The study of History is an investigation into the politics, culture and economics of past peoples and societies. It teaches a range of skills that are universal in their application; the ability to investigate and analyse differing source materials enables you to sort factual accounts from biased ones. Defending your viewpoints and arguments teaches you the power of debate. Rigorous debate with your peers in the seminars will help you to learn the debating skills needed to become a good historian.

Why not explore our course choices using the links below?

Annabel van der Nagel - History student from 2015

Studying history, and particularly Medieval History, in the ancient city of Oxford is extremely rewarding. Not only are you constantly immersed in the subject, but you're able to actively engage in the history around you. The staff at Oxford Summer Courses have challenged me to expand my mind - culturally, socially, and historically. The one-on-one tutorials and small seminar sizes really allowed the class to engage and ultimately led to a fantastic academic and social experience.

Mirela Ivanova

Mirela Ivanova is a DPhil student in History at Balliol College, Oxford. She joined Balliol for an MSt in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies after completing an undergraduate degree in History at Wadham College, Oxford. Her research looks into the implications of writing and literacy in early medieval communities and religious and political thought, focusing especially on the Balkans. Additionally she is interested in the processes of religious conversion in medieval societies, and the dynamics therein for the formalisation of ‘heresy’. To this end she teaches a course on comparative conversions for Oxford Summer Courses. Outside of her academic research she has lived, worked, and studied in Bulgaria, England, the States, and Russia, and written on politics, socialism, medieval literacy, culture, social mobility and feminism for a range of publications including the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Oxford Left Review, the London Progressive Journal, and ISIS Magazine amongst others.

Dr Nicolas Stone Villani

Dr Nicolas Stone Villani is a recent DPhil graduate in History from St Hugh’s College, Oxford. His work focuses on the relationship between Aristotle and Machiavelli and the rise of the reason of state in early modern Europe. He holds an MPhil (with Distinction) in Political Thought and Intellectual History from Cambridge and an MA in Cultural and Intellectual History from the Warburg Institute in London. He has taught undergraduate History papers at Oxford and at the Middlebury-Oxford Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. He has presented his research at a number of conferences in the UK and abroad and has worked as Research Assistant for renowned art historian and BBC presenter Andrew Graham-Dixon. His articles are currently under review by the English Historical Review and other international peer-reviewed journals and a podcast on his research will soon be available on the University of Warwick’s iTunes U.