History (Ancient and Modern) at University of Oxford

Start with method as well as content: What Is History? is useful for the problem of historical facts, and The Historian's Craft gives a concise route into evidence, method and historical purpose. For the ancient side, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, The Histories, The Peloponnesian War and The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150-750 give different models of narrative, argument, transition and source handling.

For lecture-style breadth, Introduction to Ancient Greek History covers Greek history from the Bronze Age to the classical period, while Roman Architecture and Roman Art and Archaeology connect Roman history to urbanism, material culture and archaeology. To widen beyond Greece and Rome, Superpowers of the Ancient World: The Near East is a useful route into ancient Near Eastern cultures and interaction.

For listening and video, use In Our Time: History, The Ancients, HistoryExtra Podcast and The Rest Is History as starting points for follow-up reading rather than as substitutes for books. The University of Oxford, Oxford Academic, The British Museum and Gresham College channels help connect admissions expectations, academic authors, artefacts and public lectures.

Keeping a short historiography notebook is useful. After each book, lecture or podcast, write down the historian’s question, the evidence used, the argument made and one objection you would raise.

30 colleges offer this subject. around a fifth of applicants of applicants submit an open application. around a third of successful applicants receive an offer from a college they did not specify of places come through the pool.

Oxford applicants may name a college or make an open application. Open applications are assigned to a college or hall with relatively fewer applications for the course that year.

Oxford’s current wording says around a fifth of applicants make open applications, and around a third of successful applicants receive an offer from a college they did not specify. That makes college choice real, but not a tactical shortcut.

College choice can affect where the first application is allocated and where a student may live and receive tutorials, but applicants should prioritise whether the college offers History (Ancient and Modern), location, accommodation, atmosphere, accessibility and personal fit. Oxford states that colleges do not specialise in particular subject areas, all colleges use the same course admissions process under a Common Framework, and all undergraduates belong both to a college and to the relevant department or faculty.