War Studies & History

We review core and option modules on a regular basis, in order to continue to offer innovative and exciting programmes and this list is therefore subject to change. Please check here for updates, or contact the Department of War Studies and/or the History Department for further advice. Currently, students study the following core modules and choose from a list of options. Please note that not all option modules are available each year. All War Studies modules are worth 30 credits unless mentioned otherwise.


Students choose modules worth 60 credits from the War Studies Department, and modules worth 60 credits from the History Department.

War Studies Compulsory Core Modules:

• Contemporary Security Issues (15 credits)
• The Art of War Studies (15 credits)

History Compulsory Core Module:

• Historical Skills, Sources and Approaches

War Studies:

• The Causes of War
• The Conduct of War
• The Experience of War

 

 

History Options:
You will take one option from the following list:

• The Making of Britain 400-1400
• Medieval Europe 400-1500
• Early Modern Britain 1500-1750
• Power, Belief and Culture in Europe 1500-1800
• The Worlds of the British Empire, c1730-1960
• Europe from 1793 to 1991
• Politics and Society in Britain, 1780-1945

 

First year History module descriptions can be found here:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/history/modules/level4/index.aspx

Students choose modules worth 60 credits from the War Studies Department, and modules worth 60 credits from the History Department.

Although there are no core War Studies modules, students should ensure that they meet the requirement below (see Year 2 options)

No core History module.

War Studies:

All joint honours students choose two modules from the seven options in War Studies; at least one of which should be either Intelligence in War Studies or War in International Order or World War II in Europe.

 

The 2012-13 options in War Studies are:

 

• War & Global Conflict in the Contemporary World
• Military Strategy
• Intelligence in War Studies
• War & Society
• War in International Order
• Aspects of Naval History
• World War II in Europe

History:
Choice from all level 5 optional modules in the History department, which would typically include the following:

 

• British Economic History from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century
• Church, State and Nation in Britain, 1750-1939
• Crime and the Law 1500-1750
• Europe in the Age of Revolution and Napoleon
• European Jewry & the Transition to Modernity, 1650 - 1850
• Faith, Nation and Empire in Modern East-Central Europe (1800-present)
• From Crowd to Court: Cultures of Politics in Later Hanoverian Britain
• The French Civil War, 1934-1970
• Friends. Political Bonds in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy (1300-1550)
• Greek History down to 322BC
• History and Memory
• The History of Australia since 1788
• History of Political Ideas
• History of the Iberian World, 1492-1822
• History of the Roman Empire
• The Nobility & Gentry of Medieval England, 1150-1500
• The Northern Ireland Troubles
• Religion & Society in Southern Europe
• Roman History down to 31BC
• The Soviet Union and Russia, 1945-2000
• Themes in Early Modern Cultural History
• Theories of Modern History

 

Second year students can also choose to take a module at another College of the University of London. A full list of intercollegiate History modules can be found here: http://www.history.ac.uk/syllabus/intercollegiate-courses

Second year History module descriptions can be found here:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/history/modules/level5/index.aspx

Students choose modules worth 60 credits from the War Studies Department, and modules worth 60 credits from the History Department.

Dissertation (in either the Department of War Studies or the History Department)

War Studies:

The 2012-13 War Studies options are:

• Guerrillas in the Mist: Insurgency & Counter Insurgency in the Modern World
• Philosophies of War
• Manpower, Technology, Ideology: the Emergence of Modern War, 1914-1921
• The United States & the Second World War 
• Security Issues in the Middle East
• Philosophies of War
• Fighting in the Air
• Warfare in the Ancient World
• War & International Relations
• Causes, Contingency & War

History:
Students can choose to take a Group III module which involves studying primary source materials or a Thematic Special Subject, in which students think comparatively and theoretically about the different periods and places they have studied in their degree so far.

Typical Group III modules:

 

• Alexander the Great
• Augustus: Power and Propaganda
• Australia in the Second World War: Strategy, Politics and Diplomacy
• Britain's Thatcher
• British Imperial Policy and Decolonisation, 1938-1964
• Caribbean Intellectual History since 1800
• Carolingian Europe, c.750-900
• The Making of a Colonial Regime: Eastern India, 1780-1820
• The Norman Conquest of Britain
• The Origins of Reformation in England
• Reform & Rebellion in England, 1215-1267
• Romans & Barbarians: The Transformation of the Roman West 350-700
• Women & Gender in Early Modern England

 

Any intercollegiate Group III please see http://www.history.ac.uk/syllabus/intercollegiate-courses

Typical Thematic Special Subject modules:

 

• Cosmopolitanism
• Crime and Punishment
• Economic Crises
• Intimacies
• Nations
• Ritual

 

Final year History module descriptions can be found here:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/history/modules/level6/index.aspx