will trace the development in the twentieth-century of the United States. This will include diplomatic history from the turn of the century to the present day; the concurrent growth in military and technical power; the development of the American economy; and the political and social changes which have occurred. The course will also discuss the growth in consumerism, in leisure and recreation, urbanisation, immigration, the status of women and race relations.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week. Students are also required to spend one-hour per week on prescribed primary and secondary source preparation.
1 two-hour written examination (50%) and continuous assessment (50%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Professor H Hotson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 2 or above.

Overview

During the sixteenth century, Europe was fragmented into a number of increasingly hostile religious faiths and increasingly powerful and aggressive states. The conflict produced during this period, and the problems of political and religious revolt culminating in the cultural and political crises of the mid-seventeenth century provide much of the material for this course. But this fission also released much of the creative energy which fuelled the economic, intellectual and geographical expansion, and secularisation evident in Europe by 1750. Within this broad thematic survey the Scottish experience will be discussed as a variation upon the broader European theme and placed in its European context.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week. Students are also required to spend one-hour per week on prescribed primary and secondary source preparation.
1 two-hour written examination (50%) and continuous assessment (50%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Professor R Leboutte

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 2 or above who have at least 20 Credit Points in History.

Overview

This course will cover the major structures and events surrounding the historical process of the construction of the European community: nineteenth-century precursors of the idea of Europe; the inter-war period in its social, political and economic aspects; the Nazi project for European unification; the Marshall plan and economic co-operation in Europe post-1945; Schumann Plan for social, political and economic integration, 1950; creation and workings of the European Coal and Steel Community; the enlargement of the Community to the Single European Act, 1986.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.
2 two-hour examination (50%) and continuous assessment (50%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr E Ranson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 2 or above.

Overview

This course examines the political, social and cultural history of the United States from the ratification of the Constitution (1789) and the Age of Jefferson to the Spanish-American War (1898). Major themes will include: the rise and fall of political parties; the impact of key Supreme Court decisions; sectionalism, expansion and the Frontier Thesis; the causes, progress and consequences of the Civil War; slavery, abolition and changing race relations; foreign relations and the changing international standing of the United States.

3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

1 two-hour written examination (50%) and continuous assessment (50%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Contact Department

Pre-requisites

Available only to Senior Honours candidates in History.

Overview

An intensive study of a limited historical theme, problem or period on the basis of prescribed primary sources and other materials. Precise details of the subjects available reflecting current research interests of staff, will be announced to Honours candidates during the preceding session. Topics covered in previous years include Canon Law and Lawyers in the Middle Ages; Scotland, England and Ireland 1286-1329; The Anglo-Scottish Frontier in the Later Middle Ages; The Revival of Millenariansism in Post-Reformation Britain, Europe & America; Irish Political Thought; Scotland, England and The Acts of Union, 1707; The American Revolution; The French Revolution; The Scot in Canada; The Indian Mutiny, 1857; Women, Work and Welfare in Europe c 1918-39; The USA in the 1920s; Politics and Culture during the Wilson Years: Britain c. 1956-76.
2 one-and-a-half to two-hour seminars per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr R Perren

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course aims to provide an understanding and appreciation of the sources from which Economic History is written and various methods used to analyse and interpret these sources. It begins with an introduction to statistical methods and a critical survey of a selection of sources. There is a survey of some of the literature contrasting the divergence between the New Economic History and more traditional methods. Students also use the University computing system to analyse some historical data and apply their knowledge of statistical techniques.
3 one-hour lectures and 1 computing class per week.
1 three-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr E Ranson

Pre-requisites

Available only to Senior Honours candidates in History.

Overview

A dissertation of about 10,000 words on a topic normally related to that studied in HI 4015.
Each student will be assigned a supervisor, who will make available regular consultation times.
Dissertation (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Mr T Brotherstone

Pre-requisites

Available only to Senior Honours candidates in History.

Overview

Problems of historical scholarship including the history of historical research, historiography, philosophy of history, links with other academic disciplines, and the relevance of history to the outside world.
6 two-hour seminars.
1 two-hour written examination (70%) and continuous assessment: 1 essay (30%).