History

This course offers students a unique opportunity to understand the long-term trajectory of global economic development from the dawn of civilization to today. It explores major historical milestones such as the birth of civilization, religious reform, the Industrial Revolution, the Columbian Exchange, the Black Death, the Great Depression, and the World Wars. Unlike typical history courses focused on facts, this course integrates economic theory with historical analysis. Students will gain a deep understanding of how past events shaped today’s economic and social systems. By bridging economics and history, the course enhances your ability to analyze development processes, understand their causes and consequences, and apply these insights to modern challenges. It also prepares students to interpret current transformations and equips them with a stronger foundation for navigating the future. Through this interdisciplinary lens, the course cultivates both historical awareness and economic thinking essential for future leaders and analysts.

This course examines the historical developments in the African Continent under the formal rule of different European powers; the emergence and development of the 'nationalist' phenomenon before and after the First World War; decolonization and independence; problems of nation building; attempts at continent-wide and regional collaborations.

The course is an introduction to the study of ancient historiography, itself a crucial element of the study of history, past and present. I.e. the course encourages students to analyse a good number of ancient historians and histories, especially the key figures and key texts in the development of the practice we call history, including Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Livy, Cassius Dio, Tacitus, Ammianus Marcellinus, and others. The selection of authors to be studied in any one year depends on the research expertise of staff teaching the course so as to allow maximum scope for cutting-edge teaching based on new research undertaken by staff at Edinburgh.

This course helps students make sense of globalization by treating it as an historical phenomenon. They consider what has and what hasn't changed in how societies, economies, and politics are organized across the world. Students trace the emergence of technologies and practices which facilitate global interaction, from the container ship to the world wide web. They understand how globalization has been debated, examining the emergence of the idea of globalization, and the history of arguments about what it is and whether it is a good thing or not. Finally, students study its political consequences, charting debates about the effects of global interaction on the choices available to publics and their leaders, and asking how far institutions and individuals are able to shape phenomena which occurs on such a large scale.