Introduction

History is one of the strongest subject areas at the University, located within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, both in the number of staff and students and in the quality of its work. It was the first subject offered as a main subject in an Honours degree programme in 1976. Each year since then History has proved most successful, and, as well as having a large number of undergraduate students, we also possess an expanding number of postgraduate students. We have two Masters degree programmes (Historical Studies and Local & Regional History, which can also be studied jointly with Archaeology) and, since 1993, a community of MPhil and PhD students. At the last Research Assessment Exercise (2008) History achieved the highest rating in the University, with 55 per cent of assessed research graded internationally outstanding or excellent.