Department of History

The Department of History at King's is a welcoming and friendly department dedicated to the pursuit of academic excellence. We pride ourselves on our high standards in teaching and research, and have consistently been awarded top ratings in the national Research Assessment Exercises. In addition to our traditional research excellence in British and European history, and the history of the British Empire, recent expansion in staff numbers has brought new specializations into the department. As well as a new Medieval European historian, we have also welcomed two historians of Australia and four historians of Portugal and Brazil. This expansion increases the programmes and modules available, making the choice offered to our students one of the widest in the world.

As well as the History MPhil/PhD, MRes and MA programmes currently available, including Medieval, Early Modern, Modern and World history, we now offer an MA in  Global, International & Comparative History and an MA in Nineteenth-Century Studies – all  enabling students to engage in research supervised by internationally-renowned historians. These programmes allow students to  enhance their skills and profile before moving into the job market, or into further academic work. They are also ideal for more mature students looking to incorporate a postgraduate qualification into an established career.

The department, which contributes to internationally important projects developing internet-based research tools, also provides students with a rich research environment. Both our academics and students contribute to a number of lively seminars in the department and at the Institute for Historical Research (IHR) and students have a wide range of resources available to them through the colleges and libraries of the University of London.

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The history department understands the importance of developing historical skills as well as knowledge and so each of our Taught Masters and Masters by Research programmes offers a tailored core module in historical analysis. As well as this students of Early Modern, Modern and World History study 'Advanced Skills for Historians' which is both academically important and a good opportunity for our students to network. Moreover, we run a departmental seminar at which students are given the opportunity to present papers. Specialist training is provided where required in beginners and advanced Latin, Palaeography for Medievalists and modern languages where relevant to study. Further training courses are available to our students both through the Graduate School at King's and at the IHR. The IHR provides a one-week training course 'Methods and Sources for Historical Research' at the beginning of each semester, as well as range of other training programmes, all of which are available to our students.

The Maughan Library has dedicated facilities for graduate students and an extensive range of both primary and secondary resources for historians, not least in its Special Collections. Notably the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Archives, newly installed in the Maughan Library, offer a wealth of research opportunities. The Liddell Hart Archive offers extensive research resources particularly in the field of military history, and facilities for study are also available at the IHR and the University of London Research Library at Senate House. The department has dedicated graduate quiet study space on the 8th floor of the Strand Building with storage lockers and WiFi throughout the floor.

The department supports applications to the AHRC and for School of Arts & Humanities and Graduate School studentships and bursaries. Please see our graduate funding database for further details: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/graduate/funding/database/