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War Studies

You can choose to study War Studies as a single subject degree, or in combination with another subject as a joint honours award. 

We also offer exciting postgraduate opportunities for full or part-time study with our Master's and PhD programmes.

Why study war at Wolverhampton?

The Department boasts the country’s oldest and longest running undergraduate War Studies degree programme, with decades of successful graduates. You will be taught by recognised experts with proven and respected research and publications records, most of them with international reputations in their respective fields.

Our Undergraduate degree course includes modules ranging from the Early Modern period to contemporary conflicts, and explores a wide range of themes and ideas about the nature of war and how understanding of it has changed over time. This includes the consequences of war and conflict, its relationship to politics and to wider human society, and the philosophical and ethical issues of war and peace, as well as the chance to study wars and campaigns in detail. As part of their degree course, our students are given the opportunity to study and visit museums and battlefields in Britain and elsewhere.

Linking in with our research centre the Centre for Historical Studies, you will have the chance to attend and take part in a wide variety of public lectures and seminars with interesting guest speakers including a range of well-known military historians.  We run the very successful Trenchard Lectures in Air Power series with RAF Cosford and the Royal Aeronautical Museum. We also have an annual Holocaust Memorial Day Lecture.

Example of a typical first year module:

  • War and the Modern World: is a module that provides the foundation for the War Studies programme by examining key issues such as strategic thought, definitions of war, and trends and themes in global conflict in the modern era.
  • Other First Year modules offered to our students include:

    • 4WR001: Holocaust

Example of a typical second year module:

  • Virtual Warriors: The Evolution of War Gaming examines how military institutions have developed gaming techniques as a method of instructing commanders in conflict situations, and how games have become an integral part of the modern culture of war, through board, figure and computer games.
  • Other Second Year modules offered to our students include:

    • 5WR001: Age of Total War
    • 5WR002: Normandy

Example of a typical third year module:

  • Propaganda and War: investigates the relationship between propaganda and war, chiefly since the development of mass warfare in the West from the 1830s onwards, including basic concepts and theories of propaganda, its relationship to mass media and advertising.

Meet the team

Name and contact detailsInterests

Dr Eamonn O'Kane

Northern Ireland conflict.

Professor Stephen Badsey

Professor of Conflict Studies – modern military history, contemporary conflicts, propaganda and warfare and First World War Research Director

Professor John Buckley

Twentieth century military and strategic studies, particularly the Second World War, and the Age of Air Power.

Dr Howard Fuller

19th-century Anglo-American history; naval and maritime history; American Civil War; British Empire; Technology & War.

George Kassimeris

Terrorism and Political Violence.

Gary Sheffield

Professor of War Studies, First World War Research Director