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Great Ideas is a course reflecting on some of the most exciting, important and revolutionary ideas that have shaped society and culture as it is today. It also considers how those ideas have an ongoing influence. It’s an interdisciplinary course look...

Who are Aotearoa New Zealand's people? How and when did they get here? New Zealand is the last major land mass settled by humans. What does this mean for its peoples and the world? In this course we interweave two major historical strands of Aotearoa...

The extraordinary events of 1936 are our starting point for this course: a Black athlete defied Hitler, the battle between communism and fascism boiled over in the Spanish Civil War, a blockbuster novel romanticizing slavery was published. You will d...

Pirates, spies, scoundrels, revolutionaries, witches and assassins! Welcome to the history of revolutions, empires and peoples in North, Central and South America. You will travel from the 1600s through to the US Civil War exploring important histori...

How do Europe’s historical upheavals and contradictions inform our contemporary notions of modernity? Students will investigate the histories of the continent, and the local and global implications of Europe’s path towards modernity. Demographic chan...

Assassin's Creed or Game of Thrones? What was life really like in a medieval city? What were the consequences of the Black Death? You will discover the political, economic, cultural and social lives of medieval and early modern Europeans, from peasan...

In the Māori world, time and place are configured in ways born of deep connection to these temperate islands of Kiwa's Great Ocean. The dynamic, living framework of whakapapa orders the universe relationally and waiata holds the history of the people...

This course examines an array of social movements, the banners under which people organised, the forms of collectivism they deployed, and the activities they engaged to contest colonialism and capitalism in Aotearoa New Zealand. We begin with Te Kota...

The American century from 1865-1975 was one of criminalisation and liberation, punishment and protest, the expansion and contraction of human rights. You will examine American involvement in international jurisprudence about genocide, anti-communist ...

This course examines the history of the US as it expanded from a continental to an international power. It analyses crucial episodes in the century including the New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the US's role in the po...

In the largest ocean on the planet, Pacific Island peoples navigate a world of waves and currents, volcanoes, islands and atolls. Explore the history of the peoples of the Pacific Islands from their initial settlement of Oceania to the present day. Y...

What does the life of Christopher Columbus tell us about medieval and early modern world history, 1000–1650? Explore the histories of Renaissance Italy, navigation, the Crusades, the Inquisition, and Empires in the Americas through Columbus’s life as...

We examine the history of New Zealand’s relations with the Pacific islands from the 1890s to the 1990s through the life histories of Pacific peoples in Aotearoa and NZers in the Pacific (e.g., travellers, traders, “chiefs”, missionaries, students, pe...

This course introduces the nations of the Soviet Empire, discussing both federal regions within the USSR itself and dependent states beyond the Soviet frontier. Lectures contrast the evolution of Communist rule at the Russian core of the empire with ...

This course on the German-Speaking world starts at the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648 and concludes at the present day, and it takes the interplay between German linguistic nationalism and other political loyalties as its main theme.

What are the forces that have shaped our political world? Who are the winners and losers, the dreamers and schemers? In this course, you will explore the key themes in New Zealand political history: the changing shape and nature of the New Zealand st...

This course introduces the twentieth-century history of the Middle East with a focus on Arab, Persian, and Turkish national experiences. Lectures explore ideas of political legitimacy: the course examines the collapse of the Ottoman caliphate, Europe...

Why did the Church prosecute Galileo? What scientific work was open to women? How did Leonardo da Vinci and other artist-engineers contribute to the sciences? Science has a history—not just a history of how theories about nature improved over time, b...

What does the life of Christopher Columbus tell us about medieval and early modern world history, 1000–1650? Explore the histories of Renaissance Italy, navigation, the Crusades, the Inquisition, and Empires in the Americas through Columbus’s life as...

This course explores how the meaning of work has changed over time in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It interrogates the interplay of race, class, gender and sexuality in the worlds of work.

In 2025 this course will consider migration to to New Zealand from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales over the period 1800 to 1945 in the context of British and Irish migration more generally, and New Zealand’s place in the world in the Age of Mass...

This course introduces the twentieth-century history of the Middle East with a focus on Arab, Persian and Turkish national experiences. Lectures explore ideas of political legitimacy: the course examines the collapse of the Ottoman caliphate, Europea...

Māori is often described as an oral culture. How then do we explain the massive amount of texts produced by Māori in the 19th century – one of the largest collections of Indigenous written material in the world? This course offers you the opportunity...

We examine the history of New Zealand’s relations with the Pacific islands from the 1890s to the 1990s through the life histories of Pacific peoples in Aotearoa and NZers in the Pacific (e.g., travellers, traders, “chiefs”, missionaries, students, pe...

This course investigates the Holocaust through the history of antisemitism, Nazi ideology, ghettos and extermination camps, dehumanisation, collaboration and resistance. You You will gain in-depth knowledge of this unprecedented genocide, and acquire...

World War One was more than a military event. It was a catastrophic conflict that affected millions of people and accelerated cultural and technological change. You will investigate a range of social and cultural effects of the War, focusing particul...

The political and social history of the Pacific Islands since 1945 has been tumultuous, with decolonisation, democratisation, urbanisation, governance and ethnic conflict playing out in various countries. We will examine developments between WWII and...

This course will introduce students to historical problems and approaches in studying the five senses: vision, touch, taste, smell and hearing. The chief aims of the course are to consider the role of the senses in history and to interrogate historia...

In this course we explore how we are shaped and in turn shape our historical pasts, through the medium of oral history. How are kōrero tuku iho – indigenous oral histories – crucial to tribal autonomy and liberation? How do whānau and whenua inform t...

This course will examine the digital tools and methods increasingly used by historians in producing historical scholarship, via discussion of recent scholarship on digital history and hands-on workshops of various digital skills and resources. Studen...

This course will examine the importance of social class as an analytical category and a historical reality. Attention will be paid to classical and more recent theoretical debates, and to the concrete meaning of class in a variety of historical situa...

This course introduces students to the phenomenon 'national awakening' by examining the political, social, intellectual, and cultural origins of East European nationalism in light of nationalism theory. Students may choose to focus on either Czech or...

HIST 489 is a compulsory research essay undertaken in the completion of a BA (Hons) degree. The topic is devised principally by the student under the guidance of a History programme staff member.

MA thesis in History.

PhD course.