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HI-M01
Historical Methods and Approaches
This module introduces you to a diverse range of methodological approaches that underpin the discipline of history at an advanced level. You will explore how historians construct knowledge about the past, examining key debates around evidence, interpretation, narrative, and the politics of history-writing. You will engage critically with a variety of methods, including archival research, oral history, microhistory, cultural and social history, postcolonial and decolonial approaches, gender analysis, and digital history.
Through seminar discussions and a series of mini projects, you will develop a sophisticated understanding of the strengths, limitations, and ethical implications of different historical methodologies. The module also supports the development of research design skills in preparation for independent dissertation work.
Finally, the module will encourage you to think reflexively about your own role as researchers and to consider how methodological choices shape historical narratives and their relevance to contemporary global challenges.
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HIH121
Europe of Extremes, 1789-1989
The nineteenth century saw the rise of a western European civilization, characterized, as Eric Hobsbawm has noted, by capitalist economics, liberal politics, and the dominance of a middle class that celebrated morality and science. In the twentieth century this civilization faced unprecedented challenges from new political ideologies, and from a working class demanding the right to govern in its own name. The result was an eruption of violence not seen on the continent for centuries; in its wake, the Cold War divided the Europe with an Iron Curtain, and saw the continent become the client of two world superpowers ¿ the USA and the Soviet Union. This team-taught module relies on the specialist knowledge of its tutors to examine economic, political and social themes in the history of nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe.
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HIH122
Making History
How do historians study the past? Why do their accounts of the past differ, and why do they change over time? This module will help you to understand the various concepts, methods, and approaches that academic historians use when writing history and generating historical explanations. By the end of it, you will understand how and why professional historians disagree on many topics, and you will be equipped to evaluate competing interpretations of the same past events and processes.
The module also trains you in the fundamental skills required to study history as an undergraduate, and gives you an opportunity to learn more about the interests and expertise of the history staff you¿ll be working with at Swansea. It will help you make the transition from being taught history at school or college to studying history at university, and it will introduce you to the many different kinds of history you can explore in the course of your degree.
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HIH124
Britain and the World 1800 to 2000
This module will provide an overview of the history of British politics, society, culture, and the economy from c. 1800 to the present, from a national and international perspective. The lectures and seminars for this module will give students the opportunity to engage closely with events, processes, and people - both male and female, from diverse ethnic backgrounds - who contributed to the making of the modern British state and society, and who defined Britain¿s relationship with the wider world. We will discuss the transformative impact of warfare, Empire and colonialism, industrial and technological change. We will also consider the significance of race, class, and gender, and how they relate to national sentiment and social and political emancipation movements in Britain and beyond.
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HIH289
The Rise and Fall of the Russian Empire
With modern Russia on the forefront of contemporary world affairs, a critical understanding of its imperial past is becoming not only important but also increasingly relevant. How much do you know about Russia before the rise of Putin, the Russian meddling in the US elections, or the war in Ukraine? Can you name anything from before the Soviet Union or the Russian Revolution? Starting in the 18th century, Russia became a major global power, destined to participate in shaping the modern world and the lives of millions of people within its ever-expanding frontiers. How did the Russian Empire establish itself on the European stage? By what means the Russian autocrats managed to keep their multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire together for so long? Did the enserfed populations really have no means to resist their nobles masters and the state? Was there really no civil society and no public sphere in Imperial Russia? How did the elites justify their power and what were the obstacles to political reform? And to what extent Russia became a European state during its imperial period? With academic literature and first-hand accounts as our guides, this survey module engages these larger questions and issues of ethnicity and gender whose echoes still reverberate in Russia today. Our major themes will include the persistence and evolution of autocracy, the relationship between Russia and the West, which continues to plague Russian identity in the 21st century, alienation of the elites from the government, and the government from its people. On our journey we will meet the giant Russian first Emperor, Peter the Great, bending horseshoes and rolling down in a barrel from hills around London, we will read the luminaries of world literature such as Leo Tolstoy and Vissarion Belinsky, and encounter the mad-monk Rasputin.
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HIH3300
History Dissertation
The History dissertation is a free-standing, 40-credit module that runs across both semesters of Level Three. Candidates conduct research upon a subject of their choice, devised in consultation with a member of staff teaching for the degrees in History, and concerning a topic that falls within staff research and teaching interests.
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HIH3305
The Russian Civil War
The module looks at the origins, the course and the political and cultural legacy of the Russian Civil War, 1917-1922. The lectures and seminars will focus on debates about the origins of the civil war, examine different groups involved in the conflict, as well political, economic and cultural policies during the conflict. Finally, the module will analyse why the Bolsheviks won, how the civil war created the Soviet Union from the ashes of imperial Russia, and what role the civil war plays in Russian national consciousness. With modern Russia on the forefront of contemporary world affairs, the civil war that toppled the Tsarist regime and created the Soviet Union is not only historiographically relevant, but is critical for our understanding of events in Eastern Europe today.
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WS-M94
From Swords to AI: War, Technology and Culture
This module examines military conflict through the dual lenses of culture and technology. Because the field is vast, our approach is organized around key questions that allow us to move across historical periods, analytical levels, and disciplinary boundaries.
We will explore how cultural values and technological innovations have shaped not only the conduct of war but also how societies understand violence, power, and leadership. Readings will range from historically grounded analyses to contemporary accounts of soldiering, allowing us to interrogate how narratives of conflict are created and sustained.
We will begin with foundational debates on war, violence, and human nature: why do humans wage war, and why societies fight the way they do? Is war primarily a cultural or political activity? Can the pursuit of peace itself give rise to war? How do societies become militarized¿and to what ends? Another central concern will be the role of technology: how has it influenced strategy, policy, and the experience of warfare? To what extent does technology determine victory in modern conflicts, and how transformative are new military technologies in practice?
Our case studies will move from the Napoleonic wars of the early nineteenth century to insurgency and drone warfare in the twenty-first, tracing continuities and ruptures along the way. By the end of the module, you will be equipped to engage critically with historical and contemporary debates on the interplay of culture, technology, and war¿and to reflect on what these debates reveal about humanity, violence, and the future of conflict.
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WS-M96
Researching War and Conflict
This module is designed specifically for MA students in War and Society to help them develop methodological, theoretical, and research skills to write a successful MA thesis in the field of war and conflict studies. The module is built around a series of workshops that pay attention to both epistemological questions in the discipline and to the issue of empirical research and method. The module is designed to provide post-graduate students with a set of practical skills, including how to collect and evaluate relevant sources, how to write a research proposal, and how to present your research to a variety of audience. We will examine the history and evolution of writing about war and conflict, we will contemplate the differences between popular military history and academic studies of war, and invite guest speakers when possible to share their experience of the research process. In the process, you will do a short TED talk style presentation, you will learn how to write robustly and sustain analysis and narrative in longer piece of writing, like an MA thesis, and we will focus on the art and science of writing research statements. We will start each seminar with you sharing your ¿Aha!¿ moments, the most important thing you have learned from the readings, and your ¿head-scratching¿ moments, points that perplexed you the most.
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WSMD00
Dissertation (War and Society)
The module is the culmination of your War and Society Masters¿ degree. It provides you with the opportunity to convert your previous academic experience into a 20000-word dissertation on a contemporary or historical research project related to war and conflict. Unlike all the other modules, there will be no lectures, workshops or seminars. In this module you will be a assigned a supervisor who will help you develop final dissertation. Through a combination of one-to-one supervision meetings you will develop a coherent, detailed, and sustained argument on a subject which may follow on from work completed in other elements of the programme. Over the duration of the module, you will conduct independent research using a variety of primary sources, consult archives where appropriate, and while working independently to produce the final submission.
