Entry requirementsFor admission to the MA you will normally be expected to have a good undergraduate honours degree. Each application will be considered on its merits. Where applicants do not meet the formal entrance requirements, their relevant experience will be taken into account. In the case of overseas applicants, an adequate proficiency in English must be demonstrated. This will normally be a minimum IELTS score of 6.5 or its equivalent. Accreditation of prior learning may be considered for some applicants on enrolment, thereby reducing an applicant's period of study. This will be determined in accordance with University Regulations.
Academic titleTwentieth Century History Master in Arts
Course descriptionAs we embark on the twenty-first century our lives remain influenced by the dramatic events of the twentieth. This MA programme provides an opportunity to examine some of the key events and factors which marked that turbulent century, offering an insight into the problems of the present.
Course content
Using an historical approach, this programme ranges widely geographically from the United States and Vietnam, to Europe in the inter-war years, from the Soviet Union and Russia to post-colonial Africa. Students will be introduced to the programme through a mandatory module entitled Themes and Approaches to Twentieth Century International History. This module will use the origins of World War One, the Bolshevik revolution, the Holocaust and Britain’s entry into the EEC as areas of debate and analysis to develop those skills students will need as they proceed through the course.
Having completed the mandatory module, students will have a choice of modules which examine, for example, British Appeasement and the coming of war, Russian state and society since 1917, the development of post-colonial African politics and the Vietnam War. As well as the contest between states, the development of the modern state will be a core element of this programme. The clash of ideas, which was a central characteristic of the twentieth century, will feature prominently. The impact of nationalism, the struggle between Nazism and the liberal democracies, Soviet Communism in its domestic and international settings, and the role of the Superpowers in the post-1945 world will also be among the subjects analysed.