Course summary

This MA Contemporary History and Politics combines a rich and varied study of the recent past and politics allowing you to explore how the two disciplines intersect and integrate. We cover a wide geographic range of content so you can choose to focus on Europe, Britain, China, Africa, South Asia or the Middle East. Why choose this course?

• You will be taught by internationally acclaimed scholars, so you have the opportunity to critically reflect with them on key historical events, methodologies and ideas. You will also develop a rigorous understanding of political theory, concepts and research methods.

• You can enjoy the choice of an impressive range of option modules covering a wide sweep of political ideas and systems, historical periods and regions of the world.

• Birkbeck’s School of Historical Studies includes historians working on every period, from prehistoric humans, Ancient Greece and Rome, to medieval, early modern and modern societies. We have specialists in, for example, medieval Armenia, early modern England, colonial India, modern China and Nazi Germany.

• Birkbeck was ranked in the top eight universities in the UK for its History, Classics and Archaeology research in the most recent Research Excellence Framework.

• Our academic staff in the School of Social Sciences are international authorities, publishing and delivering stimulating teaching on a wide range of topics including public policy, foreign policy, international security and terrorism, gender and the welfare state, British politics, and the politics of Asia and the Middle East.

• All MA students are eligible to apply for our prestigious Eric Hobsbawm Postgraduate Scholarships. Part-time students may be eligible for a Bonnart Trust Masters Studentship which will cover the cost of your tuition fees.

• We are at the heart of academic London with access to: the Institute of Classical Studies, with its library, training facilities and seminars; the British Museum, with its extensive collection of classical antiquities; and the British Library, the largest national library in the world.

• rigorous analytical, interpretive and writing skills at an advanced level

• presentation and debating skills.

• education

• journalism and broadcasting

• museums and curatorial roles

• politics and the Civil Service.