Modern & Contemporary History Degrees at Aberystwyth University
Modern & Contemporary History Degree - 3 years Degree (V191)
Modern & Contemporary History Degree
The Modern & Contemporary History degree will appeal to students interested in the period since the French Revolution. It explores an era marked by mass participation, whether in politics, war or culture. It illuminates the contradictions of modernity – characterized by utopian experiments and their often nightmarish outcomes, by the proclamation of human rights, by genocide and ethnic cleansing, and by the promise of reason, science and technology.
Modern & Contemporary History Degree Year 1
All history students take a ‘core’ Introduction to History module to ease the transition to undergraduate studies. To customise your degree to your interests you'll be able choose five modules from the range of modern and contemporary history degree modules. Current modules in Modern & Contemporary History degree include:
- Cradle to Grave? Welfare and Society in Modern Britain
- The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union
- Jews in the Modern World, 1750 to the Present
- Post War British Society: From the Baby Bloomers to Blair
- The Making of the American Nation, 1783-2000
Modern & Contemporary History Degree Years 2 and 3
The Department offers different types of modules in the second and third years to build on the principles outlined in the first year.
Modern & Contemporary History students will choose from a range of relevant modules, including:
- Britain at War, 1939-1945
- Images of Stalinism
- Mass Politics in Modern Europe, 1789-1945
- Sport, Leisure and Popular Culture in Britain since 1850
- Great Britain and the US: 1850 to the Present
- Mass Media in 20th Century Britain
In addition, you will have the option of choosing a few modules from the full range offered by the Department, including:
- Manners and Misdemeanours: Polite Society in Eighteenth Century England
- Myth and History in the Viking Age
- The Making of Modern France, 1730-1914
- Early Modernity in Europe
Modern & Contemporary History Degree Dissertation
The Modern & Contemporary History degree programme culminates in a dissertation, which provides an opportunity to research an area of your choice in the field. Recent Modern & Contemporary History dissertations include:
- The British Labour Party and the Nazi Seizure of Power, 1929-1933
- The Arab revolt and the Myth of Lawrence of Arabia
- How did the Church in Wales react to Great War?
- Nixon, Civil Rights and the Press
Modern & Contemporary History Degrees at Aberystwyth University - Module Example
Weimar Germany
Many historians have argued that the survival of old elites and of mentalities rooted in the authoritarian value system of Imperial Germany meant that the German experiment in democracy was fatally flawed at the outset. In this module, the approach will be subjected to an extensive interrogation. In the cultural, social and economic, as well as in the political history of the Weimar Republic, the module will appraise the innovative and adventurous alternatives which the adherents of a German Democracy sought to develop, and will ask exactly how and why such alternatives failed or were closed down. Within this framework, we will seek to understand the processes that allowed the establishment of a mass electoral base for National Socialism and finally brought Hitler to power in 1933.