These topics are the focus of current political and public debate, but the historical and geographical comparative dimension is often missing. Our MA specialisation will train you to approach these exciting themes from an academic perspective. To gain a deep understanding of these phenomena, you will focus on changes and continuities from the 16th century to the 20th century. Our approach is interdisciplinary; we apply and adapt theories from sociology, anthropology, political science, criminology and economics. Within this methodology you will learn the importance of paying systematic attention to differences based on gender, class, ethnicity and religion.

Sources

What characterises our unique programme is not only our approach, but also our preference for working with a wide variety of sources. You will work with diaries, newspapers, parliamentary papers, population registers, interviews, novels, photos and films, statistics, and business archives. This enables you to enhance your skills to work creatively and innovatively.

Moving and staying

Within our programme we look at the movement of people, goods, services, capital, and ideas. All these migrations and movements engendered change, for those who moved and for those who stayed. You will study the impact of connections, and changes within them, on cultures, state formation, economies and societies. We can do this at an individual level (migrants, citizens) or at a collective level (towns, nations, trade networks, organisations, EU, multinationals).

Borders, rules and institutions

Given the central theme of movement in this specialisation, we study means and restrictions, which can be demographic, physical, spatial, political, institutional, legal, technical, financial, and imagined or mental. For instance, in the Early Modern period the boundaries of cities were often more important than national borders. When later citizenship was transplanted from town to nation, the ideal of citizenship was bureaucratised, which had an effect on the way citizens were involved in civil services and civil society.

We saw large numbers of people crossings borders in the twentieth century, but the reverse was also true: borders moved across people when states and colonies lost existence or were created. Given that the influence of the European Union extends beyond the geo-political borders of Europe, the EU and other supranational bodies have in some respects made national borders less important.

Economic History

Within this specialisation, it is possible to focus on Economic History, where the key themes are the origins and distribution of income and profit. Specific attention is paid to the economic history of Europe and the EU, East and Southeast Asia, and the United States. We include in both our research and our teaching the rise of the West, globalisation, economic policy, the welfare state, labour relations, and economic co-operation between countries.

Staff

This programme is taught by migration experts: Leo Lucassen, Chris Quispel, Marlou Schrover and Wim Willems, experts on Early modern history of cities, cultures and trade networks: Manon van der Heijden, and Catia Antunes and experts in economic history: Richard Griffiths, Thomas Lindblad, and Jeroen Touwen.