History and Political Science at UOB

Got an unconditional offer to study History and Political science this year at Birmingham but have received no information on a reading list or emails from the department. Wondered if anyone was in the same situation and if not could somewhere please tell me where I could find a reading list Also people applying to study/ studying History and Politics rally on this thread!

Just finished my first year of History and Politics, so unless stuff changes a lot by september I may be some help.

First of all, your first lectures and seminars for each module will go over what they want you to have a copy of, so don't worry about finding yourself without suggested reading.

This follows on to point number two: there is quite a big disparity between what they want/expect you to own, and what you're most likely to need.

Assuming the course structure is the same, your three politics modules will be Understanding Politics, Classical Political Thought, and Introduction to International Relations. For each of these (and for history, more on which later), lecturers will set you weekly readings which will only very rarely come from a textbook. Most of what they'd like (they provide a very wide reading list; it's up to you how many sources you tackle) is available somewhere online, or there'll usually be some kind of paper copy. So, for weekly readings, there isn't particularly anything you'll need to own.

However, for revision it may be useful to own something (and for when you're able to do some kind of topic reading out of a textbook). Below are my own recommendations:
Understanding Politics: This is split into two halves. The first is the 'sciencey' side of it, where you'll do things like pluralism, marxism (the concept of the state), epistemology and discourse. I'd recommend Colin Hay's Political Analysis if you wanted to own a book. The second half is ideologies, for which Wright and Eatwell, Contemporary Political Ideologies is quite useful. (quick disclaimer, AVOID AMAZON. Abebooks is very good for textbooks if you don't mind not having an up to date edition, which isn't essential.
Classical Political Thought: I'd say a survey book isn't actually essential, as chances are it won't correspond to the module structure. Assuming it's Chris Finlay again, provision of everything you'll need will be excellent. Likewise, it could be useful to purchase one of the studied texts (Plato's Republic; Aristotle's Politics; Machiavelli's The Prince and/or Discourses; Hobbes' Leviathan; some stuff by Rousseau and Locke) but again, since everything is online unless you like to annotate a paper copy this won't be essential
Intro to IR:They will tell you to buy many books for this. Don't. Dunne, Kurki and Smith's IR Theory: Discipline and Diversity or The Globalization of World Politics would be more than enough.


History is more of a variable: have you picked your Autumn and Spring modules yet? (can also fill you in on the other bit of the History side in a little bit; this is getting to be something of a monster post)

Hope this has been of some help. The most important thing is that the vast majority of what you need will be online, signposted by the various lecturers and seminar leaders, for each week.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.

Just came to read your reply on here from your comment on my post. Thank you for posting this advice!! Can I just ask, is it three modules from each subject studied each year? Also, which History modules did you choose?

Got an unconditional offer to study History and Political science this year at Birmingham but have received no information on a reading list or emails from the department. Wondered if anyone was in the same situation and if not could somewhere please tell me where I could find a reading list Also people applying to study/ studying History and Politics rally on this thread!

Heya, just bumping this thread in the hopes that someone will see it!

Got an unconditional offer to study History and Political science this year at Birmingham but have received no information on a reading list or emails from the department. Wondered if anyone was in the same situation and if not could somewhere please tell me where I could find a reading list Also people applying to study/ studying History and Politics rally on this thread!

Looking forward to the course?

Yeah its going to be sick, when do we choose our modules though?

I have no clue, maybe before we go cus they'll have to make timetables etc wont they? No idea though

Just asked some people and they said when you arrive at uni- you do preset modules initially like 'introduction to history' etc and only then in the Autumn term do you start your chosen modules. Stoked for it though!