MA Military History by Research

University of Buckingham

The University of Buckingham’s Master’s programme in Military History offers the opportunity to pursue research in any one of a wide range of topics ranging in time from the campaigns of the Duke of Marlborough in the early eighteenth-century through to the end of the Second World War.The majority of students have tended to opt for subjects ranging from the Boer War to 1945, but theses addressing the Napoleonic campaigns, naval warfare in the nineteenth century, and the role of the military in the expansion of the British and other European empires have also figured prominently. Themes have ranged from the social impact of war to the biographies of leading combatants, the operational and tactical development of armies to the international, strategic and political dimensions of military history. The Financial Times has reviewed the course enthusiastically, noting that Intellectually curious professionals are signing up for a new course that gives them the opportunity to exchange thoughts on security, diplomacy and the armed forces over dinner with stellar historians and military top brass. Individual research topics are of course closely focused; but the approach of the course is to encourage students to consider military history as something more than the analysis of particular campaigns and to consider factors like politics, culture and society. The choice of subject area is ultimately the student’s own.The Master’s degree can be taken either full-time and completed in a single academic year, or taken part-time and extended over two years.