BA Modern History and Politics

The BA Modern History and Politics is structured in such a way that you will acquire over successive years high-level skills to become an independent and critical thinker, equipped for professional employment.

Through a blend of core and optional modules, you will study 60 credits of Modern History modules and 60 credits of Politics modules each year.

The modules shown are an example of the typical curriculum and will be reviewed prior to the 2024/2025 academic year. The final modules will be published by September 2024.

Year One

Year 1 provides you with a graduated transition to studying modern history and politics at degree level and offers instruction in the skills, techniques and arguments that you will use.

In history, our year 1 modules are designed to equip you with the skills for advanced study and introduce you to historical themes and areas of study that you may not have encountered at A-level. Our 2 core modules introduce you to the different frameworks which underpin historical study and the different ways of writing history, while also allowing you to explore the big debates over how we understand ‘global’ connections and historical change to challenge how we think beyond set time periods and regional or national borders. Optional modules allow you to extend your historical and political knowledge and skills through a variety of periods and regions to lay the foundation for study in years 2 and 3.

In politics, you can choose from a range of modules which introduce you to key debates in the discipline of politics. You will explore some of the main approaches to the study of politics both in terms of its development and critical approaches. You can also study modules which examine the main theories developed to explain international relations, the nature of the state and the key institutions of government in the contemporary world, and the nature of globalisation.

Core Modules for Year One

The Making of The Modern World, 1750-1970

History in Practice Part 1: Questions, Frameworks and Audiences

Optional Modules for Year One

Year Two

In history, you take a core module which introduces you to the key theoretical approaches and methods that have influenced historical writing. Our optional modules allow you to explore themes across a narrower time range while encouraging a more comparative approach to history. In your second year, the emphasis shifts towards different approaches to history and different ways of using evidence. You also have the option to take modules which give you a deeper understanding of the kinds of evidence historians use, the ways of using that evidence, and the historian’s role in sharing research beyond the boundaries of academia and the voices they privilege or silence.

In politics, you can choose from a range of optional modules which cover past and contemporary British and international politics. You can also explore political thought from different centuries. Modules will be taught through a mixture of lectures and small-group seminars.

Core Modules for Year Two

• Reading History

Optional Modules for Year Two

• Past, Present and Future
• Making History: Historians, Evidence, Audiences
• Debating History
• Accessible Pasts
• The British Civil Wars
• European Enlightenment(s): The View from the Margins
• America: From Revolution to Reconstruction
• Modern France
• Europe's Dark Century
• Stalinism: State, Society, and Environment
• Close Neighbours, Dangerous Foes: China, Japan and Modern East Asia
• Politics and the People in Modern Britain: Protest, citizenship and the state
• Environmental Histories
• Anti-Colonial Resistance
• Language Skills for Historians
• Revolution, Culture and Radicalism, 1789–1914
• International Relations of the Cold War
• Digital Technologies and Global Politics
• Global Governance
• EU Politics
• From Espionage to Counter-Terrorism: Intelligence in Contemporary Politics
• Modern Welsh Politics
• Modern Political Thought: Machiavelli to Mill
• Theorizing and Disintegrating Capitalist Society
• The Barbarians are Coming!: Cross-cultural Political Theories
• Ideas and Ideology in British Politics
• Animals, Air, and Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction - The Politics of Global Environmental Regimes
• Governing Modern Britain
• Personality, prejudice, and polarisation: Political Psychology
• Critical Approaches to Middle East Politics
• Data Science for Politics and International Relations
• Revolutionising the Political Order: British Social Theory in the Eighteenth Century
• Doing Political Research
• Elections in the UK
• Gender, Sex and Death in Global Politics
• Beliefs of the Welsh
• British Politics since 1945
• International Security: Concepts and Issues
• Global Justice
• International Law in a Changing World

Year Three

In history in your final year, you are challenged to think more deeply about the nature of historical developments in the modern world. You develop your skills at analysing sources and writing history through studying a range of specialist modules on offer. You also have the opportunity to undertake independent research, enabling you to focus on a particular area or period, through a dissertation if you wish.

In politics, your final year comprises more advanced courses, which invite you to apply the skills you acquired in previous years. Offerings include a work placement and parliamentary studies module, through which you acquire practical skills and insights into the day-to-day operations of the institutions that shape our lives. Should you wish to, you can also opt to write a dissertation with a focus on politics.

Optional Modules for Year Three

• Researching History: Dissertation
• Divided Memory in post-1945 Germany
• East Asia in a Global Second World War
• Digital Games and the Practice of History
• Witchcraft and Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1750
• An Information Revolution: Politics and Communication in Early Modern Britain
• Health and Illness in Early Modern Britain
• Mobile Lives: Travel, Exile, and Migration in the Early Modern World
• Slavery and Enslaved Life in the United States, 1775-1865
• Native American History
• Utopias of Extremism: Revolutions in Comparative Context
• Czechoslovakia: The Twentieth Century in Miniature
• Inside the Third Reich
• Violence and Ideology in the Inter-War Soviet Union
• Gender and Imperialism, India c.1800- c.1900
• Change, Conflict, and Mass Mobilisation in Republican China, 1911-1945
• Peripheral Reverberations of the French Revolution
• Mayhem and Murder: Investigating the Victorian Underworld
• The Making of British Socialism
• Britain at War: Culture and Politics on the Home Front, 1939-1945
• Public and Private: Gender, Identities and Power in Twentieth-Century Britain
• Jews, Europe and the World
• The History of Thought in International Relations
• International Politics in the Nuclear Age
• Africa in International Thought and Practice: Colonialism, Anticolonialism, Postcolonialism
• Bombs, Bullets and Ballot-boxes: the Northern Ireland Conflict, 1969 to 1998
• Political Economy: Rationality in an Irrational World?
• Popular Culture and World Politics
• War and Society
• Justice, Legitimacy and International Law
• Latin American Politics
• Sex, Drugs and Public Policy
• Visual Global Politics
• Politics in Practice: Work Placement Module
• Be the Change: Governing without the State
• The Politics of Populism in Europe
• Governing Global Public Health: Viral Pandemics, and the Global Drugs 'Epidemic'
• Anglo-American relations and Cold War defence
• China in the World
• Strategy in Theory and Practice
• The Political Economy of Wales: From Coal to Covid-19
• Political Economy of Wales: from 'Coal Age' to 'Coal Age'
• The End of the World as We Know It
• After the West: IR 2.0
• US Government and Politics
• World-eating justice
• Nationalism, Religion and Justice: A History of 20th Century Philosophy in Wales
• Parliamentary Studies Module
• International Relations Dissertation
• Politics Dissertation
• Global International Organisation in World Politics
• Personality and Power

How will I be Assessed?

Assessments include source criticisms, research projects, reviews, presentations, creative-critical portfolios and blog posts, alongside more traditional forms of assessment such as essays and tests/exams. Some of our assessments allow you to work collaboratively on a project, while others include writing and creating for different audiences; for example, you might be asked to design a museum exhibition or create a guide for using sources; and you may have the opportunity to create podcasts and digital texts for social media Long essays in History allow you to address fundamental historical questions or explore an historical issue or debate in more depth.

In all cases, our assessments are designed to support you in developing your ideas, skills and competencies. They help equip you with skills to link your knowledge to local, national and global issues, and encourage you to be innovative and creative; to find new ways to address problems or ask questions; to collaborate in solving problems and presenting findings; and to present evidence-based arguments. The skills developed and assessed throughout the programme prepare you for entry into a range of graduate careers. Individual and group feedback on assessments and other learning provides you with the opportunity to reflect on your current or recent level of attainment.

What Skills will I Practise and Develop?

The Learning Outcomes for this Programme describe what you will be able to do as a result of your study at Cardiff University. They will help you to understand what is expected of you.

The Learning Outcomes for this Programme can be found below:

Knowledge & Understanding

On successful completion of the Programme you will be able to:

• KU1: critically apply a variety of concepts, theories and methods used in the study of politics to the analysis of political ideas, institutions and practices, relative to the historical and contemporary context
• KU2: engage critically and conceptually with different political systems; the nature and distribution of power in them; the social, economic, historical and cultural contexts within which they operate; and - in some cases - the relationships between them
• KU3: engage critically and conceptually with the changing assumptions and methods that historians use to explain the past
• KU4: demonstrate systematic knowledge and understanding of the complexity and diversity of situations, events, and mentalities in the past in a single country or in relation to a particular theme

Intellectual Skills

On successful completion of the Programme you will be able to:

• IS1: Critically appraise political theories and assess them in relation to evidence
• IS2: Clearly and rigorously represent, analyse and challenge political and philosophical arguments
• IS3: utilise knowledge and appropriate skills and methods to identify and critically evaluate historical change
• IS4: formulate and justify arguments about a range of historical issues, problems, and debates using historiographical ideas and methods
• IS5: identify and locate appropriate primary sources, reflect upon their nature, and analyse them critically to address questions and solve problems

Professional Practical Skills

On successful completion of the Programme you will be able to:

• PS1: demonstrate critical thinking, reasoning, and the ability to assimilate and summarise complex information and ideas through the independent selection and critical analysis of an appropriate range of evidence
• PS2: ask cogent and focused questions and pursue answers to these questions through structured enquiry, selecting and interrogating an appropriate range of evidence
• PS3: summarise and critically appraise the relative merits and demerits of alternative views and interpretations and evaluate their significance

Transferable/Key Skills

On successful completion of the Programme you will be able to:

• TS1: propose imaginative solutions of your own that are rooted in evidence
• TS2: present complex findings and arguments clearly, concisely, and persuasively in a variety of formats
• TS3: show enterprise skills to solve problems and analyse diverse, partial or ambiguous evidence using critical thinking, initiative, and creativity
• TS4: effectively communicate complex information and arguments, either individually or collaboratively as part of a team

We encourage our students to think about life beyond university from day one, offering modules and support to give them a competitive advantage on graduating no matter what path they follow.

Our degree provides you with a foundation for a wide range of careers such as in non-governmental organisations, global development, international business, diplomacy and intelligence in government, journalism, and policy research, as well as a basis for more specialist subjects taught at postgraduate level. Some choose to undertake postgraduate study at Cardiff University or elsewhere, and some have become internationally reputed historians.

Our degree equips you with important skills which employers value from collaborative working and communicating with a wide range of audiences to critical thinking and finding new ways to address problems. Training and career events are delivered in and out of the curriculum with a focus on developing skills while in university and articulating those skills successfully in future applications. We work closely with Student Futures who not only deliver training and workshops on our core modules but also offer a wealth of opportunities. Beyond your formal studies, we run programmes that provide you with opportunities to engage with local schools and communities or work with local heritage organisations to develop your own skills and profile whilst allowing you to make a difference.