Economic & Social History

Economic and social history occupies a distinctive place between historical study and the social sciences. Where traditional history often focuses on political events and the actions of individuals, economic and social history examines the structures that shape how people live and work over time: the development of markets, industries and trade; the organisation of work and the nature of labour; demographic change, migration and urbanisation; and the distribution of wealth, opportunity and power across different social groups. It is a discipline that asks how the past looks when you shift attention from rulers and governments to the conditions experienced by ordinary people.

At Glasgow, this four-year MA programme includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to study economic and social history in a different national academic tradition and engage with historical questions from an international perspective. Glasgow has a distinguished tradition in economic and social history, connected to the history of one of Europe's most significant industrial cities, and you will study within a department that takes both historical depth and social scientific rigour seriously. You will develop skills in the use of quantitative and qualitative historical sources, in economic and sociological analysis applied to historical questions, and in the sustained analytical writing that historical argument demands.

The programme engages with how people in the past lived and worked, and how those conditions have shaped the world of the present, making it deeply relevant to contemporary questions about inequality, economic development and social change.

Graduates move into the civil service, economic research, policy analysis, journalism, education, business, banking, heritage and academic research. Postgraduate study in economic history, social history, economics or social policy is a natural progression.