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History and Politics at Cambridge is a joint degree that gives you the opportunity to combine the study of politics and history.
You'll engage with contemporary social and political issues, reflecting on their relationship.
Overview
Number 1 in the UK for History (The Complete University Guide 2025)
History and Politics at Cambridge
This course balances a strong grounding in history and politics. You'll explore the ways that historical and political understanding illuminate the modern world.
Our course covers a range of subjects from our history, politics and international relations courses. These include:
- political science
- history of political thought
- a wide variety of modern British, European, American and world history
- conceptual issues in political science
- quantitative methods
Teaching and facilities
Teaching
You’ll be taught by some of the most eminent academics in the world.
Staff in the Faculty of History and in the Department of Politics and International Studies have a wide range of shared interests in political and international history, and the historical origins of contemporary domestic and international politics and political ideas.
Facilities
You will have access to both Faculty of History and Department of Politics and International Studies facilities. They include:
- Faculty of History’s Seeley collection, with 95,000 books, periodicals, theses and an audio-visual collection
You'll also have access to the impressive Cambridge University Library, one of the world’s oldest university libraries.
Course costs
When you go to university, you’ll need to consider two main costs – your tuition fees and your living costs (sometimes referred to as maintenance costs).
Your living costs will include costs related to your studies that are not covered by your tuition fees. There are some general study costs that will apply for all students.
Find out more about general study costs.
Other additional course costs for History and Politics are detailed below. If you have any queries about these costs, please contact the Department.
Books and set texts
There is no expectation to buy any set books as these are available at the University and College libraries, but you might find it useful to buy your own copies of a small number of core texts. These will not usually exceed £100 in total.
Field trips
You may have additional costs as you pursue your dissertation research (eg travel), but travelling is not necessary in order to prepare an outstanding dissertation. Funding is sometimes available to cover these expenses. Please visit the Department website for more details.
Your future career
When you graduate you’ll be able to work independently, evaluate and discriminate between evidence, and present arguments clearly and persuasively. These skills are attractive to employers.
Recent graduates have progressed to careers in:
- media
- law
- public administration
- finance
- teaching
- the charity sector
Course outline
Teaching
Teaching is provided through lectures, classes and small-group supervisions. You’ll usually complete a supervision essay which you’ll discuss with a senior academic.
You will usually have 8 to 10 hours of lectures and classes each week.
Assessment
Assessment is through timed examinations at the end of each year.
Some papers are assessed by coursework. In the third year you can replace one paper with a dissertation.
You won't usually be able to resit any of your exams.
Year 1 (Part IA)
You take 4 papers:
- 1 History Outline paper from a wide range of options, typically including papers on British, European, American, and Global history
- 2 Politics papers – The Modern State and its Alternatives, and International Conflict, Order and Justice
- 1 core interdisciplinary paper in Evidence and Argument.
Year 2 (Part IB)
You take one paper in each of the following categories:
- International Organisation or Comparative Politics
- History of Political Thought
- History Topic paper from a variety of options reflecting the diverse research interests of the History Faculty
- a long essay of up to 5,000 words on a question drawn from a wide range of subjects in History and Politics.
Year 3 (Part II)
You choose 3 papers from a wide range of possible combinations, including third year:
- Politics and International Relations papers shared with Human, Social, and Political Sciences
- History Special Subjects and Advanced Topic papers
The papers available each year may vary.
Alternatively, you can replace one of these 3 papers with a dissertation of 10,000 words on a topic of your choice within the scope of the course.
You also take Theory and Practice in History and Politics. This paper engages with key issues such as technology, inequality, power, and war.
For further information about this course and the papers you can take see the Faculty of History website.
Changing course
It’s really important to think carefully about which course you want to study before you apply.
In rare cases, it may be possible to change course once you’ve joined the University. You will usually have to get agreement from your College and the relevant departments. It’s not guaranteed that your course change will be approved.
You might also have to:
- take part in an interview
- complete an admissions test
- produce some written work
- achieve a particular grade in your current studies
- do some catch-up work
- start your new course from the beginning
For more information visit the Faculty website.
You can also apply to change to:
You can't apply to this course until you're at Cambridge. You would usually apply when you have completed one year or more of your original Cambridge course.
You should contact your College’s Admissions Office if you’re thinking of changing your course. They will be able to give you advice and explain how changing courses works.
Entry requirements
The listed entry requirements relate to entry in 2026 or deferred entry in 2027.
Minimum offer level
A level: A*AA
IB: 41-42 points, with 776 at Higher Level
Other qualifications: Check which other qualifications we accept.
To apply to any of our Colleges for History and Politics, you will need an A level/IB Higher Level (or the equivalent) in:
- History
If you’re not taking History but are able to demonstrate that you have developed other, equivalent skills by taking other relevant subjects, or through independent subject exploration, you should contact the admissions office of the College to which you are considering applying for advice.
College entry requirements
The following Colleges usually set offers at the minimum offer level. They may sometimes ask for higher grades or an A* in a particular subject :
- Clare
- Downing
- Emmanuel
- Fitzwilliam
- Girton
- Homerton
- Hughes Hall
- Jesus
- Magdalene
- Newnham
- Pembroke
- Peterhouse
- Robinson
- Sidney Sussex
- St Catharine's
- St Edmund's
- St John’s
- Trinity
- Trinity Hall
- Wolfson
The following Colleges have extra subject requirements and/or set extra conditions. For example, they may make a higher offer or specifying an A* in a particular subject. For more information check the College websites:
- Christ’s
- Churchill
- Corpus Christi
- Gonville & Caius
- King’s
- Lucy Cavendish
- Murray Edwards
- Queens’
- Selwyn
Colleges set additional offer requirements for a range of reasons. If you'd like to find out more about why we do this, check the information about offers above the minimum requirement on the entry requirements page.
IB offers
Some Colleges usually make offers above the minimum offer level. Find out more on our qualifications page.
Admission assessment
There is an admission assessment at some Colleges for this course. You do not need to register in advance.
Check the College admission assessments page for more information.
Submitted work
You will need to submit 2 pieces of written work.
What History and Politics students have studied
Most History and Politics students (who had studied A Levels and started at Cambridge in 2018, 2019 and 2023) achieved at least A*A*A (70% of entrants).
All of these students took History and more than half took Government & Politics.
Other common subjects included:
- Economics
- English (Language, Language & Literature, or Literature)
- languages
- Mathematics
The majority of students who studied IB achieved at least 43 points overall.
This information shows some of the common subjects our applicants have studied. Although these are common subject combinations, this doesn't mean they're favoured.
When you're choosing your post-16 subjects, it's most important to check whether any subjects are required for your course. You can also check our guidance on choosing your high school subjects for more information.
All undergraduate admissions decisions are the responsibility of the Cambridge Colleges. Please contact the relevant College admissions office if you have any queries.
Next steps
Discover your department or faculty
- Visit the Faculty of History website - The Faculty of History website has more information about this course, facilities, people and research.
Explore our Colleges
- Find out how Colleges work - A College is where you’ll live, eat and socialise. It’s also where you’ll have teaching in a small group, known as supervisions.
- How to choose a Cambridge College that's right for you - If you think you know which course you’d like to study, it’s time to choose a College.
Visit us on an open day
- Book an open day - Get a feel for the city and the University.
- Find an event - We offer a range of events where you can find out more about Cambridge, Colleges, and your course. Many of our events have hybrid options so you can join us virtually.
Find out how to apply
- Find out how to apply and how our admissions processes work - Our admissions process is slightly different to other universities. We’ve put together a handy guide to tell you everything you need to know about applying to study at Cambridge.
- Improve your application - Supercurricular activities are a great way to engage with your chosen subject outside of school or college.
Discover Uni
Discover Uni data
Contextual information
Discover Uni allows you to compare information about individual courses at different higher education institutions. This can be a useful method of considering your options and what course may suit you best.
However, please note that superficially similar courses often have very different structures and objectives, and that the teaching, support and learning environment that best suits you can only be determined by identifying your own interests, needs, expectations and goals, and comparing them with detailed institution- and course-specific information.
We recommend that you look thoroughly at the course and University information contained on these webpages and consider coming to visit us on an Open Day, rather than relying solely on statistical comparison.
You may find the following notes helpful when considering information presented by Discover Uni.
- Discover Uni relies on superficially similar courses being coded in the same way. Whilst this works on one level, it may lead to some anomalies. For example, Music courses and Music Technology courses can have exactly the same code despite being very different programmes with quite distinct educational and career outcomes.
Any course which combines several disciplines (as many courses at Cambridge do) tends to be compared nationally with courses in just one of those disciplines, and in such cases the Discover Uni comparison may not be an accurate or fair reflection of the reality of either. For example, you may find that when considering a degree which embraces a range of disciplines such as biology, physics, chemistry and geology (for instance, Natural Sciences at Cambridge), the comparison provided is with courses at other institutions that primarily focus on just one (or a smaller combination) of those subjects.You may therefore find that not all elements of the Cambridge degree are represented in the Discover Uni data. - Some contextual data linked from other surveys, such as the National Student Survey (NSS) or the Destination of Leavers in Higher Education (DLHE), may not be available or may be aggregated across several courses or several years due to small sample sizes. When using the data to inform your course choice, it is important to ensure you understand how it has been processed prior to its presentation. Discover Uni offers some explanatory information about how the contextual data is collated, and how it may be used, which you can view here: https://discoveruni.gov.uk/about-our-data/.
- Discover Uni draws on national data to provide average salaries and employment/continuation data. Whilst starting salaries can be a useful measure, they do not give any sense of career trajectory or take account of the voluntary/low paid work that many graduates undertake initially in order to gain valuable experience necessary/advantageous for later career progression. Discover Uni is currently piloting use of the Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data to demonstrate possible career progression; it is important to note that this is experimental and its use may be modified as it embeds.
The above list is not exhaustive and there may be other important factors that are relevant to the choices that you are making, but we hope that this will be a useful starting point to help you delve deeper than the face value of the Discover Uni data.