postgraduate history dissertation examples

College of Arts & Sciences

Completed Dissertations

2020-present.

Beaman, Greg Transregional History “Slavery in the Suburbs: A History of Real Estate and Slavery in the Faubourgs of New Orleans, 1788-1852” Advisor: Adam Rothman

Broadus, Victoria Latin American History “ Vissungo: The Afro-Descended Culture of Miners and Maroons in Brazil’s Diamond District, 1850s-2020s “ Advisor: Bryan McCann

Burnham, Jakob European History “Producing Pondichéry: Bureaucracy, Social Lives, and Urban Development in French India, 1699-1757” Advisors: Elizabeth Cross and James Collins

Donnell, Natalie European History “Noblewomen’s Political Networks Across the European Wars of Religion (1559-1633)” Advisors: James Collins & Amy Leonard

Gao, Yuan East & Central Asian History “China’s Great West: Environment and Economy in Late Qing Xinjiang, 1877-1917” Advisor: James Millward

MacKinlay, Hillary Transregional History “‘The Kingdom Will Prosper’: Imperialism In Fiji, 1800-1874” Advisors: Alison Games & Carol Benedict

Mensah, Tracey African History “ ‘Shopping for All Pocket’: A Business History of Indians in Ghana, 1890–1980 “ Advisor: Meredith McKittrick

Nanavati, Abhishek East & Central Asian History “ Co-Producing ‘American Dreams’: Dependents Housing, Hydroponic Farming, and the Militarization of Everyday Life in Occupied Japan, Okinawa, and South Korea, 1945-1950 “ Advisor: Jordan Sand

Stephens, Leigh European History “Violating the Body Politic: The Politic of Suffering, Gender, and Royal Authority during the French Wars of Religion (1560-1589)” Advisors: James Collins & Amy Leonard

Sultan, Yasser Middle East & North African History “Beyond The Battlefield: Military Propaganda and the Battle for Narrative in Nasser’s & Sadat’s Egypt” Advisor: Judith Tucker

Young, Perry Russian & Eastern European History “The Dialectics of War: Left and Right Ideologies of War, Peace, and Militarism in Russia and Sweden, 1914-1945” Advisor: Michael David-Fox

    2022-2023

Akgül, Önder Middle East & North African History “ Ecology, the Accumulation of Capital, and Dispossession in Late Ottoman Western Anatolia “ Advisor: Mustafa Aksakal

Chan, Paula Russia & Eastern European History “ Eyes on the Ground: Soviet Investigations of the Nazi Occupation “ Advisor: Michael David-Fox

Grams, Benan Middle East & North African History “ Damascus in the Time of Cholera: The Impact of Communicable Diseases on the Transformation of an Ottoman Provincial Capital 1840-1920 “ Advisor: Mustafa Aksakal

La Lime, Matthew African History “ Land, Informality, and Security: A Material History of West Africa’s Futa Jallon Massif (1650-2019) “ Advisor: Meredith McKittrick

Norweg, Emily United States History “ Mass(achusetts) Incarceration and Higher Education: the Deep Origins and Contested History of College Behind Bars in the Bay State “ Advisor: Marcia Chatelain

Steir, Kate Transregional History “ Provisions of Power: Food and Scarcity in Jamaica 1730-1790 “ Advisor: Alison Games

    2021-2022

Christensen, Robert Latin American History “Worlds in Conflict: Indigenous Peoples, Environmental Challenges, and the ‘Conquista del Desierto’ in the Making of Argentina, 1870-1900” Advisor: Erick Langer

De Vries, Jennifer European History “‘In the Manner of the Beguines’: Regulating Beguine Life in the Low Countries, 1200-1600” Advisor: Amy Leonard

Dingman, Jacob East & Central Asian History “‘The Unknown Country’: Tibet in the Western Imagination, 1850 – 1950” Advisor: James Millward

Hudson, Chelsea East & Central Asian history “‘To Absent Us from Humanity’: Ainu and Population Counts under Russian and Japanese Administration” Advisor: Jordan Sand

Loyd, Thomas Russian and Eastern European History “Black in the USSR: African Students, Soviet Empire, and the Politics of Global Education during the Cold War” Advisor: Michael David-Fox

Proctor, Dylan Environmental History “Multidisciplinary Approaches to Infectious Disease History in Twentieth-Century Africa” Advisor: Timothy Newfield

Tarasov, Stanislav Russian and Eastern European History “Noble Feelings of Dissent: Russian Emotional Culture and the Decembrist Revolt of 1825” Advisor: Michael David-Fox

Torres, James Latin American History “Trade in a Changing World: Gold, Silver, and Commodity Flows in the Northern Andes, 1780-1840” Advisor: Erick Langer

Thacker, Molly United States History “‘Are We Not Children Too?’: Race, Media, and the Formative History of Unaccompanied Immigrant Children in the United States Advisor: Katherine Benton-Cohen

Young, Cory United States History “For Life or Otherwise: Abolition and Slavery in South Central Pennsylvania, 1780-1847” Advisor: Adam Rothman

    2020-2021

Barraza Mendoza, Elsa United States History “Catholic Slaveholders, Enslaved People, and the Making of Georgetown University, 1792-1862” Advisor: Adam Rothman

DeLorenzo, Christopher Latin American History “Coca Substitution and Community Response in the Yungas of La Paz, Bolivia, 1920-1988” Advisor: Erick Langer

Eames, Anthony Transregional History “Public Diplomacy For the Nuclear Age: Anglo American Grand Strategy in the Late Cold War” Advisor: Kathryn Olesko & David Painter

Feldman, Benjamin United States History “Liberation from the Affluent Society: The Political Thought of the Third World in Post‐War America” Advisor: Michael Kazin

Gornostaev, Andrey Russia and Eastern European History “Peasants ‘on the Run’: State Control, Fugitives, Social and Geographic Mobility in Imperial Russia, 1649-1796” Advisor: James Collins

Holekamp, Abigail Russian and Eastern European History “Citizens and Comrades: Entangled Revolutions and the Production of Knowledge between Russia and France, 1905-1936” Advisor: Michael David-Fox

Johnson, Matthew Environmental History “Temples of Modern Pharaohs: Environmental Impacts of Dams and Dictatorship in Brazil” Advisor: John McNeill

Kang, Sukhwan European History “Between Peaceful Coexistence and Ongoing Conflict: Religious Tolerance and the Protestant Minority in Seventeenth-Century France” Advisor: James Collins

Kaymakci, Said European History “The Constitutional Limits of Military Reform: Ottoman Political Writing During the Times of Revolutionary Change, 1592-1807” Advisor: Gabor Agoston

McQueeney, Kevin United States History “The City that Care Forgot: Apartheid Health Care, Racial Health Disparity, and Black Health Activism in New Orleans, 1718-2018” Advisor: Marcia Chatelain

McRae, Douglas Latin American History “From Fluvial City To Hydro-Metropolis: Water, Sanitation, and Metropolitan Environment In São Paulo, Brazil (1850-1975)” Advisor: Bryan McCann

O’Neal, Jennifer United States History “Beyond the Trail of Broken Treaties: The International Native American Rights Movement, 1975‐1980” Advisor: David Painter

Patel, Trishula African History “Becoming Zimbabwean: A History of Indians in Rhodesia, 1890-1980” Advisor: Meredith McKittrick

Perry, Jackson Environmental History “The Gospel of the Gum: Eucalyptus Enthusiasm and the Modern Mediterranean, ca. 1848-1900” Advisor: John McNeill

Schwertner, Hillar Latin American History “Tijuandiego: Water, Capitalism and Urbanization in the Californias, 1848-1982” Advisor: John Tutino

Singh, Amarjot Transregional History “The Shadows of Command: Military Command in Ancient Sparta and Athens” Advisor: Alexander Sens & Jordan Sand

    2019-2020

Belokowsky, Simon Russian & Eastern European History “‘Youth Is to Live in the City!’: Rural Out-Migration in the Black Earth Region under Khrushchev and Brezhnev” Advisor: Michael David-Fox

Cano, Daniel Latin American History “Frontiers of Education: The Making of the ‘Literate Indian’ in the Mission Schools of Chile and Bolivia, 1880-1950” Advisor: Erick Langer

Famularo, Julia East & Central Asian History “‘Fighting the Enemy with Fists and Daggers:’ The Chinese Communist Party’s Counterterrorism Policy in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region under Xi Jinping, 2012-2019” Advisor: James Millward

Foley, Thomas United States History “An ‘Odious Aristocracy:’ Energy, Politics, and the Roots of Industrial Capitalism in Nineteenth-Century Pennsylvania” Advisor: David Painter

Frazier, Chad United States History “From Subjects to Citizens: The University of Puerto Rico and the Citizenship Revolution in the Greater United States, 1898-1935” Advisor: Katherine Benton-Cohen

Hock, Stefan Middle East & North African History “Policing War and Sexuality in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, 1908-1938” Advisor: Mustafa Aksakal

Goffman, Laura Middle East & North African History “Disorder and Diagnosis: Health and Society in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula” Advisor: Judith Tucker

Kondoyanidi, Anita Russian & Eastern European History “The Prophet Disillusioned: Maxim Gorky and the Russian Revolutions” Advisor: Michael David-Fox

Macartney, Alexander European History “War in the Postwar: Japan and West Germany Protest the Vietnam War and the Global Strategy of Imperialism” Advisor: Anna von der Goltz

Ryzhkovskyi, Volodymyr Russian & Eastern European History “Soviet Occidentalism: Medieval Studies and the Restructuring of Imperial Knowledge in Twentieth-Century Russia” Advisor: Michael David-Fox

Scallen, Patrick Latin American History “‘The Bombs That Drop in El Salvador Explode in Mount Pleasant:’ From Cold War Conflagration to Immigrant Struggles in Washington, DC, 1970-1995” Advisor: John Tutino & Joseph McCartin

    2018-2019

Al-Saif, Bader Middle East & North African History “Reform Islam? The Renewal of Islamic Thought and Praxis in Modern and Contemporary Arabian Peninsula” Advisor: Yvonne Haddad

Berry, Chelsea Transregional History “ Poisoned Relations: Medicine, Sorcery, and Poison Trials in the Contested Atlantic, 1680-1850 ” Advisor: Alison Games

Brew, Greg US History “ Mandarins, Paladins, and Pahlavis: The International Energy System, the United States, and the Dual Integration of Oil in Iran, 1925-1964 ” Advisor: David Painter

Cornwell, Graham H. Middle East & North African History “ Sweetening the Pot: A History of Tea and Sugar in Morocco, 1850-1960 ” Advisor: Osama Abi-Mershed

Dannies, Kate Middle East & North African History “ Breadwinner Soldiers: Gender, Welfare, and Sovereignty in the Ottoman First World War ” Advisor: Judith Tucker

Horn, Oliver US History “ From Model to Menace: U.S. Foreign Aid, Development, and Drugs in Cold War Colombia, 1956-1978 ” Advisor: David Painter

Kates, Adrienne Latin American History “ The Persistence of Maya Autonomy: Global Capitalism, Tropical Environments, and the Limits of the Mexican State, 1880-1950 ” Advisor: John Tutino

Mellor, Robynne Environmental History “ The Cold War Underground: An Environmental History of Uranium Mining in the United States, Canada, and the Soviet Union, 1945-1991 ” Advisor: John McNeill

Porta, Earnest Middle East & North African History “ Morocco in the Early Atlantic World, 1415-1603 ” Advisor: Osama Abi-Mershed

Raykhlina, Yelizaveta Russian & Eastern European History “ Russian Literary Marketplace: Periodicals, Social Identity, and Publishing for the Middle Stratum in Imperial Russia, 1825-1865 ” Advisor: Catherine Evtuhov Shi, Yue East & Central Asian History “ The Seven Rivers: Empire and Economy in the Russo-Qing Central Asian Frontier, 1860s-1910s “ Advisor: James Millward

    2017-2018

Abbott, Elena Transregional History “ Beacons of Liberty: Free-Soil Havens and the American Slavery Debate, 1813-1863 ” Advisor: Adam Rothman Denning, Meredith Environmental History “ Connections and Consensus: Changing Goals for Transnational Water Management on Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, 1900-1972 ” Advisor: John McNeill

Hull, Catherine US History “ The Machine has a Soul: American Sympathizers with Italian Fascism ” Advisor: Michael Kazin

Husain, Faisal Environmental History “ Flows of Power: The Tigris-Euphrates Basin Under Ottoman Rule, 1534-1831 ” Advisor: John McNeill

Kaplan, Isabelle Russian & Eastern European History “ The Art of Nation-Building: National Culture and Soviet Politics in Stalin-Era Azerbaijan and Other Minority Republics ” Advisor: Michael David-Fox

Maurer, John US History “ An Era of Negotiation: SALT in the Nixon Administration, 1969-1972 “ Advisor: David Painter

Mevissen, Robert European History “ Constructing the Danube Monarchy: Habsburg State-Building in the Long Nineteenth Century ” Advisor: James Shedel

Reger, Jeffrey Middle East & North African History “ Planting Palestine: The Political Economy of Olive Culture in the 20th Century Galilee and West Bank ” Advisor: Judith Tucker

Smith, Jordan Transregional History “ The Invention of Rum “ Advisor: Alison Games

Taylor, Stephanie US History “ ‘I Have the Eagle:’ Citizenship and Labor in the Progressive Era, 1890-1925 ” Advisor: Joseph McCartin

Walter, Alissa Middle East & North African History “ The Ba’ath Party in Baghdad: State-Society Relations Through Wars, Sanctions and Authoritarian Rule, 1950-2003 ” Advisor: Judith Tucker

Yeaw, Katrina Middle East & North African History “ Women, Resistance and the Creation of New Gendered Frontiers in the Making of Modern Libya, 1890-1980 ” Advisor: Judith Tucker

    2016-2017

Amelicheva, Mariya Russian History “ The Russian Residency in Constantinople, 1700-1774: Russian-Ottoman Diplomatic Encounters “ Advisor: Catherine Evtuhov

Benton, James US History “ Fraying Fabric: Textile Labor, Trade Politics, and Deindustrialization, 1933-1974 ” Advisor: Joseph McCartin

Biasetto, Bruno Latin American History “ The Poisoned Chalice: Oil and Macroeconomics in Brazil (1967-2003) ” Advisor: Bryan McCann

Calisir, M. Fatih European History “ A ‘Virtuous’ Grand Vizier: Politics and Patronage in the Ottoman Empire during the Grand Vizierate of Fazil Ahmed Pasha (1661-1676)” ” Advisor: Gabor Agoston

Davies Lenoble, Geraldine Latin American History “ Filling the Desert: The Indigenous Confederacies of the Pampas and Northern Patagonia, 1840-1879 ” Advisor: Erick Langer

El Achi, Soha European History “ Children and Slave Emancipation in French Algeria and Tunisia, 1846-1892 ” Advisor: Osama Abi-Mershed

Gettig, Eric Transregional History “ Oil and Revolution in Cuba: Development, Nationalism, and the U.S. Energy Empire, 1902-1961 ” Advisor: David Painter

Gungorurler, Selim European History “ Diplomacy and Political Relations Between the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Iran, 1639-1822 ” Advisor: Gabor Agoston

Megowan, Erina Russian & Eastern European History “ For Fatherland, For Culture: State, Intelligentsia and Evacuated Culture in Russia’s Regions, 1941-1945 ” Advisor: Michael David-Fox

Mullins, Sylvia European History “ Myroblytes: Miraculous Oil in Medieval Europe ” Advisor: James Collins

Pitts, Graham Transregional History “ Fallow Fields: Famine and the Making of Lebanon, 1914-1948 ” Advisor: John McNeill

Polczynski, Michael Russian and Eastern European History “ The Wild Fields: Power and Space in the Early Modern Polish-Lithuanian/Ottoman Frontier ” Advisor: Andrzej Kaminski & Gabor Agoston

Rabah, Makram Middle East and North African History “ Conflict on Mount Lebanon: Collective Memory and the War of the Mountain ” Advisor: Osama Abi-Mershed

Shen, Yubin East and Central Asian History “ Malaria and Global Networks of Tropical Medicine in Modern China, 1919-1950 ” Advisor: Carol A. Benedict

Sicotte, Jonathan Russian and Eastern European History “ Baku: Violence, Identity and Oil ” Advisor: Michael David-Fox

    2015-2016

Danforth, Nicholas Modern European History “ Memory, Modernity, and the Remaking of Republican Turkey:  1945-1960 ” Advisor: Mustafa Aksakal

Dixon, Patrick US History “ The Hamlet Factory Fire and the Political Economy of Poultry in the Twentieth Century “ Advisor: Joseph McCartin

England, Christopher US History “ Land and Liberty: Henry George, the Single Tax Movement, and the Origins of the 20th Century Liberalism “ Advisor: Michael Kazin

Gardner, Zackary US History “ Uniforming the Rugged: Gender, Identity, and the American Administrative State during the Progressive Era, 1898-1917 “ Advisor: Katherine Benton-Cohen

Gratien, Christopher Middle East & North African History “ The Mountains Are Ours: Ecology and Settlement in Late Ottoman and early Republican Cilicia, 1856-1956 “ Advisor: Judith Tucker

Gregory, Eugene John East & Central Asian History “ Desertion and the Militarization of Qing Legal Culture “ Advisor: James Millward

Hammond, Kelly East & Central Asian History “ The Conundrum of Collaboration: Japanese Involvement with Muslims in North China, 1931-1945 “ Advisor: James Millward

Johnson, Glen Russia & Eastern European History “ The Reflection of Byzantine ‘Political Hesychasm’ In The Literature of The Second South Slavic Influence ” Advisor: David Goldfrank

McCarron, Barry US International History “ The Global Irish and Chinese: Migration, Exclusion, and Foreign Relations Among Empires, 1784-1904 “ Advisor: Carol A. Benedict

Ngo, Lan, S.J. East & Southeast Asian History “ Nguyen-Catholic History (1770s-1890s) and the Gestation of Vietnamese Catholic National Identity “ Advisor: Sandra Horvath-Peterson

Pimenov, Alexei Russia & Eastern European History Dissertation Title: “ German Romantic Nationalism and Indian Cultural Tradition ” Advisor: Catherine Evtuhov

Roe, Alan Russian & Eastern European History “ Into Soviet Nature: Tourism, Environmental Protection, & the Formation of Soviet National Parks, 1950s-1990s “ Advisor: John McNeill

Veloz, Larisa Latin American History “ ’Even the Women Are Leaving’ Gendered Migrations between Mexico and the United States: Revolutionary Diasporas, Depression-Era Depatriations, and Wartime Bracero Controls, 1900-1950 ” Advisor: John Tutino

Wen, Shuang Transregional History “ Mediated Imaginations: Chinese-Arab Connections in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries “ Advisor: John Voll

Williams, Elizabeth Middle East & North African History “ Cultivating Empires: Environment, Expertise, and Scientific Agriculture in Late Ottoman and French Mandate Syria ” Advisor: Judith Tucker

    2014-2015

Adler, Paul US History “ Planetary Citizens: U.S. NGOs and the Politics of International Development, 1965-1993 “ Advisor: Michael Kazin

Kueh, Joshua Eng Sin Transregional History “ The Manila Chinese: Community, Trade and Empire, 1570-1770 “ Advisor: Carol A. Benedict

Packard, Nathan R. US History “ The Marine Corps ‘Long March’: Modernizing the Nation’s Expeditionary Forces in the Aftermath of Vietnam, 1970-1991 “ Advisor: David Painter

Perez Montesinos, Fernando Latin American History “ Poised to Break Liberalism, Land Reform, and Communities in the Purépecha Highlands of Michoacán, Mexico, 1868-1913 “ Advisor: John Tutino

Perrier, Aurelie E. Middle East & North African History “ Intimate Matters: Negotiating Sex, Gender, and the Home in Colonial Algeria, 1830-1914 “ Advisor: Judith Tucker

Stewart Mauldin, Erin US Environmental History “ Unredeemed Land: The U.S. Civil War, Changing Land Use Practices, and the Environmental Limitations of Agriculture in the South, 1840-1880 “ Advisor: John McNeill

Taylor, Brian M. US History “ ‘To Make a Union What It Ought to Be’: African Americans, Military Service, and the Drive to Make Black Civil War Service Count “ Advisor: Chandra Manning

    2013-2014

Bowlus, John V. US History “ Connecting Midstream: The Politics and Economics of Oil Transportation in the Middle East “ Advisor: David Painter

Doucette, Siobhan Russia & Eastern European History “ Mightier than the Sword: Polish Independent Publishing, 1976-1989 ” Advisor: Andrzej Kaminski

Fernandez, Rodolfo Latin American History “ Revolution and the Industrial City: Violence and Capitalism in Monterrey, Mexico, 1890 to 1920 “ Advisor: John Tutino

Gooding, Frederick W. Jr. US History “ American Dream Deferred: Black Federal Workers in Washington, D.C., 1941-1981 “ Advisor: Michael Kazin

Hill, Michael R. Transregional History “ Temperateness, Temperance, and the Tropics: Climate and Morality in the English Atlantic World, 1553-1705 “ Advisor: Alison Games

Hower, Jessica S. Transregional History “ Tudor Imperialism: Exploration, Expansion, and Experimentation in the Sixteenth-Century British Atlantic World “ Advisor: Alison Games

Hower, Joseph E. US History “ Jerry Wurf, the Rise of AFSCME, and the Fate of Labor Liberalism, 1947-1981 “ Advisor: Joseph McCartin

İşçi, Onur Middle East & North African History “ Russophobic Neutrality: Turkish Diplomacy, 1936-1945 “ Advisor: Mustafa Aksakal

Puente Valdivia, Javier Latin American History “ Closer Apart: Indigenous and Peasant Communities and the State in Capitalist Peru, 1700-1990 “ Advisor: Erick Langer

Wiley, Christopher J. Modern European History “ Textbook Diplomacy: East German Student Exchange and the GDR’s Bid for Global Legitimacy, 1951-1990 “ Advisor: Aviel Roshwald

Williams, Andrea Elizabeth Middle East & North African Environmental History “ Planting Politics: Pastoralists and French Environmental Administration in the Nineteenth-Century Mediterranean “ Advisor: John McNeill and Gabor Agoston Yoder, April R. Latin American History “ Pitching Democracy: Baseball and Politics in the Dominican Republic, 1955-1978 “ Advisor: Bryan McCann

    2012-2013

Corcoran, John M. Russia & Eastern European History “ Power in the Provinces: The Evolution of Local Government Practices in Imperial Russia, 1825-1917 ” Advisor: Catherine Evtuhov

Francis-Fallon, Benjamin US History “ Minority Reports: The Emergence of Pan-Hispanic Politics, 1945-1980 ” Advisor: Michael Kazin

Harrison, Jennifer Pish US History “ Teacher Unionism and Civil Rights in Boston, 1963-1981 ” Advisor: Joseph McCartin

Hazelton, Andrew J. US History “ Open-Shop Fields: The Bracero Program and Farmworker Unionism, 1942-1964 ” Advisor: Joseph McCartin

Kern, Darcy A. Early Modern & Late Medieval European History “ The Political Kingdom: Parliamentary Institutions and Languages of Legitimacy in England and Castile, 1450-1520 ” Advisor: Jo Ann Moran-Cruz

Krache Morris, Evelyn F. US History “ Into the Wind: The Kennedy Administration and the Use of Chemicals in South Vietnam ” Advisor: David Painter

Landry, Marc D. Modern European Environmental History “ Europe’s Battery: The Making of the Alpine Energy Landscape, 1870-1955 ” Advisor: John McNeill

Lurie, Guy Early Modern & Late Medieval European History “ Citizenship in Later Medieval France, C. 1370- C. 1480 ” Advisor: James Collins

Scarborough, Daniel L. Russia & Eastern European History “ The White Priest at Work: Orthodox Pastoral Activism and Social Reconstruction in Late Imperial Russia ” Advisor: Catherine Evtuhov

Toprani, Anand US History “ Oil and Grand Strategy: Great Britain and Germany, 1918-1941 ” Advisor: David Painter

    2011-2012

Apel, Thomas A. US History “ Feverish Bodies, Enlightened Minds: Yellow Fever and Common-Sense Natural Philosophy in the Early American Republic, 1793-1805 “ Advisor: Adam Rothman

Connell, Tula A. US History “ Frank Zeidler and the Conservative Challenge to Liberalism in 1950s Milwaukee “ Advisor: Joseph A. McCartin

Coral Garcia, Emilio M. Latin American History “ The Mexico City Middle Class, 1940-70: Between Tradition, the State, and the United States “ Advisor: John Tutino

Guenther, Rita S. Russia & Eastern European History “ One Local Vote at a Time: Electoral Practices of Kazan Province, 1766-1916 “ Advisor: Catherine Evtuhov

Gurkan, Emrah S. Early Modern & Late Medieval European History “ Espionage in the Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean: Secret Diplomacy, Mediterranean Go-Betweens and the Ottoman Habsburg Rivalry ” Advisor: Ágoston, Gábor

Higuchi, Toshihiro US History “ Radioactive Fallout, the Politics of Risk, and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis, 1954–1963 “ Advisor: David Painter

Hofmeister, Björn Modern European History “ Between Monarchy and Dictatorship: Radical Nationalism and Social Mobilization of the Pan-German League, 1914-39 “ Advisor: Roger Chickering

Johnston, Shona Transregional History “ Papists in a Protestant World: The Catholic Anglo-Atlantic in the Seventeenth Century “ Advisor: Alison Games

Maureira, Hugo A. Latin American History “ Los Culpables de La Miseria:’ Poverty and Public Health during the Spanish Influenza Epidemic in Chile, 1918-1920 ” Advisor: Erick Langer

McKenna, Catherine J. Russia & Eastern European History “ The Curious Evolution of the Liberum Veto: Republican Theory and Practice in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 1639-1705 ” Advisor: Andrzej Kaminski

Murphy, Curtis G. Russia & Eastern European History “ Progress without Consent: Enlightened Centralism vis-a-vis Local Self-Government in the Towns of East Central Europe and Russia, 1764-1840 ” Advisor: Andrzej Kaminski

Noorlander, Danny L. Transregional History “ Serving God and Mammon: The Reformed Church and the Dutch West India Company in the Atlantic World, 1621-1674 “ Advisor: Alison Games

Wang, Tao US History “ Isolating the Enemy: US-PRC Relations, 1953-1956 ” Advisor: Nancy B. Tucker

Yousef, Hoda A. Middle East & North African History “ Contested Knowledge: The Politics of Literacy in Egypt at the Turn of the 20th Century “ Advisor: Judith Tucker

    2010-2011

Al-Arian, Abdullah A. Middle East & North African History “ Heeding the Call: Popular Islamic Activism in Egypt, 1970-1981 “ Advisor: John Voll

Bowman, Matthew B. US History “ The Urban Pulpit: Evangelicals and the City in New York, 1880-1930 “ Advisor: Michael Kazin

Campion, Corey J. Modern European History “ Negotiating Difference: French and American Cultural Occupation Policies and German Expectations, 1945-194 9″ Advisor: Roger Chickering

Engelke, Peter O. Modern European History “ Green City Origins: Democratic Resistance to the Auto-oriented City in West Germany, 1960-1990 “ Advisor: Roger Chickering and John McNeill

Gummer, S. Chase Modern European History “ The Politics of Sympathy: German Turcophilism and the Ottoman Empire in the Age of the Mass Media, 1871-1914 “ Advisor: Roger Chickering

Robarts, Andrew R. Russia & Eastern European History “ A Plague on Both Houses?: Population Movements and the Spread of Disease across the Ottoman-Russian Black Sea Frontier, 1768-1830s “ Advisor: Catherine Evtuhov

Rotramel, Seth A. Modern European History “ International Health, European Reconciliation, and German Foreign Policy after the First World War, 1919-1927 “ Advisor: Roger Chickering

Vallve, Frederic Latin American History “ The Impact of the Rubber Boom on the Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian Lowlands, 1850-1920 “ Advisor: Erick Langer

    2009-2010

Brandow-Faller, Megan Modern European History “ An Art of Their Own: Reinventing ‘Frauenkunst’ in the Female Academies and Artist Leagues of Late-Imperial and First-Republic Austria, 1900-1930 “ Advisor: James Shedel

Fulwider, Benjamin Latin American History “ Driving the Nation: Road Transportation and the Postrevolutionary Mexican State, 1925-1960 “ Advisor: John Tutino

Mamedov, Mikail N. Russia & Eastern European History “Imagining the Caucasus in Russian Imperial Consciousness, 1801-1864” Advisor: Catherine Evtuhov

Morrison, Christopher A. US History “ A World of Empires: United States Rule in the Philippines, 1898-1913 “ Advisor: Nancy B. Tucker

Palmer, Aaron J. US History “‘ All Matters and Things Shall Center There’: A Study of Elite Political Power in South Carolina, 1763-1776 “ Advisor: Alison Games

Sakul, Kahraman Early Modern & Late Medieval European History “ An Ottoman Global Moment: War of Second Coalition in the Levant “ Advisor: Gabor Agoston

Sexton, Mary D. US History “ The Wages of Principle and Power: Cyrus R. Vance and the Making of Foreign Policy in the Carter Administration “ Advisor: David Painter

Shlala, Elizabeth Middle East & North African History “Mediterranean Migration, Cosmopolitanism, and the Law: the Italian Community of Nineteenth-Century Alexandria, Egypt”

Wilkinson, Xenia V. Latin Amerian History “ Tapping the Amazon for Victory: Brazil’s ‘Battle for Rubber’ of World War II “ Advisor: Erick Langer

    2008-2009

Abul-Magd, Zeinab A. Middle East & North African History “ Empire and Its Discontents: Modernity and Subaltern Revolt in Upper Egypt, 1700-1920 “ Advisor: Judith Tucker

Byrnes, Melissa K. Modern European History “French Like Us? Municipal Policies and North African Migrants in the Parisian Banlieues, 1945-1975” Advisor: Aviel Roshwald

Granados, Luis F. Latin American History “Cosmopolitan Indians and Mesoamerican Barrios in Bourbon Mexico City: Tribute, Community, Family and Work in 1800” Advisor: John Tutino

Lauziere, Henri Middle East & North African History “ The Evolution of the Salafiyya in the Twentieth Century through the Life and Thought of Taqi al-Din al-Hilali “ Advisor: John Ruedy

Otovo, Okezi T. Latin American History “ To Form a Strong and Populous Nation: Race, Motherhood, and the State in republican Brazil “ Advisor: Bryan McCann

Rosu, Felicia Russia & Eastern European History “ Contractual Majesty: Electoral Politics in Transylvania and Poland-Lithuania, 1571-1586 “ Advisor: Andrzej Kaminski

Swanson, Ryan US History “Jim Crow on Deck: Baseball during America’s Reconstruction” Advisor: Michael Kazin

Wackerfuss, Andrew T. Modern European History “ The Stormtrooper Family: How Sexuality, Spirituality, and Community Shaped the Hamburg SA “ Advisor: Roger Chickering

Wyrtzen, Jonathan D. Middle East & North African History “ Constructing Morocco: The Colonial Struggle to Define the Nation, 1912-1956 “ Advisor: John Voll

    2007-2008

Bulmus, Birsen Middle East & North African History “ The Plague in the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1838 “ Advisor: Kathryn Olesko

Elliott, Robin Gates Russia & Eastern European History “ Saddling the Cow: The Collectivization of Agriculture in Poland, 1948-1956 “ Advisor: Andrzej Kaminski

Fedyashin, Anton A. Russia & Eastern European History “Auchtotonous and Practical Liberals: Vestnik Evropy and Modernization in Late Imperial Russia” Advisor: Catherine Evtuhov

Lambert, Margo M. US History “ Francis Daniel Pastorius: An American in Early Pennsylvania, 1683-1719/20 “ Advisor: Alison Games

Lin, Catherine Kai-Ping East & Central Asian History “ Nationalism in International Politics: The Republic of China’s Sports Foreign-Policy-Making and Diplomacy from 1972-1981 “ Advisor: Carol A. Benedict

Ma, Haiyun East & Central Asian History “ New Teachings and New Territories: Religion, Regulation, and Regions in Qing Gansu, 1700-1800 “ Advisor: James Millward

Oyen, Meredith US History “ Allies, Enemies, and Aliens: Migration and U.S.-Chinese Relations, 1940-1965 “ Advisor: Nancy B. Tucker

Sbaiti, Nadya J. Middle East & North African History “ Lessons in History: Education and the Formation of National Society in Beirut, Lebanon, 1920s-1960s “ Advisor: Judith Tucker

Vann, Martin E. Modern European History “ Encounters with Modernity: Jews, Music, and Vienna, 1880-1914 “ Advisor: James Shedel

    2006-2007

Ameskamp, Simone Modern European History “ On Fire: Cremation in Germany, 1870s-1934 “ Advisor: Roger Chickering

Carter, Karen E. Early Modern & Late Medieval European History “ Creating Catholics: Catechism and Primary Education in Early Modern France “ Advisor: James Collins

Gruber, Isaiah J. Russia & Eastern European History “ The Russian Orthodox Church and the Time of Troubles, 1598-1613 “ Advisor: David Goldfrank

Keller, Tait S. Modern European History “ Eternal Mountains–Eternal Germany: The Alpine Association and the Ideology of Alpinism, 1909-1939 “ Advisor: Roger Chickering

Scalenghe, Sara Middle East & North African History “ Being Different: Intersexuality, Blindness, Deafness, and Madness in Ottoman Syria “ Advisor: Judith Tucker

Snyder, Sarah B. US History “ The Helsinki Process, American Foreign Policy, and the End of the Cold War “ Advisor: Nancy B. Tucker

Stoneman, Mark R. Modern European History “ Wilhelm Groener, Officering, and the Schlieffen Plan “ Advisor: Roger Chickering

Uchimura, Kazuko US History “ Miners without Unions: Life and Work in West Virginia’s New River Gorge Mining Towns, 1900-1933 “ Advisor: Joseph McCartin

Zickafoose, Virginia Paige Russia & Eastern European History “ Virtuous Crown, Virtuous Res Publica: The Henrician Constitutional Declaration of Poland-Lithuania Interregnum, 1572-1574 “ Advisor: Andrzej Kaminksi Zimmers, Stefan Early Modern & Late Medieval European History “ Wisdom, Kingship, and Royal Identity: An Examination of the Discourse on Kinship and Rulership in the Anglo-Saxon Era “ Advisor: Jo Ann Moran Cruz

    2005-2006

Belli, Meriam Middle East & North African History “ Remembrance of Nasserian Things Past: A Window to the History and Memory of the Nasser Years ” Advisors: John Voll and James Collins

Du Quenoy, Paul Russia & Eastern European History “ Harlequin’s Leap: Performing Arts Culture and the Revolution of 1905 in Saint Petersburg ” Advisor: Richard Stites

Foley, Sean E. Middle East & North African History “ Shaykh Khalid and the Naqshbandyya-Khalidiyya, 1776-2005 ” Advisor: John Voll

Joseph, Sabrina E. Middle East & North African History “ The Islamic Law on Tenancy and Sharecropping in Late Sixteenth- through Early Nineteenth-Century Syria ” Advisor: Judith Tucker

Khachaturian, Lisa Russia & Eastern European History “ Cultivating Nationhood in Imperial Russia: the Periodical Press and the Formation of a Modern Eastern Armenian Identity ” Advisor: Catherine Evtuhov

Martin, Kevin W. Middle East & North African History “ Enter the Future! Exemplars of Bourgeois Modernity in Post-World War II Syria ” Advisor: Judith Tucker

Merrow, Alexander C. Modern European History “ The Catholic Historical Discipline in Imperial Germany, 1876-1901 ” Advisor: Roger Chickering

Negroponte, Diana V. US History “ Conflict Resolution at the End of the Cold War ” Advisor: Nancy B. Tucker

Norman, York A. Middle East & North African History “ An Islamic City? Sarajevo’s Islamization and Economic Development, 1461-1604 ” Advisor: John Voll

Roedell, Christopher A. Modern Europe “ The Beasts That Perish: The Problem of Evil and the Contemplation of the Animal Kingdom in English Thought, c. 1660-1839 ” Advisor: Kathryn Olesko

Shearer, Valerie J. Early Modern & Late Medieval European History “ A Good Deed is Never Forgotten: Credit and Mutual Exchange in Seventeenth-Century France ” Advisor: James Collins

Vrtis, George H. US Environmental History “ The Front Range of the Rocky Mountains: An Environmental History, 1700-1900 ” Advisor: John McNeill

    2004-2005

Andreassi, Anthony D. US History “ ‘Begun in Faith and Grit and God!’: The Sisters of the Divine Compassion, 1869-1954 “ Advisor: Emmett Curran

Ari-Chachaki, Waskar T. Latin American History “ Race and Subaltern Nationalism: The AMP Activist-Intellectuals in Bolivia, 1921-1964 “ Advisor: Erick Langer

Brooke, George Mercer III US History “ A Matter of Will: Sir Robert Thompson, Malaya, and the Failure of American Strategy in Vietnam “ Advisor: Nancy B. Tucker

De Bryun Kops, Henriette (Rahusen) Early Modern & Late Medieval European History “ Liquid Silver: The Wine and Brandy Trade between Rotterdam and Nantes in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century “ Advisor: James Collins

Rouland, Michael R. Russian & Eastern European History “ Music and the Making of the Kazak Nation, 1920-1936 “ Advisor: Richard Stites

    2003-2004

Bryne, Daniel US History “ Adrift on a Sea of Sand: The Search for United States Foreign Policy Toward the Decolonization of Algeria, 1942-1962 “ Advisor: David Painter

Class, James N. Russia & Eastern European History “ Russian Messianism in the Napoleonic Wars “ Advisor: Catherine Evtuhov

Coventry, Michael T. US History “ ‘God, Country, Home and Mother’: Soldiers, Gender, and Nationalism in Great War America “ Advisor: Dorothy Brown

Drummond, Elizabeth A. Modern European History “ Protecting Poznania: Germans, Poles, and the Conflict Over National Identity, 1886-1914 “ Advisor: Roger Chickering

Goldyn, Bartholomew H. Russia & Eastern European History “ Cities for a New Poland: State Planning and Urban Control in the Building of Gdynia and Nowa Huta “ Advisor: Andrzej Kaminski

Hill, Brendan L. Early Modern & Late Medieval European History “ Puritans in the Public Sphere: The Societies for Reformation of Manners and the Continuity of Calvinism in Early Eighteenth Century England “ Advisor: Jo Ann Moran Cruz

Ivey, Linda L. US Environmental History “ Poetic Industrialism: Ethnicity, Environment and Commercial Horticulture in California’s Pajaro Valley, from the Progressive Era through the Great Depression “ Advisor: John McNeill

Linford, Rebecca R. Early Modern & Late Medieval European History “ The Women of the Quarter Sessions: A Study of Women’s Involvement in Crime in Lancashire County, 1590-1606 “ Advisor: Jo Ann Moran Cruz

Nichols-Busch, Tracy Russia & Eastern European History “ A Class on Wheels: Avtodor and the Automobilization of the Soviet Union 1927-1935 “ Advisor: Richard Stites

Schutts, Jeff Richard Modern European History “ Coca-Colonization, ‘Refreshing Americanization, or Nazi Volksgetrank’: The History of Coca-Cola in Germany, 1921-1961 “ Advisor: Roger Chickering

Zejmis, Jakub Russia & Eastern European History “ Belarus: Religion, Language and the Struggle for National Identity in a Soviet-Polish Borderland, 1921-1939 “ Advisor: Richard Stites

    2002-2003

Abi-Mershed, Osama Middle East & North African History “ Domination by Consent: The Bureaux Arabes and Public Instruction in Colonial Algeria, 1831-1870 “ Advisor: John Ruedy

Belmonte, Monica L. US History “ Reining in Revolution: The United States Response to British Decolonization in Nigeria in an Era of Civil Rights, 1953-1960 “ Advisor: Nancy B. Tucker

Brewer, M. Jonah Early Modern & Late Medieval European History “ Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh: French Consuls and Commercial Diplomacy in the Ottoman Levant, 1660-1699 “ Advisor: James Collins

Caffrey, Patrick Joseph East & Central Asian Environmental History “ The Forests of Northeast China, 1600-1960: Environment, Politics, and Society “ Advisor: Carol A. Benedict

Davenport, Lisa E. US History “ Jazz, Race, and American Cultural Exchange: An International Study of U.S. Cultural Diplomacy, 1954-1968 “ Advisor: David Painter

DeLong-Bas, Natana J. Middle East & North African History “ Muhammed Ibn Abd al-Wahhab: An Intellectual Biography “ Advisor: John Voll

Dorsey, Jennifer H. US History “ Free People of Color in Rural Maryland, 1783-1832 “ Advisor: Alison Games

Ludes, James M. Modern European History “ A Consistency of Purpose: Political Warfare and the National Security Strategy of the Eisenhower Administration “ Advisor: Aviel Roshwald

Semerdjian, Elyse Middle East & North African History “ Off the Straight Path: Gender, Public Morality, and Legal Administration in Ottoman Aleppo, Syria “ Advisor: John Voll

Zalar, Jeffrey T. Modern European History “ Knowledge and Nationalism in Imperial Germany: A Cultural History of the Association of Saint Charles Borromeo, 1890-1914 “ Advisor: Roger Chickering

    2001-2002

Abugideiri, Hibba E. Middle East & North African History “ Egyptian Women and the Science Question: Gender in the Making of Colonized Medicine, 1893-1929 “ Advisor: John Voll

Alvaro-Velcamp, Theresa Latin American History “ Peddling Identity: Arabs, Conflict, Community and the Mexican Nation in the Twentieth Century “ Advisor: John Tutino

Caplan, Gregory A. “ Wicked Sons, German Heroes: Jewish Soldiers, Veterans and Memories of World War I in Germany “ Advisor: Roger Chickering

Duggan, Michael F. US History “ Chauncey Wright and Forward-Looking Empiricism, a History of Ideas “ Advisor: Emmett Curran

Hamilton, Joanna Early Modern & Late Medieval European History “ The Merchants of Vannes: 1670-1730 “ Advisor: James Collins

Hoerle, Scott Modern European History “ Hans Friedrich Blunck: Poetry, Politics, and Propaganda, 1888-1961 “ Advisor: Roger Chickering

Janik, Elizabeth Koch Modern European History “ Music in Cold War Berlin: German Tradition and Allied Occupation, 1945-1951 “ Advisor: Roger Chickering

Law, Randall Russia & Eastern European History “ Humanity’s Workshops: Progressive Education in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1856-1927 “ Advisor: Richard Stites

McGillivray, Gillian Latin American History “ Blazing Cane: Sugar Communities, Power, and Politics in Cuba, 1868-1948 “ Advisor: John Tutino

McGinn, John US History “ Balancing Defense and Détente in NATO: The Harmel Framework and the 1968 Crisis in Czechoslovakia “ Advisor: David Painter Sampsell, Catherine M. U.S. History “ ‘To Grab a Hunk of Lightning’: An Intellectual History of American Depression-Era Photography “ Advisor: Emmett Curran

    2000-2001

Carafano, James J. “ ‘Waltzing into the Cold War’: U.S. Army Military Operations in Occupied Austria “ Hill, Richard F. “ Pearl Harbor Month: Why the United States Went to War with Germany “ Jackson, Maurice “ ‘Ethiopia Shall Soon Stretch Out Her Hands Unto God’: Anthony Benezet and the Atlantic Anti-Slavery Revolution “ Skinner, Barbara J. “ The Empress and the Heretics: Catherine II’s Challenge to the Uniate Church, 1762-1796 “ Socolow, Michael J. “ To Network a Nation: N.B.C., C.B.S., and the Development of National Network Radio in the United States, 1925-1950 “ Taffet, Jeffrey A. “ Alliance for What?: U.S. Development Assistance in Chile During the 1960s “ Wall, Michael C. “ Chinese Reaction to the Portrayal of China and Chinese in American Motion Pictures prior to 1949 “

    1999-2000

Brüggemann, Julia “ Through the Prism of Prostitution: State and Society in Hamburg, 1800-1914 “ Burch, Susan “ Biding the Time: American Deaf Cultural History, 1900 to World War II “ Cline, Ruth Harwood “ The Congregation of Tiron in the Twelfth Century: Foundation and Expansion “ Dale, Melissa S. “ With the Cut of a Knife: A Social History of Eunuchs During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and Republican Periods (1912-1949) “ Davis, Rebekah “ Development as a Tool of Diplomacy: The Domestic Models for U.S. Policy in the Jordan River Valley, 1939-1956 “ Heineman, Paul “ In Defense of an Anachronism: The Cossack Question on the Don, 1861-1914 “ Khalafallah, Haifaa “ Rethinking Islamic Law: Genesis and Evolution in the Islamic Legal Methods and Structures. The Case of a 20th Century ‘Alim’s Journey into His Legal Traditions. Muhammad Al-Ghazali (1917-1996) “ Pisiotis, Argyrios K. “ Orthodoxy Versus Autocracy: The Orthodox Church and Clerical Political Dissent in Late Imperial Russia, 1905-1914 “ Pujals, Sandra “ When Giants Walked the Earth: The Society of Former Political Prisoners and Exiles of the Soviet Union, 1921-1935 “ Reifowitz, Ian “ Civic Nationalism in a Multiethnic Society: Conceptions of a Supraethnic Austrian Identity, 1848-1918 “ Ritenour, Perry “ Chinese Banking and Foreign Trade (1949-1979) with a Focus on Guangdong “ Taylor, Karen “ Cher espoir de la nation sainte: The Maison Royale de Saint-Louis at Saint-Cyr “ Wiggers, Richard “ Creating International Humanitarian Law [IHL]: World War II, the Allied Occupations, and the Treaties that Followed “

    1998-1999

Arpaia, Paul “ Luigi Federzoni and the Italian Nationalist Association: From a Cultural Conception of Italy to a Neo-Conservative Political Program “ Foehr, Sherry “ Modernization for the Honor of the Estate: Die Deutsche Landwirtschaftsgesellschaft, 1884-1914 “ Healy, Róisín “ The Jesuit as Enemy: Anti-Jesuitism and the Protestant Bourgeoisie of Imperial Germany, 1890-1917 “ Kawamura, S.J., Shinzo “ Making Christian Lay Communities During the ‘Christian Century’ in Japan — A Case Study of Takata District in Bungo “ Ke, Yan “ Scholars and Communications Network: Social and Intellectual Change in 17th-Century North China “ Jain, Asha “ Kumarapala Chaulukya (r. 1143-74) of Gujarat, India: A Convert to Jainism in Historical Perspective “ Vladimirov, Katya “ The World Of Imperial Provincial Bureaucracy, Russian Poland 1870-1904 “ Powers, Daniel “ All Roads Lead to Rome: French and German Christian Democrats, the Nation-State and the Reconstruction of Europe, 1945-1950 “ Qualls, Karl “ Raised From Ruins: Restoring Popular Allegiance Through City Planning in Sevastopol, 1944-1953 “ Slater, Joseph “ Down By Law: Public Sector Unions and the State in America, World War I to World War II “ Veidlinger, Jeffrey “ Soviet Politics on the Yiddish Stage: Moscow’s State Yiddish Theater, 1919-1949 “

    1997-1998

Carpenter, Kim “ ‘Sechs Kreuzer sind genug für ein Bier!’ The Munich Beer Riot of 1844: Social Protest and Public Disorder in Mid-19th Century Bavaria “   Enriquez, Jonmikel “ Theodore White and the Remaking of Political Journalism “   Goedde, Celia J. “ The Artisan’s Approach to Modernity: The Political Culture of the German Artisans in Vienna and Augsburg “   Long, Loretta M. “ A Fellow Soldier in the Cause of Reformation: The Life of Selina Campbell “   Pendzich, Barbara “ The Burghers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during the War of 1654-1667: Resiliency and Cohesion in the Face of Muscovite Annexation “   Phillips, Steven “ Restoration and Conquest: The Taiwanese Elite under Nationalist Chinese Rule, 1945-1950 “

Russell, Mona Lisa “ Creating the New Woman: Consumerism, Education, and National Identity in Egypt, 1863-1922 “

Scholz, Norbert “ Foreign Education and Indigenous Reaction in Late Ottoman Lebanon: Students & Teachers of the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut “   Tamari, Stephen “ Teaching and Learning in 18th-Century Damascus: Localism and Ottomanism in an Early Modern Arab Society “   Zehren, Maria “ The Dangling Scissors: Marriage, Family, and Work Among Italian Immigrant Women in the Clothing Industry in Baltimore, 1890-1920 “

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Dissertation examples

Listed below are some of the best examples of research projects and dissertations from undergraduate and taught postgraduate students at the University of Leeds We have not been able to gather examples from all schools. The module requirements for research projects may have changed since these examples were written. Refer to your module guidelines to make sure that you address all of the current assessment criteria. Some of the examples below are only available to access on campus.

• Undergraduate examples
• Taught Masters examples

Home > USC Columbia > Arts and Sciences > History > History Theses and Dissertations

History Theses and Dissertations

Theses/dissertations from 2023 2023.

Cashing the Check of Democracy The American Revolution and Citizenship in the Black Freedom Struggle 1960-1970 , Zachary Earle Clary

“All the Rights of Native Cherokees”: The Appearance of Black People in Cherokee Society , Ayanna Goines

“We Are Created Inferior to Men”: Leveraging Horsemanship to Reinforce Gender Expectations, 1830-1861 , Gabrielle Marie McCoy

The Widened Hearthstone Urban Playgrounds as the Infrastructure of Public Mothering, 1900-1930 , Alexandra Miller

Piratical Transportation: Highlighting Silences in Carolina’s Enslavement and Exportation of Native Americans , Jordan Stenger

Lunatics, Liberals and Bloodthirsty Haters: The South in the 1972 Presidential Election , Thomas Clayton Strebeck

In Her Possession and Keeping Revolutionary War Widows and the Politics of Family Archives, 1820–1850 , Riley Kathryn Sutherland

Colored Lawyer, Topeka: The Legend and Legacy of Elisa Scott , Jeffery Scott Williams

Meditations On Modern America: The Ambiguous Worldview of Transcendental Meditation, 1967-1979 , Grant William Wong

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

The Presbyterian Exception? The Illegal Education of Enslaved Blacks by South Carolina Presbyterian Churches, 1834-1865 , Margaret Bates

Roy Acuff, Democratic Candidate , Henry Luther Capps III

Before the Storm: Youth Hockey in North Carolina Ahead of the NHL’s Arrival , Sarai ShareI Dai

Flying Saucer of the Smokies: The Debate Over National Park Architecture and Wilderness Values in Clingmans Dome Observation Tower , Michelle Fieser

“I Like a Fight”: Margaret Sanger and the First Birth Control Clinic in the United States , Rebecca Linnea Hall

Who Has the Right to Reproduce? Forced Sterilization in South Carolina in the Early Twentieth Century , Kathryn Pownall

Sex (Work) And the City: Sex Work in Columbia, South Carolina, 1860-1880 , Presley McKalyn Ramey

Resurrecting a Nation Through Silk and Diplomacy: American Material Culture and Foreign Relations During the Reconstruction Era , Paige Weaver

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Building a New (Deal) Identity The Evolution of Italian-American Political Culture and Ideology, 1910–1940 , Ryan J. Antonucci

“It Seemed Like Reaching for the Moon:” Southside Virginia’s Civil Rights Struggle Against The Virginia Way, 1951-1964 , Emily A. Martin Cochran

“We are Going to be Reckoned With”: The South Carolina UDC and the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Museum, 1986-2000 , Caitlin Cutrona

Enslaved Rebellion and Abolitionist Imperialism in Britain’s Atlantic World, 1807-1884 , Lewis Eliot

Religion, Senses, and Remembrance: Brooklyn’s Sumter Club in Postbellum Charleston, S.C. , Michael Edward Scott Emett

Praying Soldiers: Experiencing Religion as a Revolutionary War Soldier Fighting for Independence , Roberto Oscar Flores de Apodaca

Engraved in Prejudice: How Currency Displayed the Mindset of the South , Holly Johnson Floyd

The Governor’s Guards: Militia, Politics, Social Networking, and Manhood in Columbia, South Carolina, 1843-1874 , Justin Harwell

Patients’ Rights, Patients’ Politics: Jewish Activists of the U.S. Women’s Health Movement, 1969-1990 , Jillian Michele Hinderliter

Joshua Gordon’s Witchcraft Book and The Transformation of the Upcountry of South Carolina , E. Zoie Horecny

“The Once and Future Audubon:” The History of the Audubon Ballroom and the Movement to Save It , William Maclane Hull

A Culture of Control: Progressive Era Eugenics in South Carolina as a Continuation of Created White Supremacy , Hannah Nicole Patton

Shaping a Queer South: The Evolution of Activism From 1960-2000 , A. Kamau Pope

The Robber Barons of Show Business: Traveling Amusements And The Development of the American Entertainment Industry, 1870- 1920 , Madeline Steiner

Charlotte's Glory Road: The History of NASCAR in the Queen City , Hannah Thompson

Foxy Ladies and Badass Super Agents: Legacies of 1970s Blaxploitation Spy and Detective Heroines , Carlie Nicole Todd

Media Combat: The Great War and the Transformation of American Culture , Andrew Steed Walgren

“Hungering and Thirsting” for Education: Education, Presbyterians, and African Americans in the South, 1880-1920 , Rachel Marie Young

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

Gendering Secession: Women and Politics in South Carolina, 1859- 1861 , Melissa DeVelvis

The Chasquis of Liberty: Revolutionary Messengers in the Bolivian Independence Era, 1808-1825 , Caleb Garret Wittum

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Learning Church: Catechisms and Lay Participation in Early New England Congregationalism , Roberto O. Flores de Apodaca

Useful Beauty: Tiffany Favrile, Carnival Glass, and Consumerism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century , Chelsea Grayburn

Restoring America: Historic Preservation and the New Deal , Stephanie E. Gray

For the Common Man: An Analysis of the United States Space and Rocket Center , Patrice R. Green

Made to Be Forgotten: The Chevalier DE Saint-Sauveur & the Franco-American Alliance , Katelynn Hatton

Leaders in the Making: Higher Education, Student Activism, and the Black Freedom Struggle in South Carolina, 1925-1975 , Ramon M. Jackson

Exclusive Dining: Immigration and Restaurants in Chicago during the Era of Chinese Exclusion, 1893-1933 , Samuel C. King

Complicating the Narrative: Using Jim's Story to Interpret Enslavement, Leasing, and Resistance at Duke Homestead , Jennifer Melton

“Unknown and Unlamented”: Loyalist Women in Nova Scotia from Exile to Repatriation, 1775-1800 , G. Patrick O’Brien

Raising America Racist: How 1920’s Klanswomen Used Education to Implement Systemic Racism , Kathleen Borchard Schoen

Learning the Land: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Southern Borderlands, 1500-1850 , William Cane West

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

Beyond Preservation: Reconstructing Sites Of Slavery, Reconstruction, And Segregation , Charlotte Adams

Reading Material: Personal Libraries And The Cultivation Of Identity In Revolutionary South Carolina , Gabriella Angeloni

Politics and the Built Environment: Civic Structures of Eighteenth Century Williamsburg, Virginia and Charles Town, South Carolina , Paul Bartow

The Lost Ones: The Cold War State, Child Welfare Systems, And The Battles Over The Rosenberg Children , Megan Bennett

“Catering To The Local Trade”: Jewish-Owned Grocery Stores In Columbia, South Carolina , Olivia Brown

If This Be Sin: Gladys Bentley And The Performance Of Identity , Moira Mahoney Church

“I Hope They Fire Me:” Black Teachers In The Fight For Equal Education, 1910-1970 , Candace Cunningham

Constructing Scientific Knowledge: The Understanding of the Slow Virus, 1898-1976 , Burke Hood Dial

Ayatollahs And Embryos: Science, Politics, And Religion In Post-Revolutionary Iran , M Sadegh Foghani

Of Cannonades and Battle Cries: Aurality, The Battle of The Alamo, and Memory , Michelle E. Herbelin

Anti-Sabbatarianism in Antebellum America: The Christian Quarrel over the Sanctity of Sunday , Kathryn Kaslow

A Divisive Community: Race, Nation, And Loyalty In Santo Domingo, 1822 – 1844 , Antony Wayne Keane-Dawes

“Remember Them Not for How They Died”: American Memory and the Challenger Accident , Elizabeth F. Koele

Garagecraft: Tinkering In The American Garage , Katherine Erica McFadden

Black Power And Neighborhood Organizing In Minneapolis, Minnesota: The Way Community Center, 1966-1971 , Sarah Jayne Paulsen

The Popular Education Question in Antebellum South Carolina, 1800-1860 , Brian A. Robinson

Perks Of Perkins: Understanding Where Magic And Religion Meet For An Early Modern English Theologian , Kyle Sanders

Black Men, Red Coats: The Carolina Corps, Race, and Society in the Revolutionary British Atlantic , Gary Sellick

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

Skin Deep: African American Women and the Building of Beauty Culture in South Carolina , Catherine Davenport

Funding South Carolina’s Monuments: The Growth of the Corporate Person in Monument Financing , Justin Curry Davis

Sex and the State: Sexual Politics in South Carolina in the 1970s , Jennifer Holman Gunter

Within the House of Bondage: Constructing and Negotiating the Plantation Landscape in the British Atlantic World, 1670-1820 , Erin M. Holmes

Odor and Power in the Americas: Olfactory Consciousness from Columbus to Emancipation , Andrew Kettler

From Rice Fields to Duck Marshes: Sport Hunters and Environmental Change on the South Carolina Coast, 1890–1950 , Matthew Allen Lockhart

Potential Republicans: Reconstruction Printers of Columbia, South Carolina , John Lustrea

Lamps, Maps, Mud-Machines, and Signal Flags: Science, Technology, and Commerce in the Early United States , James Russell Risk

Rebirth of the House Museum: Commemorating Reconstruction at the Woodrow Wilson Family Home , Jennifer Whitmer Taylor

Buy for the Sake of your Baby: Guardian Consumerism in Twentieth Century America , Mark VanDriel

Environmental Negotiations Cherokee Power in the Arkansas Valley, 1812-1828 , Cane West

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

A Call To Every Citizen: The South Carolina State Council Of Defense And World War I , Allison Baker

National Register Nomination for the Waikiki Village Motel , Jane W. Campbell

“Antagonistic Describes the Scene:” Local News Portrayals of the New Left and the Escalation of Protest at the University of South Carolina, 1970 , Alyssa Jordan Constad

Ahead of Their Time: Black Teachers and Their Community in the Immediate Post- Brown Years , Candace Cunningham

Deserts Will Bloom: Atomic Agriculture And The Promise Of Radioactive Redemption , Chris Fite

Restoring the Dock Street Theatre: Cultural Production in New-Deal Era Charleston, South Carolina , Stephanie E. Gray

In Search Of Granby: A Colonial Village Of South Carolina , Kathryn F. Keenan

Preserving The Architectural Legacy Of Lyles, Bissett, Carlisle & Wolff, 1948-1976 , Casey Lee

Looking for Remnants of Rice Cultivation at Manchester State Forest Through the Use of LIDAR , Sarah Anne Moore

Uncle Sam’s Jungle: Recreation, Imagination, And The Caribbean National Forest , Will Garrett Mundhenke

G.I. Joe v. Jim Crow: Legal Battles Over Off-Base School Segregation Of Military Children In The American South, 1962-1964 , Randall George Owens

Radioactive Dixie: A History of Nuclear Power and Nuclear Waste in the American South, 1950-1990 , Caroline Rose Peyton

A Culture Of Commodification: Hemispheric And Intercolonial Migrations In The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 1660-1807 , Neal D. Polhemus

Rediscovering Camden: The Preservation of a Revolutionary War Battlefield , Gary Sellick

The “Forgotten Man” of Washington: the Pershing Memorial and the Battle over Military Memorialization , Andrew S. Walgren

Proslavery Thinking In Antebellum South Carolina: Higher Education, Transatlantic Encounters, And The Life Of The Mind , Jamie Diane Wilson

Colonialism Unraveling: Race, Religion, And National Belonging In Santo Domingo During The Age Of Revolutions , Charlton W. Yingling

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

"Very Many More Men than Women": A Study of the Social Implications of Diagnostics at the South Carolina State Hospital , Clara Elizabeth Bertagnolli

Forgotten Science of Bird Eggs: The Life Cycle of Oology at the Smithsonian Institution , Katherine Nicole Crosby

Shifting Authority at the Confederate Relic Room, 1960-1986 , Kristie L. DaFoe

Boundary Stones: Morbid Concretions and the Chemistry of Early Nineteenth Century Medicine , Edward Allen Driggers Jr.

Main Street, America: Histories of I-95 , Mark T. Evans

National Register Nomination for St. James the Greater Catholic Mission , Diana Garnett

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150 Strong History Dissertation Topics to Write about

Writing a dissertation is one of the most challenging and exciting moments of an academic career. Such work usually takes a great deal of time, courage, and intellectual effort to complete. That’s why every step in your work process is essential.

It all starts with finding a good topic, which can be a challenge of its own. It especially matters when it comes to liberal arts subjects. In social studies, literature, or world history options are practically endless.

Coming up with history dissertation ideas, you need to think of historical events that interest you. We get it, choosing one is tough. There can be too much to wrap your head around. That’s why IvyPanda experts prepare some dissertation topics in history ready for you.

• How to Choose a Topic?
• Ancient History
• Medieval History
• Modern History
• Cold War Topics
• American History
• European History
• Indian History
• African History
• Performing Arts
• Visual Arts
• How to Structure

🧐 How to Choose a History Dissertation Topic?

Before examining our ideas for dissertation topics in history, you should get ready for this. You have to understand how to pick a history dissertation topic, which will ensure your academic success. Keep in mind that this is a vital step in your career.

So, check some tips on picking what to write about:

• Make sure that the topic fits in your field of study. You have to understand what you’re writing about. Basing your paper on existing knowledge and experience is a part of any dissertation. Working on an overly complicated idea can sound impressive but lead to failure. It will become a nightmare already on the stage of writing a dissertation proposal. How can you write the entire thing without comprehending it?
• Estimate whether you’re interested in the topic you intend to write on. Although this might seem obvious, yes. However, being actually invested makes a massive difference for your further work. There are plenty of students who settle for “easy but boring” topics and end up struggling twice as much.
• Ensure that your topic is specific enough. Your idea should have the potential for fruitful research. Narrowing down your area of study is essential for writing a good dissertation. It helps you to find the direction of your examination and enough sources to work with. Moreover, this way, you’ll be able to explore your topic in its entirety.
• Do some prior research. It will give you an understanding of how much literature on your topic is out there. Take notes of the materials for the reference list and your analysis. Checking history essay samples is a good idea, too.
• Don’t be shy to ask your dissertation advisor for some assistance. After all, they are here to help and guide you through the process. Besides, you have to see what ideas they consider relevant and appropriate.

👍 Good Dissertation Topics in History: Time Period

History is a subject as ancient and vast as the humankind itself. It’s only rational to study it according to a particular timeline. Here are some good history dissertation topics for different periods.

🏺 Ancient History Dissertation Topics

• Ancient Civilizations: The Maya Empire . The Maya was an incredibly powerful Empire with its prime around six century A.D., excelling in mathematics, calendar-making, astrology, and writing. It faced the decline of its city-states in nine century A.D., leaving a rich cultural heritage to the studies of subsequent generations.
• Women’s Roles and Gender relations in the Ancient World
• Greek City-States . Ancient Greece is the place where the first city-states were formed. How did the first governments in the ancient history timeline develop? How did people’s attitudes towards leadership change in that context?

• Ancient Near-Eastern Thought and the Old Testament
• The Inca Empire as a Great Civilization of Pre-Columbian America
• The Impact of Mongol Invasion in Ancient Arab
• The personality of Julius Caesar and His Effect on Rome
• The Role of Poets and the place of Poetry in Ancient Greece
• Mesopotamian Civilization . This was a fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It has been home to some of the world’s wealthiest and most advanced ancient cities. It can also make an excellent archaeology dissertation topic. There are plenty of fascinating sites that could be studied.
• History: Ancient Greek Olympics . Started in 776 BC, the Olympic Games were the most important cultural event in Ancient Greece. They were held in honor of Zeus every four years. Besides, the Olympics were representative of the triumph of physical and spiritual power.
• Warfare and Violence in Ancient Times. Try to do a comparative analysis of warfare techniques used by different ancient civilizations. It could be a great dissertation topic.
• Burial Rituals in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece: a comparison
• Plutarch’s Vision on Alexander the Great
• Dissolution of the Roman Empire . The Empire sprawled from the coast of North Africa to the territories of the modern UK and Armenia. Once, it was the most powerful political entity in the entire Mediterranean. The empire, however, collapsed in 476 CE. What were the reasons for its eventual decline?

• How Geography Has Impacted the Development of Ancient Cultures
• Cause and Effect of Art on Classical Societies
• The Invention of Papyrus and its impact on the World
• Chichen Itza Archaeological Site . Chichen Itza is a great pre-Columbian archaeological site, home to the Maya civilization. It is a fascinating study case in many aspects. Consider the origins and Maya history. Analyze the cultural preservation issues that it faces nowadays.
• Egyptian Pyramid’s Importance in Egypt’s society
• The Stone Age Period and its Evolution

🛡 Medieval History Dissertation Ideas

• Cultural Exchanges in the Medieval Period . In the aftermath of the Roman Empire’s fall, new geopolitical conditions formed. The early Middle Ages period already marked the appearance of new trade routes. It fostered cultural exchange between nations.
• Rome in the Middle Ages and its cultural transformation
• The Development of Feudalism and Manorialism in the Middle Ages
• The Catholic Church and the Black Death in the 14th Century . During the high Middle Ages, the plague epidemic terrorized Europe. It was a dreadful challenge to medicine, religious institutions, and the social apparatus of the time. How did the Catholic Church deal with such a complex and disastrous medical phenomenon?
• Jews and Muslims in Medieval Spain . Christian, Islamic, and Jewish communities shared the Iberian peninsula in the early Middle Ages. It formed a vibrant cultural environment.
• London during the Roman Age: A Critical Overview
• Causes of the First Crusade of 1095-1099
• Twelfth-Century Renaissance, how Franciscans reacted to it and benefited from its development
• Business and Empire, the British ideal of an Orderly World
• The Black Death, Late Medieval Demographic crisis, and the Standard of Living controversies
• The Role of the Church in the life of the Middle Ages

• Medieval Siege Warfare . Exploring methods of defense used during the Middle Ages might be an interesting research project.
• The Conditions of Hindu and Islamic women in Medieval India
• Why the Crusades Failed
• The Mechanical Water clock of Ibn Al-Haytham, his philosophy of the rise and fall of empires
• The Renaissance and its Cultural, Political and Economic Influence
• The Dark Ages as the Golden Ages of European History . Plenty of facts demonstrate civilization’s decline during the Middle Ages. It was, nevertheless, the time of significant scientific, literary, and technological progress. For some interested in writing a medieval literature dissertation: think of Dante’s Divine Comedy . Da Vinci made his groundbreaking study projects during the Middle Ages. It was the time when first universities, such as Cambridge and Oxford, were founded. Overall, this period has a lot to offer!
• Japan’s Development Under Edo/Tokugawa Shogunate
• Historical and Theological Context of Byzantine Iconoclasm
• Medieval Convivencia: Document Analysis

🕰 Modern History Dissertation Topics

• World History: Enlightenment in Society and its Impact on Global Culture
• Nationalism and its 19th Century History
• Why Mussolini and the Fascists Were Able to Seize Power in Italy
• Religious Symbolism in Renaissance paintings . Renaissance is well-known as a period when fine arts were thriving. It was an early modern birthplace of many technological and cultural advancements. Religion, however, was still a central topic in visual art.
• Industrial Revolution and its Impact on Western Civilizations
• Principles of Liberalism and Its Connection to Enlightenment and Conservatism
• “History and Topography of Ireland” by Gerald of Wales . Looking for an incredible Irish history dissertation topic? Then this document might be an interesting prompt. Its somewhat controversial tone of describing contemporary Irish culture, history, and traditions can be subject to a comprehensive analysis.
• Moral treatment of Mental Illness . Over the 19th and 20th centuries, psychology has changed. Moving from a scientific periphery, it became one of the central subjects of scholarly discussions. Mental illnesses were highly disregarded in earlier centuries. People even considered them to be manifestations of demonic possession. How did this attitude change? Why did people rethink psychology as a scholarly discipline?
• A History of the Cuban Revolution

• Abraham Lincoln’s Historical Influence
• Role of Women During the Spanish Civil War
• Conquest and Colonization of America by European Countries . Colonization of America is one of the grandest enterprises in the world’s political history. What were its driving forces?
• Origins and Trajectory of the French Revolution
• Major Impacts of Consumerism in contemporary world history
• Coco Chanel Fashion: History of Costume . Probably not the first topic for a history dissertation that comes to mind. Chanel is truly an iconic figure in modern history, though. She revolutionized the fashion industry concerning gender as well.
• Causes of the Breakup of the Former Yugoslavia
• The Russian Working Class Movement . Before 1861, the agriculture and peasant-owning system were the foundation of the Russian Empire’s economy. Serfs made up a significant part of the population, accounting for over 60% in some regions. Then the serfdom abolition happened. A lot has changed in the economic and social life of the country.
• Segregation During the 1960s
• Historical Development of Feminism and Patriarchy
• Monetary and Fiscal Policy during the Great Depression

🔔 History Dissertation Topics on Cold War

• The Role of Cold War in Shaping Transatlantic Relations in the Period from 1945 to 1970
• The showdown between the United States and the USSR . Cold Was was essentially the power struggle between the US and the Soviet Union. It unleashed in the aftermath of World War II. This political precedent came to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, the answer to the “Who won the Cold War?” question may be unclear.
• The Cuban Missile Crisis , its causes, and effects
• US Foreign Policy during the Cold War. Cold War, as a phenomenon, has many layers to it. Yet the one crucial is the contest of two ideologies: democracy and communism. How did the US shape its foreign policy and pursue its interests abroad? And how did the cultural and political setup within the country adjust to it?
• To what extent did the Cold War shape the US relations with Latin America?
• What was the importance of Berlin in the Cold War?
• Japan’s role since the end of the Cold War
• Cold War Politics, Culture, and War . Exploring the Cold War causes and effects can be quite a challenge. It is such a multifaceted phenomenon. It was a war led on many fronts. Both USSR and the US pursued their interests using a variety of methods.

• How did Cold War propaganda influence the film industry?
• What were the challenges in the post-cold war world?

🗺 History Dissertation Topics: Geographical Regions

Every country has its historical course, and so does every continent. Geography has always been an important factor when talking about history. It shapes historical trajectory in varied, unique ways.

Look at a dissertation topics history list based on geographical regions:

🦅 American History Dissertation Topics

• History of Hollywood, California . Oh, Hollywood. A place where American movie history was born. What about Hollywood’s history? Although a less traditional American history dissertation topic, it is still a fascinating one. Explore the way technological advancements in filmmaking were introduced over the decades. How did they influence the film’s general style?
• History: Migration into the United States . How did migration influence the economy of the time?
• The Relationships between the Settlers and Native Americans
• Literary works’ Views on Slavery in the United States
• Causes of the Civil War in America
• What is the real meaning of a cowboy?
• The United States military experience through the eyes of films
• Attack on Pearl Harbor: Effects of Foreign policy
• Causes of Depression in the 1890s
• Has President Obama’s Presidency changed the US?
• The role of Founding Fathers in American Society and Religion
• Post-Civil War reconstruction . Consider the way America’s economy, trade, and finance transformed in the aftermath of the Civil War.
• Principal causes and consequences of the Spanish-American War
• Why was the Declaration of Independence written?
• The Significance of the Frontier in American History
• How is a “new racial narrative” in the U.S.A created?
• American Revolution and the Crisis of the Constitution of the U.S.A. Rethink the origins of the American constitution, as well as the following events. It could be an exciting thesis idea for an American history dissertation.

• Growth and Development of San Francisco and Los Angeles after the Gold Rush
• The Role of Racism in American Art
• Drug Use and Abuse in America: Historical Analysis

🏰 European History Dissertation Topics

• Age of Discovery in Europe. The Age of Exploration in Europe lasted from the 15th to the 17th century. Over this period, Europe actively engaged with other territories and continents. Discoverers formed new international relations and expanded geographical knowledge. This topic could also make an excellent cultural history dissertation.
• Analyzing the Impact of British Colonization
• Nationalism in World War II
• Effects of the Industrial Revolution concerning World War I
• The Rise and Fall of Napoleon and the Cause of Revolution . Napoleon is one of the most prominent figures in French history. What has shaped his career as a political leader?
• History of Hitler’s Nazi Propaganda . Consider a brief history of Germany. Undoubtedly, the rule of Hitler and the Third Reich was its most devastating chapter. The “art” of propaganda flourished during the nazi regime. It penetrated the cultural, political, and social life of the country.
• Evolution of the IRA
• Napoleon’s Strategy and Tactics in his Invasion of Russia . For someone interested in writing a military history dissertation.
• Industrial Revolution Impact on Gender Roles
• Witchcraft in Europe (1450-1750) . Witch hunts took place as early as the Middle Ages in Europe. Held by the Church in most cases, witch hunts targeted those who were suspected of practicing black magic. Examine this both astonishing and problematic phenomenon.

• French Revolution: Liberal and Radical Portions
• West European Studies: Columbus’s Journey
• History of Feudalism . Feudalism dominated the European way of life during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. What were its distinctive features as a system? Why did it eventually fade away?
• Europe’s perception of Islam in the Early and Middle centuries
• Cold War Consequences for European Countries
• Mutated Medical Professionals in the Third Reich: Third Reich Doctors
• Was the Holocaust the Failure or the Product of Modernity?
• How did the use of print change the lives of early modern Europeans ?
• Early Modern England: a Social History
• Jewish Insight of Holocaust

⛰ Indian History Dissertation Topics

• History of the Indian Castes. The Indian Caste system is a complex and unique example of social stratification.
• Mahatma Gandhi’s Leadership . Gandhi is, for sure, among the greatest human rights advocates in the world’s history. His one of a kind leadership style is subject to many studies. While practicing a peaceful form of civil protest, he fought for equality, independence, and compassion.
• Political conflicts in India in the XVII century
• Impacts of the First World War on British Policies in India
• Movement Against the British rule in India. Led by Mahatma Gandhi, with the support of the National Congress, the movement took place in 1920-22. It sought to fight for the freedom of Indians.
• The Origin and Course of the Indian revolt of 1857
• The Issues of the Partitioning of India in 1947
• India Since 1900 . India is a region rich with unique traditions. Its spiritual and cultural heritage goes back to antiquity. The country’s authentic art and architecture, music, and cuisine have served as an inspiration worldwide. A considerable part of its history is, however, affected by British rule.

• Women in Hinduism and Buddhism
• The British East India Company

🌍 African History Dissertation Topics

• Ancient Societies in Mesopotamia and Ancient Societies in Africa: a comparison . Egypt is one of the most ancient African civilizations. Its origins go back to the third millennium B.C. Back then, the cultural exchange between Egypt and Mesopotamia was flourishing. What were the significant differences between the two civilizations? What did they have to offer to one another?
• Political Violence in South Africa between 1985 and 1989
• Did History of Modern South Africa begin with the Discovery of Diamonds and Gold?
• Nelson Mandela: “Freedom in Africa.” Nelson Mandela is, without a doubt, one of the central figures in African history. His devotion and tireless effort in fighting against apartheid were remarkable. Thanks to him, many sub-Saharan countries enjoy the freedoms and advances of a democratic society.
• The Cult of the Dead in West Africa: The Kongo People . African tribal rituals and traditions are unique and specific to their region. Cult of the Dead is prevalent in Western African culture. It can be notoriously known as the origin place of voodoo and other black magic practices. There is yet much more to this culture. Dismantling some prejudices could make an excellent African history thesis.
• Christianity, Slavery, and Colonialism: the paradox
• The Colonial War in Southwest Africa
• African-Europe Relations between 1800 and 2000
• Impacts of Slavery and Slave Trade in Africa
• African Communities in America

🎨 Art History Dissertation Topics

Art comes in all shapes and forms. To grasp it better, we can explore each kind separately. Here’s a list of art history dissertation ideas:

🎶 Topics on Performing Arts

• History and Development of Ballet . Ballet is an art form with a long history. Initially, a specific dance originated in Medieval Italy. It was later brought to France and Great Britain. Ballet thrived in the 20th century Russia, where Russian choreographers brought it to the highest level of mastery.
• The Life and Work of William Shakespeare: His Contribution to The Contemporary Theater
• Jazz Music in American Culture . Jazz is one of the most complex and exciting music genres of all time. It was born in the 20’s century black communities of New Orleans and quickly spread across America and then the world. The genre, however, will always be an integral part of African-American identity.
• The Instrumental Music of Baroque: Forms and Evolution
• Rock Music of the 1970s
• Michael Jackson’s Life as a Musician and Choreographer
• Development of the Symphony Orchestra in the 19th and 20th Century
• Woodstock Music Festival . This massive music festival that first took place in 1969 was the epitome of hippie culture. It has a rich history that once again underscores the importance of performing arts in Western culture.
• The History of Modern Chinese Music
• The Renaissance Theater Development. The era in which both visual and performing arts were thriving. It has a lot to offer for proper dissertation research.

🖼Topics on Visual Arts

• Art Period Comparison: Classicism and Middle Age
• Vincent Van Gogh: Changes in the Technique
• The Ambiguity of Mona Lisa Painting

• Orientalism in Western Art . It’s commonly associated with romanticism and some 20th-century artworks. Orientalism is a Western term that speculates the aesthetics of the Orient. Consider this concept as a prism through which Westerners viewed the Eastern world.
• Classical Art and Cubism: History and Comparison
• Postmodern and Modern Art . The 20th and 21st centuries have been a breeding ground for many forms of fine art to emerge and flourish. Some art movements presented their philosophy in the form of manifestos. These texts can be nothing but a pure treasure for someone writing an art history dissertation.
• Female Figures in Ancient Greek Sculpture
• Andy Warhol’s Career . Pioneer of pop-art, creator of Studio 54, and a style icon.
• Filippo Brunelleschi and Religious Architecture
• The Photographic Approaches Towards American Culture of Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand

📋 How to Structure Your Dissertation?

An adequately structured history dissertation can immensely help students. It ensures that they present their ideas and thoughts logically. Sticking to a particular dissertation structure is an essential element of such work.

The general plan of any dissertation type is the following:

• Title Page. A title page should only contain essential information about your work. It usually shows your name, type of the document (thesis, research paper, dissertation), and the title itself. A good history dissertation title is crucial! It’s the first thing a reader will see.
• Acknowledgments. Do you wish to give credit to someone for supporting you during the tiresome months of your work? This is the right part to do so, be it your family, friends, or professors. It is an excellent form to express gratitude to those who proofread your drafts. Or those who brought you another cup of coffee when you needed it.
• Declaration. This section is your written confirmation. You declare that all the research and writing is entirely original and was conducted by you. If someone intellectually contributed to your project, state it in the acknowledgments.
• Table of Contents. Essentially, it’s a brief structure of your dissertation. List every section that you’ve included in your academic paper here.
• Abstract. This is the section where you write a brief summary of your dissertation. It should describe the issue, summarize your core message and essential points. List your research methods and what you’ve done. Remember to make it short, as the abstract shouldn’t exceed 300 words or so. Finish the part with a few essential keywords so that others can find your work.
• Introduction. A dissertation introduction presents the subject to the reader. You can talk about the format of your work. Explain what you plan to contribute to the field with your research.
• Literature Review. The chapter reviews and analyzes pieces of scholarly work (literature) that have been made on the subject of your research. The sources should present relevant theories and support your thesis. Be sure to discuss the weaknesses and strengths of the selected area of study and highlight possible gaps in this research.
• a code of conduct;
• research limitations;
• research philosophy;
• research design;
• ethical consideration;
• data collection methods;
• data analysis strategy.
• Findings and Results. Restate everything you have found in your research. However, do not interpret the data or make any conclusions yet.
• Discussion and Conclusion. In this chapter, you should personally interpret all of the data and make conclusions based on your research. It is essential to establish a logical link between the results and evidence. Finally, conclude the overall study. You can add final judgments, opinions, and comments.
• References. This section contains a list of references to all the sources that you used. Write down every material, which you quoted, mentioned, or paraphrased in your work. Check your educational institution’s guidelines to see how to do so correctly.
• Bibliography. Similar to the reference section, a bibliography is a list of sources you used in your dissertation. The only difference is that it should contain even the sources you don’t directly mention in your writing. Whatever helped you with the research, you state here.
• Appendices. The section may include any supplementary information that explains and complement the arguments. Add pictures, diagrams, and graphs that serve as examples for your research subject.

Writing a dissertation is the right challenge for those with ambitions and lots of determination. It is a lot like a marathon, and it starts with choosing the right topic. We hope that you will find one for yourself on this list. Good luck! Share the article to help those who may need a piece of advice or some history dissertation topics.

🔗 References

• How To Write A Dissertation: Department of Computer Science, West Lafayette, Purdue University
• Ph.D. Thesis Research, Where Do I Start: Don Davis, Columbia University
• Writing with Power: Elbow P., Oxford University
• Writing a Thesis or Dissertation – A Guide to Resources: Gricel Dominguez
• The Elements of Style: Strunk, W. Jr., White, E.B., Angell, R.
• A Collection Of Dissertation Topics In American History: asqauditconference.org
• Yale History Dissertations: Department of History, Yale University
• Dissertation Outline: School of Education, Duquesne University
• Developing a Thesis Statement: The Writing Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison
• Writing an Abstract: The Writing Center, George Mason University
• Formatting Additional Pages: University of Missouri Graduate School
• Reference List vs. Bibliography: OWLL, Massey University
• How to Write Your Dissertation: Goldsmiths University for The Guardian
• Tips on Grammar, Punctuation and Style: Kim Cooper, for the Writing Center at Harvard University
• Acknowledgments, Thesis and Dissertation: Research Guides at Sam Houston State University
• Thesis Formatting, Writing up your Research: Subject Guides at University of Canterbury
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• Work For Us
• History Dissertation Repository

The Northumbria Dissertation Repository was launched in October 2015 to share the best of the university's undergraduate research in History. While online repositories already exist for postgraduate theses, few include undergraduate research – despite the fact that many dissertations are original in conception, argument, and in their use of primary sources.

The History team at Northumbria is pleased to provide access to the excellent, archive-driven research undertaken by our final-year students. The dissertations included in this repository were all awarded first-class marks. They reflect the range of research expertise at Northumbria, as well as our commitment to research-based learning. Moreover, the pieces in this dissertation clearly testify to the skills, enthusiasm and hard work of our students.

We hope to add further examples of undergraduate research to the repository in subsequent years, thereby developing it as a useful resource.

If you have any further questions about the repository, please contact Dr Daniel Laqua  or Dr James McConnel .

Medieval and Early Modern History

• Hide, Rachel : Tribal Resistance in Northern England and Scotland from the Roman Conquest to the Building of Hadrian’s Wall, 43-122 AD
• Husbands, Benjamin : The Afterlife of Joan of Arc: Visual Representations of the Maid of Orléans
• Watson, Hannah : A Feminist Analysis of the Reinforcement of Patriarchal Strategies within Families of the Late Medieval Gentry

Early Modern

• Curry, Adam : The Arthurian Reformation: The Changing Image of the Arthurian Legend During the English Reformation
• Clarke, Lucy :  A Comparison of Female Prostitution in Eighteenth-Century London and Dublin
• Harrington, Helen :  Gender and ‘Crimes of Speech’ in Seventeenth-Century York
• Weightman, Peter : The Role of the Commons of Cumberland and Westmoreland in the Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536

Modern British History

• Green, Jyoti :  Female Same-Sex Desire in the Nineteenth Century: Approaches from Lesbian Feminist Theory
• Martin, Hannah :  ‘Tragedy, Death, and Memory’: The Commemoration of British Coal Mining Disasters in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century
• Riddell, Daniel : Tyneside and the Italian Risorgimento, 1848-1861 
• White, Oliver :  The Football League and the Game It Made: A Study of the Development and Transformation of Association Football, 1888–1914 
• Aldis, Francesca :  “They call this spring, Mum, and they have one here every year”: An Examination of the Evacuation Experience of Tyneside Schoolchildren 1939–1945
• Carr, Jessica :  Women’s Work in Munitions Factories during The First World War: Gender, Class and Public Opinion
• Isles, Scott :  More Than 'an Enemy's Name, Rank and Number': Information Gaines from Luftwaffe Prisoners of War and its Use for British Intelligence during the Battle of Britain, July - October 1940
• Macfarlane, Euan :  British Naval Innovation and Performance before and during the First World War: The 1916 Sinking of the HMS Invincible
• Timms, Mathew :  The North East and Economic Depression, 1935–1939: The Impact of the Team Valley Corporation
• Wickenden, Rebecca :  ‘For Home and Country’: The Role of the Women’s Institute in the Northumberland and Durham Counties during the Second World War
• Corrigan, Chloe : More Than the 'Fuddy Duddy Co-op': The Consumer Co-operative Movement in 1960s Great Britain
• Fairbairn, Lily : 'Born to Struggle': Working-Class Women's Activism in 1970s Britain
• Kundu, Victoria : 'Roaming Mobs of Mutants!': Anti-Nuclear Culture and Protest in Britain, 1979-1989
• Sumner, Billy :  Militant within Liverpool City Council 1983–1986: The Impact of and Reaction to a Left-Wing Political Movement in the Labour Party
• Tewson, Miles : The Process of Decolonization in Burma: Managing the Transition from Colony to Independent State

Modern European and International History

• Harold, Danny :  Russian Exiles in Britain, 1918–1926: The Politics and Culture of Russia Abroad
• Heywood, Gareth :  Education, Sociability and the Politics of Culture in Fin-de-Siècle France
• McGowan, Abbie :  ‘Looted Art as an International Issue’: From Nazi Plunder to Restitution, 1939–1951
• Robertson-Major, James :  A Long Half-Life: Responses to Chernobyl in Soviet and Post-Soviet Society
• Serafin, Marcel :  Socialist Opposition in the Polish People’s Republic, 1964–1989
• Armstrong, Alasdair :  Words as Weapons: Black Nationalist Poetry in America during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s
• Foley, Lee : A Step Backwards: Nixon, Détente, and the American Space Program
• Henderson, Sophie :  Disobedience and Defiance: Massive Resistance in Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s
• Keen, Gavin :  New York City’s Societal Influence on the Punk Movement, 1975–1979
• Lisle, Ben :  ‘In no other business in America is the color line so finely drawn as in baseball’: An Analysis of Black Baseball’s Failed Attempts at Achieving Major League Professionalism, 1887–1939
• McGuinness, Chloe: Bridging the Gap One Bite at a Time: A Food History of African American Activism, 1955-2015
• Paterson, Ewan :  Redefining Watergate: Surveillance, Paranoia and Pop Culture in America’s Long 1970s
• Watson, Lucy :  Representing the 1970s on TV:  That '70s Show
• Weaver, Alice :  Peace Activism and Women’s Politics: Women Strike for Peace in Context, 1961–1972

History Research

• History Research Groups
• Postgraduate Research

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How to organise a history essay or dissertation

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Sachiko Kusukawa

There are many ways of writing history and no fixed formula for a 'good' essay or dissertation. Before you start, you may find it helpful to have a look at some sample dissertations and essays from the past: ask at the Whipple Library.

Some people have a clear idea already of what they are going to write about; others find it more difficult to choose or focus on a topic. It may be obvious, but it is worth pointing out that you should choose a topic you find interesting and engaging. Ask a potential supervisor for a list of appropriate readings, chase up any further sources that look interesting or promising from the footnotes, or seek further help. Try to define your topic as specifically as possible as soon as possible. Sometimes, it helps to formulate a question (in the spirit of a Tripos question), which could then be developed, refined, or re-formulated. A good topic should allow you to engage closely with a primary source (text, image, object, etc.) and develop a historiographical point – e.g. adding to, or qualifying historians' current debates or received opinion on the topic. Specific controversies (either historically or historiographically) are often a great place to start looking. Many dissertations and essays turn out to be overambitious in scope, but underambition is a rare defect!

Both essays and dissertations have an introduction and a conclusion . Between the introduction and the conclusion there is an argument or narrative (or mixture of argument and narrative).

An introduction introduces your topic, giving reasons why it is interesting and anticipating (in order) the steps of your argument. Hence many find that it is a good idea to write the introduction last. A conclusion summarises your arguments and claims. This is also the place to draw out the implications of your claims; and remember that it is often appropriate to indicate in your conclusion further profitable lines of research, inquiry, speculation, etc.

An argument or narrative should be coherent and presented in order. Divide your text into paragraphs which make clear points. Paragraphs should be ordered so that they are easy to follow. Always give reasons for your assertions and assessments: simply stating that something or somebody is right or wrong does not constitute an argument. When you describe or narrate an event, spell out why it is important for your overall argument. Put in chapter or section headings whenever you make a major new step in your argument of narrative.

It is a very good idea to include relevant pictures and diagrams . These should be captioned, and their relevance should be fully explained. If images are taken from a source, this should be included in the captions or list of illustrations.

The extent to which it is appropriate to use direct quotations varies according to topic and approach. Always make it clear why each quotation is pertinent to your argument. If you quote from non-English sources say if the translation is your own; if it isn't give the source. At least in the case of primary sources include the original in a note if it is your own translation, or if the precise details of wording are important. Check your quotations for accuracy. If there is archaic spelling make sure it isn't eliminated by a spell-check. Don't use words without knowing what they mean.

An essay or a dissertation has three components: the main text , the notes , and the bibliography .

The main text is where you put in the substance of your argument, and is meant to be longer than the notes. For quotes from elsewhere, up to about thirty words, use quotation marks ("...", or '...'). If you quote anything longer, it is better to indent the whole quotation without quotation marks.

Notes may either be at the bottom of the page (footnotes) or at the end of the main text, but before the bibliography (endnotes). Use notes for references and other supplementary material which does not constitute the substance of your argument. Whenever you quote directly from other works, you must give the exact reference in your notes. A reference means the exact location in a book or article which you have read , so that others can find it also – it should include author, title of the book, place and date of publication, page number. (There are many different ways to refer to scholarly works: see below.) . If you cite a primary source from a secondary source and you yourself have not read or checked the primary source, you must acknowledge the secondary source from which the citation was taken. Whenever you paraphrase material from somebody else's work, you must acknowledge that fact. There is no excuse for plagiarism. It is important to note that generous and full acknowledgement of the work of others does not undermine your originality.

Your bibliography must contain all the books and articles you have referred to (do not include works that you did not use). It lists works alphabetically by the last name of the author. There are different conventions to set out a bibliography, but at the very least a bibliographic entry should include for a book the last name and initials/first name of the author, the title of the book in italics or underlined, and the place, (publisher optional) and date of publication; or, for an article, the last name and initials/first name of the author, the title in inverted commas, and the name of the journal in italics or underlined, followed by volume number, date of publication, and page numbers. Names of editors of volumes of collected articles and names of translators should also be included, whenever applicable.

• M. MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
• William Clark, 'Narratology and the History of Science', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 26 (1995), 1–72.
• M. F. Burnyeat, 'The Sceptic in His Place and Time', in R. Rorty, J. B. Schneewind and Q. Skinner (eds), Philosophy in History , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 225–54.

Alternatively, if you have many works to refer to, it may be easier to use an author-date system in notes, e.g.:

• MacDonald [1981], p. 89; Clark [1995a], p. 65; Clark [1995b], pp. 19–99.

In this case your bibliography should also start with the author-date, e.g.:

• MacDonald, Michael [1981], Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Clark, William [1995a], 'Narratology and the History of Science', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 26, 1–72.

This system has the advantage of making your foot- or endnotes shorter, and many choose it to save words (the bibliography is not included in the word limit). It is the system commonly used in scientific publications. Many feel however that something is historically amiss when you find in a footnote something like 'Plato [1996b]' or 'Locke [1975]'. In some fields of research there are standard systems of reference: you will find that this is the case if, for example, you write an essay/dissertation on classical history or philosophy of science. In such cases it is a good idea to take a standard secondary source as your model (e.g. in the case of classics, see G.E.R. Lloyd's The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practices of Ancient Greek Science , Berkeley 1987).

Whatever system you decide to follow for your footnotes, what matters most is that the end-product is consistent.

Keep accurate records of all the relevant bibliographic information as you do your reading for your essay/dissertation. (If you don't you may waste days trying to trace references when you are close to submission deadlines.)

Consistency of style throughout the essay/dissertation is encouraged. There are many professional guides to thesis writing which give you more information on the style and format of theses – for example the MLS handbook (British) and the Chicago Manual of Style (American), both in the Whipple, and a booklet, H. Teitelbaum, How to Write a Thesis: A Guide to the Research Paper , 3rd ed., 126 pp., New York: Macmillan (& Arco), 1994 (in the UL: 1996.8.2620). But don't try to follow everything they say!

Every now and then you should read through a printout of your whole essay/dissertation, to ensure that your argument flows throughout the piece: otherwise there is a danger that your arguments become compartmentalised to the size of the screen. When reading drafts, ask yourself if it would be comprehensible to an intelligent reader who was not an expert on the specific topic.

It is imperative that you save your work on disk regularly – never be caught out without a back-up.

Before you submit:

• remember to run a spell-check (and remember that a spell check will not notice if you have written, for example, 'pheasant' instead of 'peasant', or, even trickier, 'for' instead of 'from', 'it' instead of 'is', etc.);
• prepare a table of contents, with titles for each chapter of your essay/dissertation, page numbers and all;
• prepare a cover page with the title, your name and college;
• prepare a page with the required statement about length, originality etc.

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History: writing a history dissertation.

• Writing a History Dissertation
• Referencing and Style Guide
• Literature Search Plan
• American History

Starting a Literature Search

Conducting a literature search is a great way to find a viable topic and plan your research. It will also give you the opportunity to look for primary and secondary resources that can support the arguments you make in your dissertation. 

Starting your literature search early will help you plan your dissertation and give you an overview of all the resources you might want to consult. Below are examples of how you can start this process and how they can help.

Dissertation Books

Define your Topic

Start your search by identifying a broad subject area, such as a country, period, theme or person. You might do this by looking at reference works, such as a Very Short Introduction , Cambridge Histories , or Oxford Handbooks . These books will give you an insight into the many areas you can investigate in greater depth and they will also provide references to peer-reviewed material on more defined topics. 

Next , look at material which focuses more on the area you have identified from reference works. These might be books, chapters or articles which focus on a more defined area of the subject you have identified. Use these to formulate questions that you can answer in your research.

Then ,  read resources that will help you form your argument and answer the questions you have set. This material should focus on the topic you have chosen and help you explain what has been written on this area before.

Search for Secondary Resources

In order to successfully search for resources relevant to your study, you will need to use search-terms which will retrieve the best results. The tips below will help you do this:

Terms you have found in your reading

Keep a note of terms you have seen when you have been identifying your topic. This could be anything relevant your topic, including: places, people, jobs, religions, institutions, objects, periods, or events. Also, take note of terms that are related to your topic and had an impact on the area you are studying. Write down all the terms which relate to your topic and note which ones provide the most relevant results.

It can also be useful to keep a note of what you are not looking at so that you stay focused on your topic and do not retrieve too many results.

Authors who are written about the topic

You will start to notice that some authors are mentioned as specialists on the topic you are researching. Search a variety of catalogues to find what they have written on the subject in different formats. They might have contributed to edited works, written articles, given presentations to conferences or annotated works. They also might lead you to others who have written about your topic or research groups which are relevant to your studies.

Use subject searches

Most secondary resources have been indexed according to their subject. Through using these subject terms you can search catalogues more efficiently and find relevant resources without just searching the title or author. 

If you find a useful resources, try looking at its catalogue record. See if any of the subject headings look useful and note what terminology they use as this will be consistent across most databases. When you have found a useful term, copy and paste it into a subject search (or select the link) and see what other resources are available.

You can also use an online thesaurus to find search terms. The most commonly used terms are the Library of Congress Subject Headings  which provide uniform terms across international databases.

Use databases

The University subscribes to many databases that focus on different countries and topics. These will provide a comprehensive guide to what has been written in your area and may use different subject headings. Reference databases and bibliographies can be especially useful for finding citations of everything that has been written on a certain area of history. Biographical databases can also help find information about individuals and institutions. For a complete list of all the databases the University subscribes to, look at the A-Z of databases . 

Search for Primary Resources

There are plenty of primary resources that can be used in your dissertation. The University subscribes to many databases that provide access to primary resources and some of our libraries hold special collections which can be used in your research. Below are some examples:

The University subscribes to many newspapers from the past and present. They can be a really useful tool for finding contemporary accounts of events and provide more than just articles (including: advertisements, illustrations, family notices, sports, arts, court cases). Many newspaper databases will also include related content, such as pamphlets and newsbooks.

The University Library has a collection of print newspapers which can be consulted on site. The University also subscribes to electronic databases of national and local newspapers across the world. More information about the newspaper databases we subscribe to is available on our  dedicated website .

Special Collection Material

Many libraries and archives provide access to rare, unique and specialised collections of books and manuscripts. The University Library, for example, provides access to Manuscripts and Rare Books Departments , as do some of the colleges. Some of the more frequently used and important material is also available as part of an online library, such as Cambridge's CUDL .

Official Publications (Government Documents)

Documents produced by governmental and intergovernmental bodies can provide an insight into their decision making and governance. Several libraries in Cambridge have received official publications material and a lot of material is now available online. More information about the official material in Cambridge libraries is available on our Official Publications LibGuide .

Data and Statistics

Figures can be used to help illustrate a point and provide evidence as you answer the central question in your dissertation. You might chose to refer to census data, crime statistics, trade figures, or any other data set that relates to your area of history. This sort of information can be found in databases and replicated in secondary resources. 

Private Papers

If you are researching an individual (or someone who played a prominent role in the area you are focusing on) it is a good idea to see if they have deposited private papers in an archive. These might includes diaries, letters, draft works, or anything else that was kept and not published. These works are normally kept in an archive, so a good starting point is to look at a catalogue that might show where relevant papers are held (such as Archives Hub )

These can include maps, cartoons, paintings and photographs. Images are available both in print and online, but you need to be cautious of the copyright restrictions of images before you use them (check the information given by the source). Some databases will allow you to search images, like ARTstor , so use them as a good starting point for your search. 

Audio-Visual

Similarly to images, the University provides access to a variety of audio-visual resources, including interviews, recordings, radio and films. If there is a particular DVD you would like to use, try searching the title in iDiscover. For example, " Interviews with Historians " will take you to a comprehensive collection of DVDs available at the Seeley. Many films are also available online, such as British Pathe .

Organise and Save Your Research

You will be able to do a comprehensive and efficient literature search if you keep a record of what you have read, where you read it and what each item means to your research. The best way to achieve this is to:

1. Record the key ideas, themes and quotes from what you have read. Try to find a uniform way to do this as it will make it easier to find information when you come to write your dissertation. Some formats are freely available on the internet, such as the Cornell Note Taking System .

2. Save citations you have looked at so you do not struggle to find them again. Also, this will help you when you come to do your references. There are many reference managers available to help you store this information and create a fully formatted bibliography.

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Department of History

Dissertations.

Those wishing to write their dissertation on a subject connected to this course should contact me as early as possible during the Autumn Term. I am very happy to supervise a wide range of topics on the global history of print.

The dissertation should be a new and original piece of work, based on primary sources, and similar in style to an academic article.

Below are some possible themes and example titles. You may wish to use these as a starting point to develop your own topic.

If you are stuck for ideas, it can often work well to focus on a particular book, newspaper, periodical or publisher that interests you, and base your dissertation around a publication and reception history.

Another idea might be to track a particular world event - like the Indian Rebellion - in the newspaper press across the globe.

For further information, see the Dissertation Module website.

Dissertation themes

• Missionary printing
• Scientific publishing
• Press censorship
• Colonial publishers and printers
• Colonial advertising
• Reporting world events
• Printing technology

Previous dissertation titles

• 'A Parting Between Friends'? Indian Independence in the British and Indian Press
• ‘An Immense Field for Missions’: Emancipation Mapping in British Guiana, 1833-1841
• The British Construction of Muslim Identity in India: William Wilson Hunter and his Indian Musalmans (1871)
• The Newspaper Trail: Britain's Global Operation to Counter Indian Seditious Publications, 1908-1918
• Printing the Exhibition: the Active Role of the Popular Press in the Organisation, Expectations and Perceptions of the Great Exhibition of 1851

Example dissertation titles and topics

• The publication and reception history of Mungo Park's Travels in Africa (1799)
• Printing, publishing and editing James Rennell's Map of Hindoostan (1782)  
• The Times of India and the making of the colonial newspaper press
• Press censorship in colonial New South Wales, 1790-1850
• Reporting Gandhi's death in the colonial newspaper press
• The Tourist: radical antislavery and the periodical press
• Proslavery journalism in London, 1780-1834
• Africa and Africans in The Penny Magazine
• Reporting Partition: news and the end of empire
• Buying and selling books in colonial Cape Town, 1820-1850
• Astronomical journalism: reporting a solar eclipse across the British Empire
• Selling sugar, buying slaves: advertising in the Jamaican newspaper press
• Books, tea and opium: The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China
• Gutenberg in Shanghai: producing the first Chinese metal type
• Reading Morant Bay: slave rebellions in the colonial newspaper press
• Nature 's colonial readers: the scientific journal and the British Empire
• Reading science at sea: Charles Darwin's library aboard the Beagle voyage

Dissertation Resources

The best dissertations are often grounded in manuscript sources. The following archives hold the majority of core material related to the history of the British Empire. Try searching key terms in the relevant catalogues:

British Library Manuscript Catalogue (particularly for India, but also elsewhere)

National Archives Catalogue (particularly for British Empire beyond India)

Royal Commonwealth Society Archives

You may also need to access a rare book, either not online or in the Warwick collection. Again, the British Library is the best place to look.

British Library Book Catalogue

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• Dissertation

Prize-Winning Thesis and Dissertation Examples

Published on September 9, 2022 by Tegan George . Revised on July 18, 2023.

It can be difficult to know where to start when writing your thesis or dissertation . One way to come up with some ideas or maybe even combat writer’s block is to check out previous work done by other students on a similar thesis or dissertation topic to yours.

This article collects a list of undergraduate, master’s, and PhD theses and dissertations that have won prizes for their high-quality research.

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Table of contents

Award-winning undergraduate theses, award-winning master’s theses, award-winning ph.d. dissertations, other interesting articles.

University : University of Pennsylvania Faculty : History Author : Suchait Kahlon Award : 2021 Hilary Conroy Prize for Best Honors Thesis in World History Title : “Abolition, Africans, and Abstraction: the Influence of the “Noble Savage” on British and French Antislavery Thought, 1787-1807”

University : Columbia University Faculty : History Author : Julien Saint Reiman Award : 2018 Charles A. Beard Senior Thesis Prize Title : “A Starving Man Helping Another Starving Man”: UNRRA, India, and the Genesis of Global Relief, 1943-1947

University: University College London Faculty: Geography Author: Anna Knowles-Smith Award:  2017 Royal Geographical Society Undergraduate Dissertation Prize Title:  Refugees and theatre: an exploration of the basis of self-representation

University: University of Washington Faculty:  Computer Science & Engineering Author: Nick J. Martindell Award: 2014 Best Senior Thesis Award Title:  DCDN: Distributed content delivery for the modern web

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University:  University of Edinburgh Faculty:  Informatics Author:  Christopher Sipola Award:  2018 Social Responsibility & Sustainability Dissertation Prize Title:  Summarizing electricity usage with a neural network

University:  University of Ottawa Faculty:  Education Author:  Matthew Brillinger Award:  2017 Commission on Graduate Studies in the Humanities Prize Title:  Educational Park Planning in Berkeley, California, 1965-1968

University:  University of Ottawa Faculty: Social Sciences Author:  Heather Martin Award:  2015 Joseph De Koninck Prize Title:  An Analysis of Sexual Assault Support Services for Women who have a Developmental Disability

University : University of Ottawa Faculty : Physics Author : Guillaume Thekkadath Award : 2017 Commission on Graduate Studies in the Sciences Prize Title : Joint measurements of complementary properties of quantum systems

University:  London School of Economics Faculty: International Development Author: Lajos Kossuth Award:  2016 Winner of the Prize for Best Overall Performance Title:  Shiny Happy People: A study of the effects income relative to a reference group exerts on life satisfaction

University : Stanford University Faculty : English Author : Nathan Wainstein Award : 2021 Alden Prize Title : “Unformed Art: Bad Writing in the Modernist Novel”

University : University of Massachusetts at Amherst Faculty : Molecular and Cellular Biology Author : Nils Pilotte Award : 2021 Byron Prize for Best Ph.D. Dissertation Title : “Improved Molecular Diagnostics for Soil-Transmitted Molecular Diagnostics for Soil-Transmitted Helminths”

University:  Utrecht University Faculty:  Linguistics Author:  Hans Rutger Bosker Award: 2014 AVT/Anéla Dissertation Prize Title:  The processing and evaluation of fluency in native and non-native speech

University: California Institute of Technology Faculty: Physics Author: Michael P. Mendenhall Award: 2015 Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics Title: Measurement of the neutron beta decay asymmetry using ultracold neutrons

University:  Stanford University Faculty: Management Science and Engineering Author:  Shayan O. Gharan Award:  Doctoral Dissertation Award 2013 Title:   New Rounding Techniques for the Design and Analysis of Approximation Algorithms

University: University of Minnesota Faculty: Chemical Engineering Author: Eric A. Vandre Award:  2014 Andreas Acrivos Dissertation Award in Fluid Dynamics Title: Onset of Dynamics Wetting Failure: The Mechanics of High-speed Fluid Displacement

University: Erasmus University Rotterdam Faculty: Marketing Author: Ezgi Akpinar Award: McKinsey Marketing Dissertation Award 2014 Title: Consumer Information Sharing: Understanding Psychological Drivers of Social Transmission

University: University of Washington Faculty: Computer Science & Engineering Author: Keith N. Snavely Award:  2009 Doctoral Dissertation Award Title: Scene Reconstruction and Visualization from Internet Photo Collections

University:  University of Ottawa Faculty:  Social Work Author:  Susannah Taylor Award: 2018 Joseph De Koninck Prize Title:  Effacing and Obscuring Autonomy: the Effects of Structural Violence on the Transition to Adulthood of Street Involved Youth

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• Dissertation

In consultation with the advisor, who also serves as first reader of the dissertation, students invite faculty members to join the dissertation committee, which is ordinarily formed no later than one term after the completion of the general exam. The committee is typically comprised of three readers , though a student may have as few as two or as many as four .

What is the Dissertation Committee?

The dissertation committee is composed of either three or four members, at least two of whom are ordinarily members or formal affiliates of the History Department. The adviser must be a member of the History Department.

• First Reader / Adviser: The Dissertation Committee is chaired by a member of the History Department who has been designated as the student’s adviser. The Adviser works closely with the student at all stages of the dissertation, from formulation of the topic through writing and defense.
• Second Reader: a senior or junior faculty member from the history department, or affiliated with the department as listed in the Courses of Instruction. If a student wishes to include a second reader who is not affiliated with the department, he or she submits a petition to the coordinator for approval by the director of graduate studies.
• Third Reader: may be a member of another department, faculty, or university. With the permission of the advisor and the DGS, a candidate may choose not to approach a third reader for academic reasons. If a student wishes not to have a third reader, he or she must make that decision known to the Coordinator of Graduate Studies by the end of the spring semester of their fourth year.
• Fourth Reader: optional; may be added toward the completion of the dissertation. Note: the dissertation defense committee will consist of the student's dissertation committee plus one additional member (see "Oral Defense and Defense Committee" below.)

Throughout the research and writing phase, students are urged to maintain communication with all readers, and submit chapters as they are completed to the committee as a whole.

To complete the administrative process of forming the committee, students submit the dissertation committee form to the coordinator. The form requires the signatures of each reader, so please begin collecting signatures as soon as possible.

Changes to the Dissertation Committee

After establishing a dissertation committee, a student may choose to replace a reader. This decision should be made after careful consideration and consultation with his or her advisor. The student should initiate discussions with the current and potential reader; and it is important there should be no ambiguity about the new reader’s agreement to serve on the Committee. The Graduate Coordinator, once notified, will update the official record of committee names.

Oral Defense and the Defense Committee

Students defend their dissertation before it is approved by the  dissertation defense committee .* The defense committee consists of the student’s dissertation committee plus one additional member drawn from the History Department, another Harvard department, or outside the University. Prior to the oral defense, each member of the defense committee may write a detailed report on the dissertation, but this is not required. The defense itself should last approximately two hours. It is open to the intellectual community of faculty and graduate students as well as friends and family of the candidate. Once the dissertation has been successfully defended, the members of the  defense committee  sign the dissertation acceptance certificate, and append their reports to it.

Defense Deadlines

The defense needs to be held before the GSAS dissertation submission deadline, and final dissertations must be submitted to the members of the Dissertation Defense Committee at least one month in advance to give them time to prepare their reports. This suggests the following timelines:

For a May Degree : Dissertation due at GSAS by mid-May . Therefore, the defense must occur no later than early May (again, with final draft submitted at least a month prior).

For a November degree : Dissertation due at GSAS by mid-September . Therefore, the defense must occur no later than early September (with final draft submitted at least a month prior).

Students can also apply for a March degree . The GSAS dissertation submission deadline for March degrees is in mid-January, which means that students aiming for the March degree will need to defend by mid-December, before the winter break.

Where do I submit my dissertation?

Online submission of the dissertation via ETD @ Harvard is required by the Graduate School. Dissertations must be received by 11:59 pm on the deadline date for the given degree period. NO EXTENSIONS TO THIS DEADLINE ARE PROVIDED.

http://www.registrar.fas.harvard.edu/registration-enrollment-degrees/graduation-diplomas/phd-dissertation-submission

Dissertations should be submitted in their final format, in accordance with the guidelines listed in the Form of the PhD Dissertation booklet, and ready for publication. The Registrar’s Office will review the document for formatting compliance. Formatting errors may prevent the conferral of the degree and the student may need to apply for the next available degree period. A sample dissertation as well as the Top Ten Common Errors are provided for your convenience.

The following two surveys must be completed and completion confirmation codes provided during dissertation submission.

1. Survey of Earned Doctorates

2. GSAS Exit Survey of Postgraduate Plans

In addition to the electronic dissertation submission, an electronic copy of your signed Dissertation Acceptance Certificate must also be submitted. It must be signed by a minimum of three readers , two of whom must be members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The student name must match the legal name on file at the Registrar's Office .

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• Researching your dissertation

When it comes to thinking about dissertations, it's useful to know how and where to look for material, both within Cambridge and further afield. The following is some guidance on finding various different types of material, whether primary or secondary.

Finding books in Cambridge

Finding books outside cambridge, finding articles.

• Unpublished material

Online sources

Subject gateways.

For further help our LibGuide has lots of information about how to carry out research in History.

Finding secondary material

The best place to begin looking for secondary material is a specialist bibliographical database covering your area of interest, eg. the Bibliography of British and Irish History . Teaching staff will be able to advise on what databases there are in your subject area. There may not be a specialist database covering your topic, in which case a more general literature search may be the best way to begin. Literature searches may also help you to find supplementary material, and to identify what is available within Cambridge.

Literature searches will help you to identify a viable topic of research, or a new angle from which to approach a subject, and they will also ensure that you do not duplicate work in progress. You will need to be compiling lists of material to consult at the same time as taking organised notes and writing; you should not wait to complete the reading before beginning to write.

For searching across library catalogues in Cambridge, use iDiscover ; as well as searching library holdings it also retrieves records for ejournals and ebooks, and can be extended to search databases such as JSTOR . You can also turn searches into RSS feeds (for alerts when any relevant items are added to the catalogue).

The University's ebooks@cambridge team subscribe to thousands of ebook titles, including key resources such as the Cambridge Histories and Cambridge Companions. These are searchable through iDiscover; if there is an electronic copy of the book you are looking for, it will have the phrase "[electronic resource]" in the record after the title, and you can follow the link in the record directly through to the text. Ebooks are easy to use, can be accessed from home and can normally have several users accessing the text simultaneously, so access is almost always available.

You may need to extend your search beyond Cambridge, to see if there is material available elsewhere which is not held by any of the libraries in the university. Library Hub Discover  is the best way for finding material held in libraries in the United Kingdom; it is the combined catalogue of the UK's major research libraries (including the British Library, National Library of Scotland and National Library of Wales), as well as various specialist research libraries and collections. The catalogue contains over 32 million records. It is possible to search by subject, author, title or keyword, and you can restrict your search by date, place published, type of material (eg. periodicals, maps), or language. Search results will display where an item is held, and provide links to an electronic copy, if there is a freely available one. 

The Document Delivery Service is available to help support students access difficult to locate material. This includes Inter-Library loan and Rapid Inter-Library loan.

If you are working away from Cambridge (for example, during the vacation), you may be able to get access to other higher education libraries in your area; visit SCONUL Access  for more information.

For catalogues of libraries outside the United Kingdom try WorldCat , a catalogue of over 10,000 libraries, which indexes 1.5 billion items.

You will need to look at journal articles as well as books, as journals are often where the latest, most up-to-date historical research is published. There are several citation databases which you can search for articles which might be relevant to your topic. As well as general historical databases, there are also more specialised ones, covering various regions, periods and topics. (Most of these will require a Raven password for off-campus access.) To search across the full range of electronic journals Cambridge subscribes to go to the ejournals@cambridge page. It is also possible to search across popular databases for article titles (as opposed to journal titles) on iDiscover.

Key general databases

• Historical Abstracts: This covers the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada). Published since 1954, it indexes over 3,100 academic historical journals in more than 40 languages; thousands of new citations are added every year.
• Scopus: This database is by far the largest citation database available to members of the University. It covers a range of disciplines and includes information about where articles have been cited.

Digital journal archives

• JSTOR: A digital archive of over 1,000 journals; it can be subject-searched and gives immediate online access to articles in titles to which the University subscribes.
• Project Muse: Full-text access to nearly 500 journals from over 130 scholarly publishers.

Region/country databases

• America: History and Life: A companion title to Historical Abstracts. There is not online access, but the print copy can be found in the University Library (North Front, Floor 6, classmark: P660.b.31).
• Bibliography of British and Irish History: A bibliographical database of historical writing dealing with the British Isles, the British Empire and the Commonwealth, from 55 B.C. to the present, containing over 500,000 records. (It is worth noting that it is not an exhaustive bibliography of works relating to the British Empire and the Commonwealth; it covers the relations of those countries in the Empire and the Commonwealth with Britain.)
• Bibliography of Asian Studies: A bibliographical database covering articles and book chapters on all parts of Asia published since 1971.
• Index Islamicus: A bibliographical database of books, articles and reviews on Islam and the Muslim world.

Chronological databases

• International Medieval Bibliography: A bibliographical database covering medieval civilization, containing over 440,000 records.

Topical databases

• ATLA Religion Database: A bibliographical database covering theology and church history, containing over 1.7 million records.
• Bibliography of the History of Art: A bibliographical database on European and American art from late antiquity to the present, covering material published between 1975 and 2007.
• History of Science, Technology & Medicine: amalgamation of a few separate bibliographies. Includes historiography and the role of science in society and culture from prehistoric times onwards.

Unpublished material (dissertations and theses)

There are several different databases for searching for university dissertations and theses, whether produced in the United Kingdom or further afield.

• History Online: Contains a directory of history theses and research Masters produced in the U.K. since 1970, along with a list of theses currently in progress.
• EThOS: The national thesis service: a British Library-administered database of over 300,000 theses from U.K. universities.  Those which have already been digitized can be downloaded for free, but if the thesis you want to look at has not yet been digitized, you will have to pay a fee.  (Cambridge dissertations are listed on Ethos but not supplied by the service.
• ProQuest Digital Dissertations: A database of 2.4 million dissertation and theses citations from 700 academic institutions worldwide, offering full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997.
• Apollo: Cambridge University's institutional repository.  Includes a collection of voluntarily deposited Ph.D. theses.

Finding primary sources

You can access more online resources through iDiscover and the UL's eresources@cambridge page , which includes links to visual and sound resources, film and video services, and newspapers (both archives and current).

Some examples of online collections of primary source material:

• American Memory (Library of Congress): online collection of documents for American history, comprising written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music.
• British History Online: digital library of primary and secondary sources for medieval and modern history of the British Isles
• Empire Online: online collection of original documents relating to empire studies, including exploration journals, periodicals, government papers, maps.
• First World War: Personal Experiences: database of digital images of original documents, including diaries, letters, personal narratives, scrapbooks, and visual sources.
• German History in Documents and Images: digital collection of original historical materials documenting German history from the beginning of the early modern period to the present.
• UK Parliamentary Papers includes over 200,00 House of Commons sessional papers from 1715, with supplementary material back to 1688.

In Cambridge

ArchiveSearch  provides finding aids and links to digital records for the majority of archives located in the city of Cambridge., including the archives of many colleges, and of the Churchill Archives Centre .

In the United Kingdom

You may need to visit archives outside Cambridge as part of your research. To find out what archival material is held where, there are various union catalogues of archive material:

• National Archives: Formerly the Public Record Office, this repository holds the national archives for England, Wales and the United Kingdom (there are separate national record offices for Scotland and Northern Ireland). They have extensive online catalogues , which can be searched by subject, and you can access their online collections and download copies of documents.
• National Register of Archives: A register of over 44,000 unpublished lists and catalogues, detailing the nature and location of manuscripts and historical records relating to British history. These are "non-official" archives covering the holdings of local record offices, national and university libraries (including Cambridge), specialist repositories, museums and other bodies in the United Kingdom and abroad, as well as papers held privately by individuals, firms and institutions. The research guides on the website explain how the National Register of Archives can be used for locating material on particular topics.
• Archives Hub: A national gateway to descriptions of archives of over 180 UK repositories (including Oxford and Cambridge); again, you can search by subject.

To search the holdings of archives outside the United Kingdom, try Archive Grid , a major catalogue of historical documents, personal papers and family history material held in repositories around the world; you can search for collections by topic.

Subject gateways are online portals to subject-specific resources, and can be excellent places to look for more information on your topic. Some gateways where the sites have been evaluated by experts include:

• History Online: Created by the Institute of Historical Research, this initiative indexes books and journal articles, details history lecturers in the U.K., digital history projects, and current and past historical research.
• History Data Service: This project collects, preserves, and promotes the use of digital resources, which result from or support historical research, learning and teaching.
• Connected Histories: A collection of digital resources on early modern and 19th century British history.
• Online resources
• Electronic resources by paper
• Libraries, archives, museums, galleries
• Keeping up-to-date

Te Kura Aro Whakamuri, Rapunga Whakaaro, Matai Tōrangapū me te Ao

School of --> school of history, philosophy, political science and international relations, suggested topics for postgraduate theses in history.

History staff members offer a range of topics that Master of Arts and PhD students may want to pursue.

Catherine Abou-Nemeh

European history, 1500–1750.

I am available to supervise a range of topics in the history of early modern Europe, early modern sciences, technology, and medicine, from around 1500 to 1750. I am open to discussing topics with students and welcome student use of primary sources in foreign languages, especially in Dutch, French, Italian, Polish, Spanish, German, and Latin.

Postgraduate students at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington have access to a wide variety of primary sources and documents. The Alexander Turnbull Library holds a rare books collection rich in materials on Europe’s early sciences. Collection highlights include publications of the Royal Society of London, including Robert Hooke’s pioneering work on microscopy, Micrographia , and his Posthumous Works ; John Flamsteed's celestial atlas; and Book Three of Isaac Newton's Principia .

The University's Library has a number of modern scholarly editions of early modern texts. These include works by Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, John Evelyn, John Aubrey, Margaret Cavendish, and Richard Bentley, among others. The Library also houses all issues of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.

Online databases include Early English Books Online, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Burney Collection of Seventeenth-Eighteenth Century Newspapers. Digital projects—such as Mapping the Republic of Letters, Newton Project, and Perdita Manuscripts of Women Writers, 1500–1700—offer access to manuscript and printed sources.

Potential topics

History of medicine, 1500–1750

• Early studies of mental health and medicine, or ‘diseases of the soul’
• Social responses to animal vivisections and experimentation
• Medicine, domestic science and women's recipe books
• Representations of quack doctors in the 17th and 18th centuries
• Comparison of seventeenth and eighteenth century botanical collections

History of science, 1500–1750

• Controversies, priority disputes, and public debates in natural philosophy
• Newtonian sciences and their many afterlives
• The Royal Society of London in satires
• Studies of earthquakes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
• Evolving practices of observation and experiment

Early modern Europe, 1500–1750

• The early modern diplomat's tradecraft
• Aspects of urbanisation, pollution, and politics
• Seventeenth-century pedagogy and education reforms
• The art of physiognomy and ‘books of complexions’ in the 16th century
• Cultural responses to the introduction of new spices and substances

See Catherine Abou-Nemeh’s profile page .

Steve Behrendt

British atlantic maritime history, 1650–1850.

Topics concerning British Atlantic maritime history in the period 1650–1850, based on analysis of sources contained in online book collections (such as Early English Books Online, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Making of the Modern World), rare books and microfilms held at the Alexander Turnbull Library, ship registers, newspapers, trade lists, colonial records, ships’ muster rolls and parliamentary papers from the Houses of Commons and Lords.

• Particular maritime businesses (for example, the slave trade, the sugar trade, or whaling)
• Interconnections between maritime commerce and the Navy
• Medical history, or the development of ports in the Atlantic world.

The University holds the largest collection of slave trade-related materials in Australasia.

See Steve Behrendt’s profile page .

Kate Hunter

Aspects of social and cultural history of world war i.

There are a great many photographs, official records, and personal papers of soldiers, nurses, and families affected by war in Wellington repositories that could form the basis of a postgraduate thesis. Theoretical considerations and frameworks could include:

• Manliness, femininity, ideas/representation of the body during World War I
• Remembrance and commemoration, educating children about the war during the interwar years
• Changing attitudes around death and dying, grieving, and bereavement
• The experience of and changes in rural communities during the war, especially the manifestations of modernity.
• A comparison of Kai Tiaki (journal of NZ nursing) and the Gazette of the British First-Aid Nursing Yeomanry (available through 'Women, Work and Society, 1914–18' database held at the Library) and/or the Royal Nursing Journal (UK) now fully digitised
• A comparison of British, New Zealand, and Australian women’s adventure writings about their war experiences as published in women’s magazines, journals, and school journals
• Using the Dorothy Neal White collection of children's literature (at National Library), examining aspects of juvenile fiction before and after the war; perhaps in combination with the children's columns/pages in various newspapers
• An exploration of domestic sewing, and the role of sewing in providing ‘comfort’ to soldiers, especially to wounded soldiers (and/or pre-war sewing for families if you wish). Whole hospitals were fitted out with bed linen and pyjamas for patients through the efforts of sewing women
• Aspects of culinary history. Cooking, butchery and dressing, domestic service, home economics education, kitchen design, cookbooks as sources, account books, diaries, advice columns, and so on
• Aspects of environmental and gardening history and other transformations of the landscape through burning, ploughing and planting (using magazines and gardening literature eg New Zealand Gardener which began in 1947 or Brett's Colonists' Guide, farming newspapers, diaries, personal papers, photographs: entering 'gardening' as a subject in Tapuhi reveals a great number of 19th and 20th century records from gardening diaries, clippings and scrap-books to ledgers from seed companies—all rich source material)
• Other topics in this area that deserve more scholarly attention include fishing (both commercial and recreational, sea or freshwater) in New Zealand and hunting. A comparison of conservation and wildlife policies of settler colonies, particularly Canada and New Zealand, also New Zealand hunters’ and fishers’ visits to other countries such as Africa, Australia and India, all lend themselves to rich thesis topics.

See Kate Hunter’s profile page .

Dolores Janiewski

Potential topics—19th century.

• Debate over slavery, 1830–1865
• the Media and Literary construction of ‘race’ in US History, 1830s–1900s
• US Civil War. soldiers’ experience, the home front, gender and civil war, slavery and civil war racial violence, 1865–1900
• lynching; Ku Klux Klan; disfranchisement and segregation, 1890–1900
• Women’s rights and woman suffrage, 1848–1920
• US Empire and the Pacific, 1820–1900, Hawaii, Sāmoa; frontier conflicts
• Wounded Knee and the end of the ‘Indian Wars’, 1880s–1890s
• Comparisons between New Zealand and the US West.

Potential topics—20th century

• The Better America Federation and anti-Communism in the 1920s US
• Cold War US culture, foreign policy; involvement in Vietnam
• SEATO treaty, 1954–1975
• Détente and its enemies; Civil Rights movement, 1954–1965
• Second wave feminism, 1967–1982
• The religious right as transnational network, 1940–2007
• Conservative movements in US History, 1934–2005
• Conservatism and US Foreign Policy, 1934–2004
• Gender and US literature, 1830–1900
• Race and US literature, 1830–1900
• Advertising and US culture, 1870–1940
• Political cartoons and US politics, 1830–1870s
• Sexuality and US politics, 1830–1870s
• The debate over empire and anti-imperialism in the US, 1870–2007
• Religious Right: New Zealand–US connections, 1970s–2005
• Freedom Summer, 1964
• The US–New Zealand peace and anti-nuclear movements.

See Dolores Janiewski’s profile page .

Charlotte Macdonald

I am available to supervise in a range of topics in New Zealand History, histories of empire and colony in the 19th century, and histories of gender and women.

• Aspects of the 19th-century garrison world. Looking beyond the military to the wider ambit of garrison life across the British Empire. Topics might include disease, consumption, trade, surgeons, garrison towns, garrison masculinity, sites and memories, and much more.
• Domestic service and colonial labour. Exploring the value of labour in settler colonies. The enigma of the New Zealand story.
• 20th-century protest and dissent. The Alexander Turnbull Library contains a rich Ephemera collection of posters, pamphlets, manifestoes.
• Print culture: this is a rich and growing area linking writing and reading with politics and culture. There are many angles to explore in the New Zealand setting where reading and writing has been at the centre of national life for over 200 years.
• Ngā Taonga Archives of Film, Sound, and Television offers many options for projects that take up the life of these powerful media as histories and in history. Ngā Taonga is located in Wellington.
• An aspect of the history of radio in New Zealand focusing on broadcaster–audience relations, sports broadcasting, or the history of radio 'soap' series. Existing cultural histories of radio in Australia and the US alongside Patrick Day's two-volume history of broadcasting in New Zealand provide a foundation in secondary sources.
• The sporting press in New Zealand and Australia. Little work has been done on the extensive sporting press which developed in Australasia from the 1880s. Titles ranged widely, often combining gentlemen's illustrated magazines with sporting reports, licensed victuallers' papers with sporting titles, racing, and other sporting coverage. As the daily press took up sports reporting the weekly press responded with new and different titles. Through the 20th century, sporting coverage continued to be an innovative area for publication, with motoring and radio-related titles appearing in the 1920s and lavish photographic weeklies enjoying popularity in the post-World War II years. Another angle would be to look at the sporting pages within the major daily and weekly newspapers, charting their place within the commercial and political world of print culture. Rich sources exist for a variety of thesis projects at MA or PhD level.
• Drinking and playing. A study examining the long relationship between alcohol and competitive and recreational sport. To what extent has New Zealand's sporting culture relied on alcohol? This could be framed around a particular time period, event, sporting activity, or set of recreational institutions (pubs as well as playing fields).
• Lost Cases. Horse stealing, 'unnatural offences', petty theft, libel, murder, concealment of birth, and other matters of dispute: a study using the sources identified in the 'Lost Cases' database of legal cases heard in New Zealand's Supreme Court, 1842–1883 (there are a number of possible angles and areas of focus though the broad field is one of the conjunction of law and history). See New Zealand's Lost Cases as a starting point.
• 19th-century negotiator, politician, and administrator Donald McLean (1820–1877) left a huge quantity of correspondence and papers, now a major collection in the Alexander Turnbull Library's manuscript collection . These have been digitised, a portion transcribed, and those written in Māori translated. A thesis would draw on a selection of these documents to investigate an aspect of New Zealand's history from the 1840s to the 1870s. See also the entry on McLean in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (DNZB on teara.govt.nz) and Ray Fargher, The best man who ever served the Crown? A life of Donald McLean , Wellington, 2007.

See Charlotte Macdonald’s profile page .

Alexander Maxwell

The habsburg, romanov, soviet, and ottoman empires.

East European Empires offer many interesting research topics, including ethnic tensions in a multi-ethnic state, the modernisation of peasant societies, struggles for democratisation or socialism, or the question of dynastic loyalties.

Students could address such questions either from the perspective of the imperial courts in Istanbul, Vienna, Moscow, or St Petersburg, or from the perspective of a specific national community: Russian, German, Turkish, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Greek, Armenian, and so on.

Extensive sources are available online for several of these topics. While I am particularly skilled in Slovak, Hungarian, and Macedonian history, I am interested in supervising topics anywhere in Eastern Europe.

Theories of nationalism

The study of nationalism poses many theoretical problems, and can be approached from many different angles. Nationalism has an intellectual history, but also a social and organisational history.

Students may wish to study the spread of nationalist feeling, the relationship of patriotic intelligentsias to the people they claim to lead, the relationship between national ideology and patriotic action, or the social and gender composition of national movements.

I have special expertise in the relationship between nationalism and linguistic loyalties, corporeal practices, consumption habits, and clothing, but am willing to supervise topics investigating other aspects of nationalism.

Social and gender history during the long 19th century

Some of the most exciting historical research occurs in the field of gender studies. My research on nationalism and clothing, as well as nationalised sexuality, make me eager to work with students looking at the relationship between gender identities and other social variables.

The University's Library and the Turnbull Library together have rich resources on Anglophone social history. Sources include the Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music, and Romance (first published in 1832), the Child's Own Magazine (1832–1871), Leisure Hour (1852–1905), Boy's Own Paper (1876–1967), Gentlewoman (1898–1920), and the Girls' Empire: An annual volume for English-speaking girls (1902–04) all offer rich pickings for political analyses of gender and society.

Eastern Europe during and after Communism

The Soviet Union and its empire in Eastern Europe attracted considerable attention during the Cold War, but the collapse of Communism has created a new discipline of 'transition studies'. Students may wish to examine political or social aspects of the transition, ethnic or ideological tensions in the newly independent states, or cultural developments in this vibrant and exiting region of the world. Post-Communist states have been very active in creating online repositories and archives, and considerable resources are also available in English.

East European diasporas in New Zealand

Students interested in the relationship between immigrant communities and the 'old country' may wish to examine East European ethnicities. Turnbull library has copies of the Czechoslovak émigré newspaper Střípky Čriepky, the Polish émigré papers Solidarność na Antypodach (1985) and Krzyż południa (1990) and the Hungarian papers Ujzélandi Magyar híradó (started in 1958) and Magyar szó (1990).

A student taking an interest in one of these communities could even bypass the language barrier through the techniques of oral history, and Krzyż południa has also published articles in English. While my own research primarily concerns European history, the resources of the Antipodean East European Study Group might benefit students interested in this region.

See Alexander Maxwell’s profile page .

Jim McAloon

Potential topics in new zealand history.

• New Zealand regional history, especially 19th century
• Histories of business in New Zealand (including farming)
• Labour history, including histories of unions, of work, and of workplace cultures
• Political history, including policy issues, parliamentarians and political parties, and also extra-parliamentary political movements. Comparative approaches are welcomed
• Migration from Britain and Ireland to New Zealand, particularly with a regional focus.

See Jim McAloon’s profile page .

Adrian Muckle

19th-century travel (and travellers’ accounts) in the pacific.

The Turnbull Library has extensive holdings.

Pacific Islands’ history post-1942/Aspects of decolonisation in the Pacific

This is emerging as an important area of research. Possible topics include: Wartime thinking about future political statuses; regionalism; social and political developments in the post-war era (the 1940s to 1960s) and prior to independence. Quite a lot of research has been done about the political and legal dimensions of decolonisation, but not so much has been done about the social, cultural, and economic dimensions of this process.

New Zealand–Pacific relations and regionalism

Possible topics include: New Zealand's relations with particular Pacific Island territories and states; New Zealand and the development Pacific regionalism post-1945; New Zealand's involvement in the Institute of Pacific Relations (See Beaglehole Room archives re IPR and NZIIA); Important connections are also provided by trade/labour union connections; media, health organisations, and churches.

The Pacific war

This is an area of growing public interest. There is work that could be done on the experiences of New Zealanders in the Pacific during World War II; and the literature (and other media) associated with the war in the Pacific.

New Caledonia and French Polynesia

Students with French language skills may be interested in topics relating to New Caledonia and French Polynesia. Possible sources/areas of study include: Catholic mission records up to c1956 (for example, missionary responses to World War I or World War II in New Caledonia and the development of particular mission stations); New Caledonian historiography (for example, a study of the Bulletin de la Société d'Études Historiques de la Nouvelle-Calédonie ); history and literature (depending on published sources available at the Turnbull Library); relations between New Zealand and New Caledonia or French Polynesia (for example, during the 1980s); New Zealand's response to the Kanak independence movement.

Historiography

There is a need for critical (and comparative) historiographies of Pacific island nations (for example, Sāmoa, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, French Polynesia).

Other topics

War histories.

Two kinds of study might be thought of under this heading—studies of official war histories taking advantage of the recent digitisation of the complete Official History of New Zealand in World War II series; studies of either WWI or WWII personal letters and diaries given the large collection at the ATL, and the possibility of setting these alongside the growing body of oral history on WWII (and some of WWI).

Historical geography

The geography of the 1913 strike in Wellington—where did activity take place, was it geographically specific, or dispersed? 'When we looked at the Waihi strike for the atlas, we found that strikers and strikebreakers were completely mixed up in terms of where they lived. The strikebreakers were not 'outsiders'. Wellington would be different of course—but how much?' Malcolm McKinnon, editor, New Zealand Historical Atlas , 1997.

Histories of suburbs

There is a good secondary literature on suburbanisation in the library. It could be applied to any Wellington suburb/cluster of streets, in a particular period. Adrian Humphris's geography MA on Kilbirnie suggests some ways of approaching it. (He is currently working as an archivist at WCC archives.)

Consumption

History of milkbars, cinemas, department stores.

See Adrian Muckle’s profile page .

Collections as a starting point for topics

The University Library is acquiring additional collections of direct value to postgraduate research in History. See, for example:

• British Parliamentary Papers on line
• Early English Books on line (EEBO)
• Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
• Women, War and Society, 1914–1918, from collections of the Imperial War Museum, London.
• Empire On-Line
• Defining Gender
• Recent purchases of Adam Matthew microfilms
• Alexander Turnbull Library. The Turnbull library holds copies of several major collections of microfilmed materials relating to the Pacific, notably the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau (PMB) microfilm series. PMB indexes are available at the Victoria University of Wellington Library and online.

The number of digital collections is also growing. Recently the following have become available:

• Te Ao Hou - the complete collection of Te Ao Hou the Māori Affairs magazine from 1952 to 1976
• Te Ara - the new New Zealand Encyclopedia.

The National Register of Archives and Manuscripts (NRAM) provide a listing of archives and manuscripts in many of the major New Zealand research repositories.

The following are all to be found in the JC Beaglehole Room Special Collection, Victoria University of Wellington Library:

• Springbok Tour archives. The 20-year restriction ended in 2001, so there are now only Privacy Act implications to using this material. Tapes would need to be copied and some might need restoration, but there are transcripts. The papers of Lindsay Wright are related.
• Wellington Investment and Trustee Association papers 1886–1968. This is an excellent source. It is long-running and has a name index to the Investors' Ledger. The papers were literally rescued from going to the tip. One researcher has used them so far.
• Kelburne and Karori Tramway Company Ltd and Kelburne-Karori Motor Bus Company
• Papers of Angus McCurdy - Originally collected by Les Cleveland for a study of McCurdy as a lobbyist and this angle might appeal to someone.
• Many pamphlets and some MSS. material for Sir Robert Stout.
• Papers of Geoffrey Joseph Schmitt re Tasman Pulp and Paper etc. Geoffrey Schmitt (1921-2000), later Emeritus Professor of Economics at Waikato University, was employed by Tasman Pulp and Paper Company Limited from 22 August 1953 to 31 December 1967, first as Secretary, later as General Manager, and from June 1963 as Managing Director. 23 bundles of papers originally deposited per Gary Hawke, plus 'Tasman: Early years of Tasman Pulp and Paper Company Limited: a personal history' and further papers deposited later.
• NZ Institute of International Affairs
• NZ Institute of Architects records 1906–1967 (later records are in Auckland)
• Student drama—'Extravaganza' scripts from the 1940s and so on. Other student records: NZUSA (NZ Universities Students Assoc.) and VUWSA, NZ Student Arts Council posters, various Victoria University of Wellington clubs, for example the caving club, the Biological Society, the Anglican Society, Debating Club.
• New Zealand Library School Students Association records
• Graduates’ Association (University of New Zealand). The stated objects of the Association were to further the interests of University Education in New Zealand and to promote friendly intercourse among the students and graduates of the University. 1885–1892 (that is, pre-VUC). 'A meeting of graduates of the New Zealand University was held in the Congregational schoolroom, on the invitation of the Revd W H West BA LLB, on Thursday June 18th 1885. The graduates present were Rev. W H West BA, LLB, PS Hay MA, HB Kirk MA, JC Webb BA, W P Evans MA, JT Barnicoat BA, TR Fleming BA
• Imperial Universities' Rifle Match Committee records 1945–1967
• In the architectural history field, the Architecture and Design School Library holds papers and plans and so on from Gray Young architects.

Contact the librarian in the J C Beaglehole Room.

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The Department of Modern History offers a range of degree programmes and other study opportunities for undergraduate and postgraduate students covering the period from the Renaissance (the late 15th century) to the present day.

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You are here, dissertations, completed dissertations.

1942-Present

DISSERTATIONS IN PROGRESS

As of July 2024

Bartunkova, Barbora , “Sites of Resistance: Antifascism and the Czechoslovak Avant-garde” (C. Armstrong)

Betik, Blair Katherine , “Altars on the Roman Frontiers: Ritual Objects in Real Space.” (M. Gaifman)

Burke, Harry , “The Islands Between: Art, Animism, and Anticolonial Worldmaking in Archipelagic Southeast Asia” (P. Lee)

Boyd, Nicole , “Science, Craft, Art, Theater: Four ‘Perspectives’ on the Painted Architecture of Angelo Michele Colonna and Agostino Mitelli” (N Suthor). 

Chau, Tung , “Strange New Worlds: Interfaces in the Work of Cao Fei” (P. Lee)

Cox, Emily , “Perverse Modernism, 1884-1900” (C. Armstrong, T. Barringer)

Datta, Yagnaseni , “Materialising Illusions: Visual Translation in the Mughal Jug Basisht, c. 1602.” (K. Rizvi)

de Luca, Theo , “Nicolas Poussin’s Chronotopes” (N. Suthor)

Del Bonis-O’Donnell, Asia , “Trees and the Visualization of  kosmos  in Archaic and Classical Athenian Art” (Yale University, M. Gaifman)

Demby, Nicole , “The Diplomatic Image: Framing Art and Internationalism, 1945-1960” (K. Mercer)

Donnelly, Michelle . “Spatialized Impressions: American Printmaking Outside the Workshop, 1935–1975” (J. Raab)

Epifano, Angie , “Building the Samorian State: Material Culture, Architecture, and Cities across West Africa” (E. Cooke, Jr.)

Fialho, Alex , “Apertures onto AIDS: African American Photography and the Art History of the Storage Unit” (P. Lee, T Nyong’o)

Foo, Adela , “Crafting the Aq Qoyuniu Court (1475-1490) (E. Cooke, Jr.)

Franciosi, Caterina , “Latent Light: Energy and Nineteenth-Century British Art” (T. Barringer)

Frier, Sara , “Unbearable Witness: The Disfigured Body in the Northern European Brief (1500-1620)” (N. Suthor)

Galdone, Isabella , “Interwoven: Women Makers at the Intersection of Needlework and Painting in Victoria Britain” (T. Barringer, E. Cooke, Jr.)

Gaudet, Manon , “ Property and the Contested Ground of North American Visual Culture, 1900-1945” (E. Cooke, Jr.)  

Haffner, Michaela , “Nature Cure: ”White Wellness” and the Visual Culture of Natural Health, 1870-1930” (J. Raab)

Herrmann, Mitchell , “The Art of the Living: Biological Life and Aesthetic Experience in the 21st Century” (P. Lee)

Higgins, Lily , “Reading into Things: Articulate Objects in Colonial North America, 1650-1783” (E. Cooke, Jr.)

Hodson, Josie , “Something in Common: Black Art under Austerity in New York City, 1975-1990” (P. Lee)

Hong, Kevin , “Plasticity, Fungibility, Toxicity: Photography’s Ecological Entanglements in the Mid-Twentieth-Century United States” (C. Armstrong, J Raab)

Horwitz, Vu , “Palm Wine Cups from the Kuba Cultural Region” (Edward Cooke, Jr.)

Kim, Adela , “Beyond Institutional Critique: Tearing Up in the Work of Andrea Fraser” (P. Lee)

Kitlinski, Sophia , “The Bureaucracy of Ritual: Spanish Administrative Iconography and Afro-Cuban Sacred Drawing in Nineteenth-Century Cuba” (J. Raab)

Keto, Elizabeth , “Reconstruction’s Objects: Art in the United States South, 1861-1900.” (J. Raab)

Koposova, Ekaterina , “Triumph and Terror in the Arts of the Franco-Dutch War” (M Bass)

Levy Haskell, Gavriella , “The Imaginative Painter”: Visual Narrative and the Interactive Painting in Britain, 1851-1914” (T. Barringer, E. Cooke Jr)

Marquardt, Savannah , “Chthon: Material Eschatologies of Burial in Colonial Southern Italy (5th-4th c BCE)” (M. Gaifman)

Miraval, Nathalie , “Sacred Subversions: Martha, Monsters, and Domestic Devotion in the Early Modern Afro-Iberian Atlantic” (C. Fromont)

Mizbani, Sharon , “Mediated Waters: Architectures of Thirst and Nourishment in Late-Ottoman Istanbul” (K. Rizvi)

Molarsky-Beck, Marina . “Seeing the Unseen: Queer Artistic Subjectivity in Interwar Photography” (C. Armstrong)

Nagy, Renata , “Remaking Natural History in Seventeenth-Century Northern Europe” (M. Bass)

Olfat, Faraz , “Eclecticism in Architecture and the Politics of Nation Building, 1870-1920” (C. Buckley, E. Cooke, Jr.)

Petrilli-Jones, Sara , “Drafting the Canon: Legal Histories of Art in Florence and Rome, 1600-1800” (N. Suthor)

Phillips, Kate , “American Ephemera” (J. Raab)

Potuckova, Kristina , “The Arts of Women’s Monastic Liturgy, Holy Roman Empire, 1000-1200” (J. Jung)

Rapoport, Sarah , “James Jacques-Joseph Tissot in the Interstices of Modernity” (T. Barringer, C. Armstrong)

Robbins, Isabella , “Relationality and Being: Indigeneity, Space and Transit in Global Contemporary Art” (P. Lee, N. Blackhawk)

Sellati, Lillian , “When is Herakles Not Himself? Mediating Cultural Plurality in Greater Central Asia, 330 BCE – 365 CE” (M. Gaifman)

Valladares, Carlos , “Jacques Demy” (P. Lee)

Wang, Xueli , “Performing Disappearance: Maggie Cheung and the Off-Screen” (Q. Ngan)

Werwie, Katherine , “Visions Across the Gates: Materiality, Symbolism, and Communication in the Historiated Wooden Doors of Medieval European Churches” (J. Jung)

Wisowaty, Stephanie , “Painted Processional Crosses in Central Italy, 1250-1400: Movement, Mediation and Multisensory Effects” (J. Jung)

Webley, John , “Ink, Paint, and Blood: India and the Great Game in Russian Culture” (T. Barringer, M. Brunson)

Young, Colin , “Desert Places: The Visual Culture of the Prairies and the Pampas across the Nineteenth Century” (J. Raab)

Zhou, Joyce Yusi , “The Art and Material Culture of Women in Early Modern Batavia” (M. Bass, E. Cooke, Jr.)

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• Dissertation

Prize-Winning Thesis and Dissertation Examples

Published on 9 September 2022 by Tegan George . Revised on 6 April 2023.

It can be difficult to know where to start when writing your thesis or dissertation . One way to come up with some ideas or maybe even combat writer’s block is to check out previous work done by other students.

This article collects a list of undergraduate, master’s, and PhD theses and dissertations that have won prizes for their high-quality research.

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Table of contents

Award-winning undergraduate theses, award-winning master’s theses, award-winning ph.d. dissertations.

University : University of Pennsylvania Faculty : History Author : Suchait Kahlon Award : 2021 Hilary Conroy Prize for Best Honors Thesis in World History Title : “Abolition, Africans, and Abstraction: the Influence of the “Noble Savage” on British and French Antislavery Thought, 1787-1807”

University : Columbia University Faculty : History Author : Julien Saint Reiman Award : 2018 Charles A. Beard Senior Thesis Prize Title : “A Starving Man Helping Another Starving Man”: UNRRA, India, and the Genesis of Global Relief, 1943-1947

University: University College London Faculty: Geography Author: Anna Knowles-Smith Award:  2017 Royal Geographical Society Undergraduate Dissertation Prize Title:  Refugees and theatre: an exploration of the basis of self-representation

University: University of Washington Faculty:  Computer Science & Engineering Author: Nick J. Martindell Award: 2014 Best Senior Thesis Award Title:  DCDN: Distributed content delivery for the modern web

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University:  University of Edinburgh Faculty:  Informatics Author:  Christopher Sipola Award:  2018 Social Responsibility & Sustainability Dissertation Prize Title:  Summarizing electricity usage with a neural network

University:  University of Ottawa Faculty:  Education Author:  Matthew Brillinger Award:  2017 Commission on Graduate Studies in the Humanities Prize Title:  Educational Park Planning in Berkeley, California, 1965-1968

University:  University of Ottawa Faculty: Social Sciences Author:  Heather Martin Award:  2015 Joseph De Koninck Prize Title:  An Analysis of Sexual Assault Support Services for Women who have a Developmental Disability

University : University of Ottawa Faculty : Physics Author : Guillaume Thekkadath Award : 2017 Commission on Graduate Studies in the Sciences Prize Title : Joint measurements of complementary properties of quantum systems

University:  London School of Economics Faculty: International Development Author: Lajos Kossuth Award:  2016 Winner of the Prize for Best Overall Performance Title:  Shiny Happy People: A study of the effects income relative to a reference group exerts on life satisfaction

University : Stanford University Faculty : English Author : Nathan Wainstein Award : 2021 Alden Prize Title : “Unformed Art: Bad Writing in the Modernist Novel”

University : University of Massachusetts at Amherst Faculty : Molecular and Cellular Biology Author : Nils Pilotte Award : 2021 Byron Prize for Best Ph.D. Dissertation Title : “Improved Molecular Diagnostics for Soil-Transmitted Molecular Diagnostics for Soil-Transmitted Helminths”

University:  Utrecht University Faculty:  Linguistics Author:  Hans Rutger Bosker Award: 2014 AVT/Anéla Dissertation Prize Title:  The processing and evaluation of fluency in native and non-native speech

University: California Institute of Technology Faculty: Physics Author: Michael P. Mendenhall Award: 2015 Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics Title: Measurement of the neutron beta decay asymmetry using ultracold neutrons

University:  Stanford University Faculty: Management Science and Engineering Author:  Shayan O. Gharan Award:  Doctoral Dissertation Award 2013 Title:   New Rounding Techniques for the Design and Analysis of Approximation Algorithms

University: University of Minnesota Faculty: Chemical Engineering Author: Eric A. Vandre Award:  2014 Andreas Acrivos Dissertation Award in Fluid Dynamics Title: Onset of Dynamics Wetting Failure: The Mechanics of High-speed Fluid Displacement

University: Erasmus University Rotterdam Faculty: Marketing Author: Ezgi Akpinar Award: McKinsey Marketing Dissertation Award 2014 Title: Consumer Information Sharing: Understanding Psychological Drivers of Social Transmission

University: University of Washington Faculty: Computer Science & Engineering Author: Keith N. Snavely Award:  2009 Doctoral Dissertation Award Title: Scene Reconstruction and Visualization from Internet Photo Collections

University:  University of Ottawa Faculty:  Social Work Author:  Susannah Taylor Award: 2018 Joseph De Koninck Prize Title:  Effacing and Obscuring Autonomy: the Effects of Structural Violence on the Transition to Adulthood of Street Involved Youth

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Theses and dissertations

We provide access to University of York PhD/MPhil theses and Masters dissertations for members of the University and visitors to the Library. We can also help you to find theses/dissertations from other institutions.

For all York theses and dissertations, copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise stated. You may copy a modest amount of material from a thesis with full attribution as defined in law. In all other circumstances you should contact the rights-holder for permission.

• Read our practical guide to Copyright law

Search for a York thesis or dissertation

All available University of York theses can be found on YorSearch , including electronic versions held in the Digital Library and White Rose eTheses. You can search YorSearch for the title, author or department and academic year.

What we hold

We hold the University's PhD and MPhil theses, including physical copies up to 2012.

White Rose eTheses   holds electronic copies from 2013 onwards, as well as a selection of pre-2013 theses.

University of York Masters dissertations for some subjects are available:

• electronically via  YorSearch
• in print via Borthwick Institute for Archives ( Note : booking is necessary)

We also hold a selection of digitised undergraduate dissertations for certain subjects:

• History   (selection from 1967 onwards)
• History of Art   (selection from 1997 onwards)
• Social Policy and Social Work   (selection from 2019 onwards)

Consulting a thesis/dissertation in the Library

Our physical theses and dissertations are kept in a secure store. To consult them you will need to request access via Borthwick Institute for Archives by emailing [email protected] with the details of the thesis and a preferred appointment date.

Note : theses and dissertations can only be consulted in the reading room at the Borthwick Institute and cannot be removed.

If you are an independent researcher and want to consult a York thesis, contact us at [email protected] .

Finding theses from other universities

You can try one of the following services to find theses by students from other institutions.

• Read more about using PhD theses on EThOS (youtube.com)
• White Rose eTheses Online holds electronic, doctoral level theses from the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York
• Index to theses is an index to British and Irish higher degree theses with abstracts (summaries) or brief details of each thesis
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations allows you to search for electronic theses from around the world

If you can't access the full text of a thesis you're interested in, please complete our Request Form and we will try to source it for you. Please note the success of this may depend on the holding library's policies, or obtaining the author's permission, but we will let you know if we're unable to source it.

Dissertation Structure & Layout 101: How to structure your dissertation, thesis or research project.

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) Reviewed By: David Phair (PhD) | July 2019

So, you’ve got a decent understanding of what a dissertation is , you’ve chosen your topic and hopefully you’ve received approval for your research proposal . Awesome! Now its time to start the actual dissertation or thesis writing journey.

To craft a high-quality document, the very first thing you need to understand is dissertation structure . In this post, we’ll walk you through the generic dissertation structure and layout, step by step. We’ll start with the big picture, and then zoom into each chapter to briefly discuss the core contents. If you’re just starting out on your research journey, you should start with this post, which covers the big-picture process of how to write a dissertation or thesis .

*The Caveat *

In this post, we’ll be discussing a traditional dissertation/thesis structure and layout, which is generally used for social science research across universities, whether in the US, UK, Europe or Australia. However, some universities may have small variations on this structure (extra chapters, merged chapters, slightly different ordering, etc).

So, always check with your university if they have a prescribed structure or layout that they expect you to work with. If not, it’s safe to assume the structure we’ll discuss here is suitable. And even if they do have a prescribed structure, you’ll still get value from this post as we’ll explain the core contents of each section.  

Overview: S tructuring a dissertation or thesis

• Acknowledgements page
• Abstract (or executive summary)
• Table of contents , list of figures and tables
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Literature review
• Chapter 3: Methodology
• Chapter 4: Results
• Chapter 5: Discussion
• Chapter 6: Conclusion
• Reference list

As I mentioned, some universities will have slight variations on this structure. For example, they want an additional “personal reflection chapter”, or they might prefer the results and discussion chapter to be merged into one. Regardless, the overarching flow will always be the same, as this flow reflects the research process , which we discussed here – i.e.:

• The introduction chapter presents the core research question and aims .
• The literature review chapter assesses what the current research says about this question.
• The methodology, results and discussion chapters go about undertaking new research about this question.
• The conclusion chapter (attempts to) answer the core research question .

In other words, the dissertation structure and layout reflect the research process of asking a well-defined question(s), investigating, and then answering the question – see below.

To restate that – the structure and layout of a dissertation reflect the flow of the overall research process . This is essential to understand, as each chapter will make a lot more sense if you “get” this concept. If you’re not familiar with the research process, read this post before going further.

Right. Now that we’ve covered the big picture, let’s dive a little deeper into the details of each section and chapter. Oh and by the way, you can also grab our free dissertation/thesis template here to help speed things up.

The title page of your dissertation is the very first impression the marker will get of your work, so it pays to invest some time thinking about your title. But what makes for a good title? A strong title needs to be 3 things:

• Succinct (not overly lengthy or verbose)
• Specific (not vague or ambiguous)
• Representative of the research you’re undertaking (clearly linked to your research questions)

Typically, a good title includes mention of the following:

• The broader area of the research (i.e. the overarching topic)
• The specific focus of your research (i.e. your specific context)
• Indication of research design (e.g. quantitative , qualitative , or  mixed methods ).

For example:

A quantitative investigation [research design] into the antecedents of organisational trust [broader area] in the UK retail forex trading market [specific context/area of focus].

Again, some universities may have specific requirements regarding the format and structure of the title, so it’s worth double-checking expectations with your institution (if there’s no mention in the brief or study material).

Acknowledgements

This page provides you with an opportunity to say thank you to those who helped you along your research journey. Generally, it’s optional (and won’t count towards your marks), but it is academic best practice to include this.

So, who do you say thanks to? Well, there’s no prescribed requirements, but it’s common to mention the following people:

• Your dissertation supervisor or committee.
• Any professors, lecturers or academics that helped you understand the topic or methodologies.
• Any tutors, mentors or advisors.
• Your family and friends, especially spouse (for adult learners studying part-time).

There’s no need for lengthy rambling. Just state who you’re thankful to and for what (e.g. thank you to my supervisor, John Doe, for his endless patience and attentiveness) – be sincere. In terms of length, you should keep this to a page or less.

Abstract or executive summary

The dissertation abstract (or executive summary for some degrees) serves to provide the first-time reader (and marker or moderator) with a big-picture view of your research project. It should give them an understanding of the key insights and findings from the research, without them needing to read the rest of the report – in other words, it should be able to stand alone .

For it to stand alone, your abstract should cover the following key points (at a minimum):

• Your research questions and aims – what key question(s) did your research aim to answer?
• Your methodology – how did you go about investigating the topic and finding answers to your research question(s)?
• Your findings – following your own research, what did do you discover?
• Your conclusions – based on your findings, what conclusions did you draw? What answers did you find to your research question(s)?

So, in much the same way the dissertation structure mimics the research process, your abstract or executive summary should reflect the research process, from the initial stage of asking the original question to the final stage of answering that question.

In practical terms, it’s a good idea to write this section up last , once all your core chapters are complete. Otherwise, you’ll end up writing and rewriting this section multiple times (just wasting time). For a step by step guide on how to write a strong executive summary, check out this post .

Need a helping hand?

Table of contents

This section is straightforward. You’ll typically present your table of contents (TOC) first, followed by the two lists – figures and tables. I recommend that you use Microsoft Word’s automatic table of contents generator to generate your TOC. If you’re not familiar with this functionality, the video below explains it simply:

If you find that your table of contents is overly lengthy, consider removing one level of depth. Oftentimes, this can be done without detracting from the usefulness of the TOC.

Right, now that the “admin” sections are out of the way, its time to move on to your core chapters. These chapters are the heart of your dissertation and are where you’ll earn the marks. The first chapter is the introduction chapter – as you would expect, this is the time to introduce your research…

It’s important to understand that even though you’ve provided an overview of your research in your abstract, your introduction needs to be written as if the reader has not read that (remember, the abstract is essentially a standalone document). So, your introduction chapter needs to start from the very beginning, and should address the following questions:

• What will you be investigating (in plain-language, big picture-level)?
• Why is that worth investigating? How is it important to academia or business? How is it sufficiently original?
• What are your research aims and research question(s)? Note that the research questions can sometimes be presented at the end of the literature review (next chapter).
• What is the scope of your study? In other words, what will and won’t you cover ?
• How will you approach your research? In other words, what methodology will you adopt?
• How will you structure your dissertation? What are the core chapters and what will you do in each of them?

These are just the bare basic requirements for your intro chapter. Some universities will want additional bells and whistles in the intro chapter, so be sure to carefully read your brief or consult your research supervisor.

If done right, your introduction chapter will set a clear direction for the rest of your dissertation. Specifically, it will make it clear to the reader (and marker) exactly what you’ll be investigating, why that’s important, and how you’ll be going about the investigation. Conversely, if your introduction chapter leaves a first-time reader wondering what exactly you’ll be researching, you’ve still got some work to do.

Now that you’ve set a clear direction with your introduction chapter, the next step is the literature review . In this section, you will analyse the existing research (typically academic journal articles and high-quality industry publications), with a view to understanding the following questions:

• What does the literature currently say about the topic you’re investigating?
• Is the literature lacking or well established? Is it divided or in disagreement?
• How does your research fit into the bigger picture?
• How does your research contribute something original?
• How does the methodology of previous studies help you develop your own?

Depending on the nature of your study, you may also present a conceptual framework towards the end of your literature review, which you will then test in your actual research.

Again, some universities will want you to focus on some of these areas more than others, some will have additional or fewer requirements, and so on. Therefore, as always, its important to review your brief and/or discuss with your supervisor, so that you know exactly what’s expected of your literature review chapter.

Now that you’ve investigated the current state of knowledge in your literature review chapter and are familiar with the existing key theories, models and frameworks, its time to design your own research. Enter the methodology chapter – the most “science-ey” of the chapters…

In this chapter, you need to address two critical questions:

• Exactly HOW will you carry out your research (i.e. what is your intended research design)?
• Exactly WHY have you chosen to do things this way (i.e. how do you justify your design)?

Remember, the dissertation part of your degree is first and foremost about developing and demonstrating research skills . Therefore, the markers want to see that you know which methods to use, can clearly articulate why you’ve chosen then, and know how to deploy them effectively.

Importantly, this chapter requires detail – don’t hold back on the specifics. State exactly what you’ll be doing, with who, when, for how long, etc. Moreover, for every design choice you make, make sure you justify it.

In practice, you will likely end up coming back to this chapter once you’ve undertaken all your data collection and analysis, and revise it based on changes you made during the analysis phase. This is perfectly fine. Its natural for you to add an additional analysis technique, scrap an old one, etc based on where your data lead you. Of course, I’m talking about small changes here – not a fundamental switch from qualitative to quantitative, which will likely send your supervisor in a spin!

You’ve now collected your data and undertaken your analysis, whether qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. In this chapter, you’ll present the raw results of your analysis . For example, in the case of a quant study, you’ll present the demographic data, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics , etc.

Typically, Chapter 4 is simply a presentation and description of the data, not a discussion of the meaning of the data. In other words, it’s descriptive, rather than analytical – the meaning is discussed in Chapter 5. However, some universities will want you to combine chapters 4 and 5, so that you both present and interpret the meaning of the data at the same time. Check with your institution what their preference is.

Now that you’ve presented the data analysis results, its time to interpret and analyse them. In other words, its time to discuss what they mean, especially in relation to your research question(s).

What you discuss here will depend largely on your chosen methodology. For example, if you’ve gone the quantitative route, you might discuss the relationships between variables . If you’ve gone the qualitative route, you might discuss key themes and the meanings thereof. It all depends on what your research design choices were.

Most importantly, you need to discuss your results in relation to your research questions and aims, as well as the existing literature. What do the results tell you about your research questions? Are they aligned with the existing research or at odds? If so, why might this be? Dig deep into your findings and explain what the findings suggest, in plain English.

The final chapter – you’ve made it! Now that you’ve discussed your interpretation of the results, its time to bring it back to the beginning with the conclusion chapter . In other words, its time to (attempt to) answer your original research question s (from way back in chapter 1). Clearly state what your conclusions are in terms of your research questions. This might feel a bit repetitive, as you would have touched on this in the previous chapter, but its important to bring the discussion full circle and explicitly state your answer(s) to the research question(s).

Next, you’ll typically discuss the implications of your findings . In other words, you’ve answered your research questions – but what does this mean for the real world (or even for academia)? What should now be done differently, given the new insight you’ve generated?

Lastly, you should discuss the limitations of your research, as well as what this means for future research in the area. No study is perfect, especially not a Masters-level. Discuss the shortcomings of your research. Perhaps your methodology was limited, perhaps your sample size was small or not representative, etc, etc. Don’t be afraid to critique your work – the markers want to see that you can identify the limitations of your work. This is a strength, not a weakness. Be brutal!

This marks the end of your core chapters – woohoo! From here on out, it’s pretty smooth sailing.

The reference list is straightforward. It should contain a list of all resources cited in your dissertation, in the required format, e.g. APA , Harvard, etc.

It’s essential that you use reference management software for your dissertation. Do NOT try handle your referencing manually – its far too error prone. On a reference list of multiple pages, you’re going to make mistake. To this end, I suggest considering either Mendeley or Zotero. Both are free and provide a very straightforward interface to ensure that your referencing is 100% on point. I’ve included a simple how-to video for the Mendeley software (my personal favourite) below:

Some universities may ask you to include a bibliography, as opposed to a reference list. These two things are not the same . A bibliography is similar to a reference list, except that it also includes resources which informed your thinking but were not directly cited in your dissertation. So, double-check your brief and make sure you use the right one.

The very last piece of the puzzle is the appendix or set of appendices. This is where you’ll include any supporting data and evidence. Importantly, supporting is the keyword here.

Your appendices should provide additional “nice to know”, depth-adding information, which is not critical to the core analysis. Appendices should not be used as a way to cut down word count (see this post which covers how to reduce word count ). In other words, don’t place content that is critical to the core analysis here, just to save word count. You will not earn marks on any content in the appendices, so don’t try to play the system!

Time to recap…

And there you have it – the traditional dissertation structure and layout, from A-Z. To recap, the core structure for a dissertation or thesis is (typically) as follows:

• Acknowledgments page

Most importantly, the core chapters should reflect the research process (asking, investigating and answering your research question). Moreover, the research question(s) should form the golden thread throughout your dissertation structure. Everything should revolve around the research questions, and as you’ve seen, they should form both the start point (i.e. introduction chapter) and the endpoint (i.e. conclusion chapter).

I hope this post has provided you with clarity about the traditional dissertation/thesis structure and layout. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment below, or feel free to get in touch with us. Also, be sure to check out the rest of the  Grad Coach Blog .

Psst... there’s more!

This post was based on one of our popular Research Bootcamps . If you're working on a research project, you'll definitely want to check this out ...

36 Comments

many thanks i found it very useful

Glad to hear that, Arun. Good luck writing your dissertation.

Such clear practical logical advice. I very much needed to read this to keep me focused in stead of fretting.. Perfect now ready to start my research!

what about scientific fields like computer or engineering thesis what is the difference in the structure? thank you very much

Thanks so much this helped me a lot!

Very helpful and accessible. What I like most is how practical the advice is along with helpful tools/ links.

Thanks Ade!

Thank you so much sir.. It was really helpful..

You’re welcome!

Hi! How many words maximum should contain the abstract?

Thank you so much 😊 Find this at the right moment

You’re most welcome. Good luck with your dissertation.

best ever benefit i got on right time thank you

Many times Clarity and vision of destination of dissertation is what makes the difference between good ,average and great researchers the same way a great automobile driver is fast with clarity of address and Clear weather conditions .

I guess Great researcher = great ideas + knowledge + great and fast data collection and modeling + great writing + high clarity on all these

You have given immense clarity from start to end.

Morning. Where will I write the definitions of what I’m referring to in my report?

Thank you so much Derek, I was almost lost! Thanks a tonnnn! Have a great day!

Thanks ! so concise and valuable

This was very helpful. Clear and concise. I know exactly what to do now.

Thank you for allowing me to go through briefly. I hope to find time to continue.

Really useful to me. Thanks a thousand times

Very interesting! It will definitely set me and many more for success. highly recommended.

Thank you soo much sir, for the opportunity to express my skills

Usefull, thanks a lot. Really clear

Very nice and easy to understand. Thank you .

That was incredibly useful. Thanks Grad Coach Crew!

My stress level just dropped at least 15 points after watching this. Just starting my thesis for my grad program and I feel a lot more capable now! Thanks for such a clear and helpful video, Emma and the GradCoach team!

Do we need to mention the number of words the dissertation contains in the main document?

It depends on your university’s requirements, so it would be best to check with them 🙂

Such a helpful post to help me get started with structuring my masters dissertation, thank you!

Great video; I appreciate that helpful information

It is so necessary or avital course

This blog is very informative for my research. Thank you

Doctoral students are required to fill out the National Research Council’s Survey of Earned Doctorates

wow this is an amazing gain in my life

This is so good

How can i arrange my specific objectives in my dissertation?

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Department of History

Dissertations.

Since 2009, we have published the best of the annual dissertations produced by our final year undergraduates and award a 'best dissertation of the year' prize to the best of the best.

• Best Dissertations of 2022
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• Best Dissertations of 2015
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Students in the School of Economics at the University of Nottingham consistently produce work of a very high standard in the form of coursework essays, dissertations, research work and policy articles.

Below are some examples of the excellent work produced by some of our students. The authors have agreed for their work to be made available as examples of good practice.

Undergraduate dissertations

• The Causal Impact of Education on Crime Rates: A Recent US Analysis . Emily Taylor, BSc Hons Economics, 2022
• Does a joint income taxation system for married couples disincentivise the female labour supply? Jodie Gollop, BA Hons Economics with German, 2022
• Conditional cooperation between the young and old and the influence of work experience, charitable giving, and social identity . Rachel Moffat, BSc Hons Economics, 2021
• An Extended Literature Review on the Contribution of Economic Institutions to the Great Divergence in the 19th Century . Jessica Richens, BSc Hons Economics, 2021
• Does difference help make a difference? Examining whether young trustees and female trustees affect charities’ financial performance. Chris Hyland, BSc Hons Economics, 2021

Postgraduate dissertations

• The impact of Covid-19 on the public and health expenditure gradient in mortality in England . Alexander Waller, MSc Economic Development & Policy Analysis, 2022
• Impact of the Child Support Grant on Nutritional Outcomes in South Africa: Is there a ‘pregnancy support’ effect? . Claire Lynam, MSc Development Economics, 2022
• An Empirical Analysis of the Volatility Spillovers between Commodity Markets, Exchange Rates, and the Sovereign CDS Spreads of Commodity Exporters . Alfie Fox-Heaton, MSc Financial Economics, 2022
• The 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season and Labour Market Transitions . Edward Allenby, MSc Economics, 2022
• The scope of international agreements . Sophia Vaaßen, MSc International Economics, 2022

Thank you to all those students who have agreed to have their work showcased in this way.

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