Alongside four optional modules which enable you to explore the latest in historical research in our specialist areas, you also study a practical module in research techniques, and write a 20,000-word dissertation on a topic of your choice.
Historical research at Essex concentrates on the period from 1500 to the present, and covers a wide geographical area that includes British and European history, as well as Latin America, the USA, China, Russia and Africa.
Our Department of History provides you with opportunities to explore local history, and we have strong links with the Essex Record Office, one of the best county record offices in the UK.
Alternatively you can focus your study on a more specific area by following one of the following pathways:
- Public History Pathway
- Cultural and Social History Pathway
- Local and Regional History Pathway
Your future
We have excellent links with the research community, both in the UK and worldwide, so many of our students have gone on to teach in higher education institutions. Others have found employment in archives, research, managing research funds, other forms of educational provision, the Civil Service, the National Health Service, and management.
Within our Department of History, we offer supervision for PhD, MPhil and MA by Dissertation. Themes of particular research interest include:
- Class, race and gender formation
- Nationalism
- Wars and revolutions
- International relations and oil diplomacy
- The history of medicine
- The history of crime
- Popular culture and consumption
- Slave societies
- The history of ideas and print culture
- The history of the Roma and Sinti in Europe
- Historical censuses and surveys
