Greek and Modern History

Ancient Greek and modern history form an intellectually rich and unusual pairing, connecting the foundational culture of Western civilisation with the study of how the world has been shaped by the events and forces of the past two centuries. Greek is the key not only to an extraordinarily rich literature, encompassing Homer, the tragedians, Plato, Thucydides, and the New Testament, but to an in-depth understanding of a culture whose ideas about politics, philosophy, science, and art have reverberated through the centuries. Modern history brings that long perspective into contact with the revolutions, conflicts, ideologies, and transformations that produced the present.

At St Andrews this four-year full-time programme develops both your Greek language skills and your historical understanding to a high level, giving you genuine depth in each strand. Your Greek work will take you from the level needed to begin reading classical texts through to the facility required to engage with scholarly literature and to appreciate literary nuance in the original language. Your modern history will develop your skills in evaluating historical evidence, constructing arguments, and situating events in their broader contexts.

The programme includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to study at an international partner institution and experience these disciplines from a different educational vantage point.

The combination of classical and modern knowledge, alongside rigorous training in close reading and historical argument, produces graduates with a distinctive analytical profile.

Graduates move into careers in education, heritage and museums, publishing, journalism, the civil service, law, international affairs, and a wide range of other roles where the analytical skills of the classicist and historian are valued. Many continue to postgraduate study in classics, ancient history, or modern history.