Latin and Modern History

Latin and modern history is a combination that gives you access to two of the richest bodies of historical evidence and intellectual tradition available to a student of the human past. Latin is the key to an enormous body of literature and to the deep understanding of a complex and influential civilisation, as the University of St Andrews itself notes: the Roman world shaped the legal systems, languages, political ideas, and cultural assumptions of Europe and much of the wider world, and to read its texts in the original is to engage with that heritage directly. Modern history, by contrast, examines the more recent human past, exploring the political, social, economic, and cultural transformations that have produced the world we inhabit today.

St Andrews' four-year full-time MA (Hons) in Latin and Modern History carries a typical entry tariff of 200 points and includes a year abroad option, giving you the opportunity to study at a partner institution and extend your academic and personal horizons. You will develop your Latin language skills and your literary and cultural analysis skills, engaging closely with Roman texts alongside the documentary, archival, and secondary sources that historians of the modern period work with. The combination asks you to move between the very distant and the more recent past, developing an unusual breadth of historical perspective and a set of analytical skills that are applicable across both periods.

Graduates of Latin and history programmes work in education, academia, heritage and museum work, archiving, journalism, the civil service, law, and cultural organisations. The close reading skills, linguistic competence, and analytical rigour that the combination of Latin and modern history develops are valued across many professional contexts. Postgraduate study in classics, ancient history, modern history, or related disciplines is a natural next step for those wishing to pursue these subjects at greater depth.