Global History

The Global, International & Comparative History MA is designed to engage ambitious students who have completed an undergraduate degree in History (or adjacent discipline) and are keen to broaden and deepen their studies. The overall focus of the MA is making connections and pursuing comparisons across different parts of the globe in the early modern and modern eras.

The degree
The Georgetown-King’s Joint Master’s Degree in Global, International & Comparative History is a two-year programme involving one academic year of study at each institution. The degree offers students access to the combined talents of two-world class History departments, as well as the unrivalled research resources of Washington DC and London. King’s existing strengths in Modern and Early Modern British, Imperial, and continental European History complement Georgetown’s expertise in Middle Eastern, Russian & East European, East and South Asian, Latin American, African, US and Global Environmental History. This range of coverage provides students with an extraordinarily rich array of thematic, geographic, and cultural perspectives on the past. But Global History, as pursued in this joint master’s degree, is more than a roomy container for diverse interests. In both taught courses and their independent research, students will explore specific connections and rigorous comparisons that creatively link together various local and national histories.

The second year
In the second year of study, whether at Georgetown or at King’s, each Global, International & Comparative History MA student will write an 8000-word thesis in the framework of a two-semester research seminar. Along with fostering discussion of shared historiographical and methodological challenges, the seminars will provide faculty support and peer critique to students as they formulate questions, develop research strategies, and write up findings. Students in the Global, International & Comparative History MA will also be able to participate in other departmental and extra-departmental forums, including thematic research workshops at Georgetown focusing on Early Modern Global, International, and 19th-century American history and the lively, wide-ranging seminars of the University of London’s Institute for Historical Research, as well as the King’s History Department’s own regular staff-student research seminars. With an extraordinary variety of source material in easy reach—including the national archives and depository libraries of the United States and the United Kingdom—students at Georgetown and King’s will find resources to pursue almost any intellectual project that captures their imagination.

And after
The Global, International & Comparative History MA is designed to provide an excellent grounding for students interested in going on to a PhD in History or adjacent discipline. But it also cultivates research, writing, and analytical skills that can be applied to a broad range of careers after graduation.