The Cambridge History Faculty
Cambridge is a centre for advanced study and research in most of the major academic disciplines.
The Faculty of History is the largest among the humanities and social science faculties at Cambridge and a considerable number of historians in Cambridge in various research and College appointments whose graduate teaching falls within the purview of the Faculty. Many members of other Faculties of the University and post-doctoral College Fellows also teach occasionally for the PhD in History. Over one hundred historians, many of them of international distinction, are available to teach graduate students. The Faculty is continually pioneering new ideas, approaches and methods in response to the advance of scholarship and the needs of the national and international community. This is the largest concentration of history graduate students in the world. The Faculty is recognised as one of the world’s leading History Departments.
In research, as in teaching, the Faculty’s range spans the whole of British, European, American, Asian and African history from the ancient world to the present. As well as having a long-established expertise in British and European history, Cambridge has particular strengths in Extra-European History. While some of the most famous Cambridge historians have focused on political and constitutional history, the Faculty has also played a central role in the development of the history of political thought and in the flourishing fields of economic, social and cultural history. Its members include specialists in business and religious history and in the history of population, the family and gender.
Much of the work in these fields is done in collaboration with other faculties, such as Classics, Philosophy, English, Divinity, Medieval and Modern Languages, Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Archaeology, Geography, Economics, History and Philosophy of Science, Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies (PPSIS), and the department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic.
Cambridge also has specialist research centres for African Studies, Latin American Studies, International Studies, International Law, History and Economics, and for the History of Population and Social Structure. The Faculty aims to recruit outstanding graduate students from all backgrounds across the entire range of the discipline of History, provided that an appropriate Supervisor can be allocated to them.
Cambridge is one of the world’s leading universities. Founded in 1209, it has about 12,000 undergraduates and 5,000 graduate students. It is located in the city of Cambridge, which is 51 miles (81 kilometres) north of London, 45 minutes’ journey time by train. The university is organized into 21 Faculties and over 50 Departments, employing over 1,200 Professors, Readers and Lecturers.
The MPhil courses, which all last from nine months to one year, are conceived both as taught degrees in their own right, and as pathways towards doctoral research.
At present there are six MPhil. courses offered by the History Faculty:
• Political Thought & Intellectual History
The Faculty offers two research qualifications in History:
• Master of Philosophy (MPhil.)
• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD.)
Candidates have to complete one or three years of research respectively to meet the residence requirements for each qualification. Every year between 80-130 students begin graduate programmes in the Faculty. Some begin immediately on a course leading directly to the degree of PhD., but about two-thirds of the new students take MPhil courses.