Joint Schools
This course enables you to extend the options of the Modern History course which begins in AD 285 to encompass important areas of Greek and Roman history. Not only does the course dispense with the arbitrary dividing line of AD 284, but it also enables students to tackle questions in Modern History which are incomprehensible without some awareness of the Greek and Roman background. You only need to think about the role played by classical examples in the French Revolution or the importance of classical thinkers to the thought of such major political theorists as Machiavelli and Hobbes to appreciate the fertile nature of this joint degree.
History and Economics brings together the traditionally separate disciplines of history and economics to form a coherent and intellectually stimulating programme. The course is sufficiently flexible to allow students to specialize in virtually any area that they choose without sacrificing the well-integrated interdisciplinary approach for which the course is known. The combination of economics, economic history and history (political as well as social) means that your studies will equip you to view contemporary issues from a variety of contrasting perspectives.
The joint School in Modern History and English was established in 1989 with the intention of encouraging students to develop their knowledge and critical skills in two closely interrelated fields. The intersection between language, culture, and history has been a focus of lively interest within both disciplines in recent decades. Interdisciplinary study has become a thriving area in its own right as scholars have moved away from what would once have been thought of as ‘purely’ historical or literary criticism to a more comparative way of thinking about the written records of the past (including, of course, the very recent past). In essence, this is a course in intellectual history.
The History and Modern Languages course is structured as a four year degree, with work during the first year described as the Preliminary Examination and work undertaken in the final three years – which include a year abroad - as Final Examinations. Students must pass the Prelims Exam in order to proceed to study for Finals. This course is suitable for students wishing to combine the study of one European language with History. One of the great advantages of the course is that by choosing options carefully it is possible to study subjects which relate to each other significantly. Thus, for example, an interest in nineteenth-century French literature might be reinforced by the study of French and European historical options in the same period, or an interest in medieval Italian history can be enriched by a study of Dante.
This joint degree has been established in the conviction that History and Politics can offer complementary approaches to past and present aspects of human activity. The degree not only enables students to set contemporary political problems in their historical perspective, but it also equips them to approach the study of the past with the conceptual rigour derived from political science. A special feature of the Oxford course is the chance to choose subjects very broadly across the two disciplines, so that it is possible to combine medieval historical options with the analysis of contemporary political systems.
