MSc Intellectual History

These entry requirements are for the 2026-27 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2027-28 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2026.

A UK 2:1 honours degree, a minimum US 3.25 GPA or its international equivalent, in a subject related to this programme, normally History.

We will also consider honours degrees in other subjects such as Philosophy, Classics, Literature, or Politics if your personal statement demonstrates how you are equipped to undertake the programme.

Relevant experience, or professional or other qualifications will also be considered.

International qualifications

Please see our website

Please visit https://www.ed.ac.uk/history-classics-archaeology/graduate-school/fees-funding/funding/masters

See our website for destinations

The compulsory courses are:

Historical Methodology
Developing Historical Research
Option courses
Option courses previously offered include those listed below:

An uncertain world: the West since the 1970s
Books, Law and Lawyers in Scotland: From Humanism through Enlightenment
Capitalism and Slavery
Controversies in the Data Society
Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Patristic and Medieval
Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Reformation and Modern
Enlightenment and Romanticism 1688 - 1815
Global Legal Histories
History of English Private Law
Idolatry: Images and the Sacred in the Americas and Europe, 1400-1700.
Intellectual History of the American Revolution
Lords and Vassals in Medieval Scotland
Picturing Authority: Art and Politics at the Tudor and Stuart Courts
Religion and the Enlightenment: The Birth of the Modern
Science, Knowledge and Expertise
Slavery in Eighteenth-Century Scotland
The Global Renaissance
The Holocaust in History and Culture
The Politics of History in the Arabic-Speaking World (c.1750-Present)
Theology in the Long Reformation 1400-1600