World History

Convenor : Professor Megan Vaughan

• Research projects

'World History' at Cambridge means two things: the histories of Asia, Africa and Latin America, on the one hand, and comparative approaches to world history, which often intrude into the histories of Europe and America, on the other. Cambridge has been a world centre for the study of transnational history and area studies for several generations. The group had its origins in the research seminars organised by the Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History and the Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History. But while European expansion and imperialism remain central to the group's research and teaching, today our focus is also on the experience of non-European peoples understood in their own terms and through their own sources, problems and historiography.

Staff and student interest is particularly strong in Indian, Southeast Asian, African, Latin American and general imperial history. Many faculty members trained or partly trained in Cambridge hold positions in Britain, Europe, the USA and across the world, notably in India, Southeast Asia and Africa themselves. There are popular undergraduate papers (courses) on 'Empires and World History, c.1400-1914' and 'World History since 1900' (both of which have CamTools sites for easy and efficient delivery of lecture notes and e-Resources), along with more specialist courses for third year students on the history of Africa, the Indian Subcontinent, the Pacific, and Latin America. Graduate students read either for the M. Phil. in Historical Studies (a 30,000 word dissertation) or for a 3-year PhD. There is a range of graduate seminars available, these include the World History seminar, the South Asian Seminar, the African History Seminar and the Latin American Seminar. A number of one-day workshops have been held over recent years, including meetings on Literature and Empire, Gender, and the History of Science. In addition, graduate students organise their own world history workshops and collate information from similar seminars across the country.

Web Officer  :  Dr Isabel DiVanna