• Total units 48 Units
  • Areas of interest History
  • Major code HIST-MAJ
  • Academic career Undergraduate
History Major

Everything has a history. From a national constitution to modern consumer culture, from the rise of empires to environmental crises, from the human species to your family, history teaches you about the forces that have made the world in which you live. It helps you to understand the present by understanding its past.

The ANU is a national leader in History and offers a wide range of courses covering Australia, America, Asia and Europe. Courses trace themes such as empire, terrorism, revolution, war, gender, race, technology and the environment. Some focus on philosophies that underlie historical analysis or techniques of historical research. History is a core discipline in the humanities and social sciences. It gives students knowledge and skills that are valued in any professional context. Our students successfully pursue careers in journalism, management, politics, policy, museums, diplomacy, teaching, academia and many other fields.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:

  1. Demonstrate understanding of multiple periods or cultures of the past.

  2. Demonstrate understanding of key conceptual approaches to interpreting the past.

  3. Examine historical issues by undertaking research according to the methodological and ethical conventions of the discipline.

  4. Analyse historical evidence, scholarship and changing representations of the past.

  5. Construct an evidence-based argument or narrative in audio, digital, oral, visual or written form.

  6. Identify and reflect critically on the knowledge and skills developed in their study of History and their relationship to the contemporary world.


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Requirements

This major requires the completion of 48 Units which include:

12 units from completion of the following course(s):

Code Title Units
HIST2110 Approaches to History 6
HIST3007 Making History 6

A maximum of 12 units may come from completion of courses from the following list:

Code Title Units
EURO1004 Europe in the Modern Era 6
HIST1209 Terror to Terrorism: A History 6
HIST1214 Clash of Empires: 1450 to the Present 6
HIST1215 The Twentieth Century World 6

A minimum of 12 units must come from completion of courses from the following list:

Code Title Units
HIST2022 Indigenous Australian History 6
HIST2121 Electric Citizens: The Rise of the Modern Media in the United States, 1865-2000 6
HIST2126 American Sixties 6
HIST2128 Convicts and Settlers: Australia 1770s to 1870s 6
HIST2133 Human Variations and Racism in Western Culture, c. 1450-1950 6
HIST2136 World at War, 1939-1945 6
HIST2141 The Cold War: 1945-1989 6
HIST2205 Europe and the Atlantic World, c.1492–1776. 6
HIST2213 Real Men: Masculinities in Western History 6
HIST2214 The Great War, 1914-1918 6
HIST2219 Tudor-Stuart England, c.1485-1714: Politics, Society and Culture 6
HIST2220 Medieval History 6
HIST2221 The Birth of Modernity: Britain 1688-1848 6
HIST2223 The French Revolution and Napoleon 6
HIST2226 Nazi Germany 6
HIST2227 Australian Political History 6
HIST2228 Enlightenment Worlds 6
HIST2229 Sexuality in Australian History 6
HIST2230 Latin America: Conquest and Colonisation 6
HIST2231 Exploration: Columbus to the Moon 6
HIST2232 Crime and Justice: Historical Dilemmas 6
HIST2233 How the Camera Changed History: A century of photography and cinema 6
HIST2234 The Reach of History: Presenting the past in the public domain 6
HIST2236 Debating Anzac 6
HIST2237 Digital History, Digital Heritage: the past in a digital present 6
HIST2238 Human Rights in History 6
HIST2239 Rock, Sex and War: Australia's 1960s - 1970s 6
HIST2240 Democracy and Dissent: Europe Since 1945 6
HIST2241 Global Aboriginal and Native Histories 6
HIST2242 The Soviet Union: From the Russian Revolution to the Collapse of Communism 6
HIST2243 Vikings, Crusades, Mongols: Shaping Medieval Europe, c. 850–1300 6

A maximum of 12 units may come from completion of courses from the following list:

Code Title Units
ANCH2015 Travellers and Geographers in Antiquity 6
ANCH2016 Bad neighbours: Law and life in ancient Athens 6
ANCH2017 Emperors and Madmen: The Early Roman Empire 6
ANCH2022 Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic World 6
ARCH2004 Australian Archaeology 6
ARCH2037 Post-Roman Archaeology of Britain: Arthur and the Anglo Saxons 6
ARCH2055 Archaeological Fieldschool 6
ARCH2056 Britons and Romans: Archaeology of the Western Roman Empire 6
ARTH2080 Art and Visual Culture of the Long Eighteenth Century, 1660-1815 6
ARTH2081 Art of the European Courts, 1500-1815 12
ARTH2082 Art, War and Conflict 6
ARTH2097 Victorian and Edwardian Art: Australia and Europe 1837-1914 6
ARTV2050 Renaissance and Baroque Art 6
ASIA2009 Modern Japan: the state and the society from Meiji to the present 6
ASIA2016 The Mongol Empire in World History 6
ASIA2037 History of Modern China 6
ASIA2040 Modern Korea 6
ASIA2044 Foundations of Chinese History: The Imperial Period (221 BC - 1800) 6
ASIA2045 The Investigative Historian in Asia 6
ASIA2072 Taiwan: History and Culture 6
ASIA2085 Southeast Asia in World History 6
ASIA2270 India in the Age of Asian Empires: South Asian History to 1757 6
ASIA3272 Truth and Falsity in Indian History and Politics 6
ASIA2307 History of Empire in Asia 6
ASIA3011 Samurai Society and Social Control in Japan 6
ENGL2074 Jane Austen History and Fiction 6
GEND2021 Trauma, Memory and Culture 6
MEAS2000 Iranian History and Culture 6
MEAS2002 Turkish History: Ottoman State to Modern Turkey 6
MEAS2003 Modern Turkey: History, Culture and Regional Relations 6
MEAS2108 Gallipoli: History and National Imagination 6
PASI2002 Australia in Oceania in the 19th and 20th centuries 6
PASI2006 War in the Islands: The Second World War in the Pacific 6
POLS2100 Genocide - Post 1945 6
SOCY2053 Imagining the Future: A Sociology of Utopias 6
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