Taught courses
You will take several courses across two semesters of teaching, including two compulsory courses and a range of optional courses.
Core courses
There are two required core courses for this programme: two history skills training courses (20 credits each), one in each semester, which are taken by all MSc students in History in the school.
The compulsory courses for this programme are:
Course name | Credits |
Historical Research: Skills and Sources | 20 |
Historical Methodology | 20 |
Optional courses
You will choose a further 80 credits from a wide selection of optional courses, subject to availability.
Option Courses 2024-2025
* * Please note that the list of courses below is provisional and subject to change.
Select between 40 and 80 credits of the following Contemporary History courses.
Select between 0 and 40 credits of the following History courses
Select between 0 and 20 credits of the following online courses
Select between 40 and 80 credits of the following Contemporary History courses:
- An uncertain world: the West since the 1970s
- Black Activism in Britain since 1800
- Conservatism in the United States, c.1930-c.1990
- Contemporary Scotland
- Genocide in Contemporary History
- The Civil Rights Movement
- The Cold War in Latin America
- The 'Dark Side': Dark Tourism and Difficult Heritages
- The Politics of History in the Arabic-Speaking World (c.1750-Present)
- The Sixties in the United States
- The United States and the Cold War
Select between 0 and 40 credits of the following History courses:
- An uncertain world: the West since the 1970s
- Black Activism in Britain since 1800
- Body and soul in early medieval thought
- Conservatism in the United States, c.1930-c.1990
- Contemporary Scotland
- Debating Marriage between Antiquity and the Middle Ages
- Economic and Social Theory for Historical Analysis
- Genocide in Contemporary History
- Nepotism and Venality: Corruption and Accountability in the Middle Ages
- Queens, Heiresses and Lords: Women Making Medieval Scotland
- Race, Religion, and Ridicule: The American South from Reconstruction to World War II
- Saints Cults, Pilgrimage and Piety in Scotland
- Scottish Palaeography 12th-16th centuries
- Studying Women in Late Medieval England: Sources and Approaches
- The Civil Rights Movement
- The Cold War in Latin America
- The 'Dark Side': Dark Tourism and Difficult Heritages
- The Demise of the Slave-Holding American South, 1846-1877
- The European Enlightenments, 1670 - 1820
- The Material Culture of Gender in Eighteenth Century Britain
- The Politics of History in the Arabic-Speaking World (c.1750-Present)
- The Sixties in the United States
- The United States and the Cold War
- 'The wisest fool in Christendom': the Ideas and Writings of James VI & I
- Thinking with Things: History and Material Culture Studies
Select between 0 and 20 credits of the following online courses:
- An Age of Great Dreams: The 1960s in the United States (online)
- An Imperial Game? Cricket, Culture & Society (online)
- Charles Martel in the Digital Age (Online)
- Consensus to Thatcherism: Government and Politics in Post-War Britain (online)
- Crisis and Conflict in Late-Victorian Britain (online)
- Empire or Continent?: British Foreign Policy in the Era of the Great War (online)
- Freedom and Coercion in the Making of the Atlantic World (online)
- Islamic Africa (Online)
- Medicine and Society in Modern Britain (Online)
- Seeking 'Japan' in a Westernizing World: Revolution, Romance, and Imperialism, 1868 - 1945 (online)
- The Crusades and the Euro-Mediterranean world of the Central Middle Ages (online)
- The School of Statecraft: History, Leadership, and Policymaking (online)
Additional compulsory course - Introduction to Contemporary History
Select between 0 and 60 credits of the following courses:
- African Print Cultures: Newspapers and their Publics in Modern African History, c. 1880 to 1975
- Cinema and Society in Britain
- Conflict and Peace in Africa
- Conflict, Security, and Development
- Gender, Crime and Deviancy: Britain c. 1860-1960
- Islamic Africa
- Rethinking Africa: Race, Space, and Power
- The Civil Rights Movement
- The 'Dark Side': Dark Tourism and Difficult Heritages
- The Politics of Historiography in Post-Colonial South Asia
- The United States and the Vietnam War: Origins and Repercussions
- Thinking the 20th Century - Hannah Arendt and the breakdown of European Civilization
- War and Identities in Twentieth Century Britain and Ireland
Select between 0 and 20 credits of the following online courses:
- British Politics and Policy in the Second World War (online)
- Genocide in Contemporary History (online)
- Modern Latin American History (online)
Courses for those studying from September 2025 will be available from April 2025.
Teaching and assessment
You will take a variety of seminar-style courses in small groups.
Most courses are assessed by means of an extended piece of written work, while some courses assess non-written skills.
Further information
You can see more details about the 2024/25 programme structure on the Degree Programme Table for the MSc in Contemporary History. We expect the 2025/26 programme structure to be available from May 2025.