This module will examine the ‘battle for the ballot’, from the English Civil War through to the 1948 Representation of the People Act. The module will engage students with the development of ‘ideas worth fighting for’ and will provide an overview of how political representation in Britain was increasingly secured for the masses within the broader historical context of widening democracy and participation.

The module will examine key moments in this history, including the Industrial Revolution, the New Poor Law, the Reform Acts, the founding of different political parties and ideologies, and the growth and development of the women’s rights movement. Students will engage with social, cultural and political themes including industrialization, urbanization, politicization, radicalism, democracy, liberalism, constitutionalism and national identity.

Although there will be an emphasis on the secondary historical debates around those topics, students will also work with a range of primary source documents across a range of time periods. Students will also be encouraged to situate current debates about participatory politics, voting, elections and referendums into their historical context in order to better understand the development of those processes and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.

This module provides a basic introduction to the principles of postcolonial history, by looking at how political geography and lines on maps were imposed on the world by the European empires. These lines on maps have dominated political history in the western academy, but post-colonial history asks whether other units of analysis might make more sense, particularly from the perspectives of the global South.

Two case studies trace how Britain and other European powers defined geographical spaces as political units, and why these definitions were adopted as national identities by local people in their struggles against those powers. It then considers what a ‘postcolonial’ identity might mean and how it might change the way we study history.

This module will introduce students to the techniques and methodologies of social and cultural history and, in particular, will focus upon how and why studying the everyday lives and activities of otherwise ordinary people is worthwhile and relevant to historical enquiry and analysis.

Students will be equipped with the theoretical and practical knowledge to allow them to access a range of primary and secondary sources and resources relevant for the study of everyday life in modern Britain (broadly defined, in this case, as 1800-1950). The module will cover a wide range of topics, but the focus will always be on uncovering and exploring the everyday lived experiences of the mass of people, rather than the more ‘traditional’ historical approaches which tend to focus more on the great actions of notable people.

Topics explored will include; industrialization and urbanization, everyday elements such as food, drink, housing, employment, unemployment, education and entertainment, as well as wider concepts and issues such as immigration, gender, race and finally death and burial. Students will explore historiography through secondary sources, but there will also be an emphasis on the very wide range of primary sources which are often required in order to get access to the everyday lives of ordinary people. These will include working-class autobiographies and memoirs, oral histories and visual sources such as photographs and films. There will also be field trips to illustrate how the everyday past can live on and continue to be visibly represented in the present.

The module will focus on various elements in south London culture and trace their deeper global historical roots. these elements could include: rap music, curry, hijab wearing, tattoos, Pentecostalism, and Rastafarianism. In focusing on local culture, the module will illustrate how cultural history connects the local to the global. Using these focused case studies, it will introduce students to easily-recognised examples of how history is about change, and the reasons for change.

The module will illustrate how historians ask particular types of questions about culture: not just ‘where does it come from?’, but ‘how has it changed?’ and ‘why did this cultural form cross the world and adapt in particular ways, when others didn’t?’.

The purpose of this module is to introduce students to the concepts, methods, techniques, sources and approaches employed by historians in their pursuit of history. Students will be introduced to key core ideas and asked to consider and analyse basic tenets of historical thought and practice. The module is intended to provide a grounding in the methodologies and practices employed by historians and to equip students with the necessary skills and tools to understand and investigate how and why history is undertaken and the implications of undertaking it in different ways at different times.

Students will also become acquainted with and be trained to recognize and analyse a broad range of the different types of primary sources from which historians derive evidence. The module starts from very first principles by engaging students with debates about historical awareness and the differences between popular perceptions of the past and the rigorous historical investigation of it. 

This module will explore the social, economic, political and geographical development of London between 1400 and 1650. Emphasis will be placed on assessing the extent of continuity and change across the entire period focusing on the Reformation, immigration and the emergence of London as a worldwide trading centre.

How these issues impacted on local government and the lives of Londoners will be explored through the reading of contemporary sources including court rolls, taxation records, maps, diaries and chronicles of the period.