Further Subjects will normally be studied by candidates in History in the second year, and in the great majority of cases the teaching is in Hilary Term. This pattern may vary for students taking the various Joint Schools. Please note that main school finalists may not attend Further Subject classes again in their final year.

The Further Subjects have been designed to extend and deepen your knowledge of particular subject areas, topics and themes in British and General History. They are intended to be document- and text-based, requiring you to engage with the range of primary material relevant to the subject, to elucidate its significance and to relate it to the scholarly literature. There are over thirty Further Subjects to choose from, ranging geographically across the globe, and conceptually from archaeology to political and social thought. They enable you to study subjects in which members of the Faculty are themselves actively engaged in research, and your choice may well arouse interests which you yourself wish to pursue subsequently. Although it is by no means obligatory, many students do study a Further Subject related to one or more of their British or General History papers in the Final Honour School: candidates in Finals are positively encouraged to relate, where appropriate, knowledge gained from their Further Subject to questions set in their outline papers or in Disciplines of History.

Further Subjects are usually taught in a combination of six tutorials (arranged by your college tutors) and eight university classes (arranged through the Faculty by the Convenor for the Subject). Each class is taken by one or two Faculty members who are experts in the field, sometimes assisted by graduate students researching relevant topics. As in the Special Subjects, the classes provide an invaluable opportunity to learn the skills of working effectively in a group; during the course of the term’s classes you will normally be expected to write and deliver at least one paper, to open the class discussion. Please read the section on Forms of Teaching in chapter two for guidance on how to get the best out of class teaching. Revision teaching is not normally provided, but Further Subjects may be included in the two hours of tutorial teaching normally used for British and General History.

Below is a list of currently available Further Subjects, although the subjects offered may vary from year to year.

• Anglo-Saxon Archaeology of the Early Christian Period 
• The Near East in the Age of Justinian and Muhammad, 527–c.700
• The Carolingian Renaissance 
• The Viking Age: War and Peace c . 750– 1100
• The Crusades 
• Culture and Society in Early Renaissance Italy, 1290–1348 
• Flanders and Italy in the Quattrocento, 1420–1480 
• The Wars of the Roses, 1450– 1500
• Women, Gender and Print Culture in Reformation England, c. 1530-1640
• Literature and Politics in Early Modern England 
• English Society in the Seventeenth Century 
• Society and Government in France, 1600–1715 
• Court Culture and Art in Early Modern Europe, 1580–1700
• The Military and Society in Britain and France, c. 1650-1815
• The Metropolitan Crucible: London 1685-1815
• The First Industrial Revolution, 1700–1870 
• Medicine, Empire and Improvement, 1720–1820
• The Age of Jefferson, 1774–1826
• Culture and Society in France from Voltaire to Balzac 
• Nationalism in Western Europe, 1799–1890
• Intellect and Culture in Victorian Britain
• The Authority of Nature: Race, Heredity and Crime 1800-1940
• Imperialism and Nationalism, 1830–1980
• Modern Japan, 1868–1972
• British Economic History since 1870
• Revolutionary Mexico, 1910–1940
• Nationalism, Politics and Culture in Ireland c.1870–1921 
• A Comparative History of the First World War, 1914–1920
• China in War and Revolution, 1890–1914
• The Soviet Union 1924–1941  
• Culture, Politics and Identity in Cold War Europe, 1945–68
• Britain at the Movies: Film and National Identity since 1914
• Scholasticism and Humanism 
• The Science of Society 1650–1800 
• Political Theory and Social Science