History at Manchester
History has been taught at Manchester at degree level since the Victorian era, and we are justly proud of our record of developing the way the subject is taught, for example pioneering Economic History and introducing the undergraduate thesis, which has since been copied by universities around the world.
The University of Manchester is home to one of the largest concentrations of historians in Britain. The History Subject Area has over 30 academic staff, and historians can also be found throughout the University, in other Subject Areas within SAHC, in the School of Social Sciences, in the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, and in the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine. For more details see the Academic Staff (A to Z) list or the Academic Staff List by Research Interest.
Interdisciplinarity is also institutionalised in such research centres as the Centre for Late Antiquity and the Centre for Research on the Cultural Forms of Modern European Politics. The quality of this research environment is evident in the busy seminar programmes in modern, medieval, economic and ancient history, as well as in the programmes of other departments, often attended by historians, such as in Government and the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine. This is complemented by a long-running, successful History graduate research seminar where students present their own papers, and by school-based research-student conferences.
The scholarship of the staff is of international standing, as confirmed by the latest (2008) Research Assessment Exercise. Our undergraduate and postgradut programmes take maximum advantage of the full range of their expertise, which spreads across diverse regions of the world and many different histories, ranging from the classical era (Greece and Rome) to the late twentieth century, or you can specialise in particular areas - for example Gender or Cultural History, Twentieth Century Europe, Colonial, Economic or Social History or the Middle Ages.
At any one time there are about 1000 undergraduates taking History, enjoying a learning experience of the very highest quality. The Government's review of the quality of that experience in 2001 recognised the outstanding success of our programmes, the support students receive and the facilities which they enjoy, awarding Ancient History - which was then reviewed with Classics - the highest possible mark of 24 out of 24.