This exciting and challenging joint honours degree will give you the opportunity to study past and present human societies through a combination of historical and sociological perspectives.You’ll achieve a systematic understanding of the social, cultural, economic and political processes that have shaped human civilisations over time, considering the complexities of class, gender, race and other factors in different societies. This will enable you to build an understanding of the impact of power, resistance, and social change in British, European and global history. This flexible course allows you to develop your own areas of specialism and a range of skills that are attractive to employers.The course is taught through compulsory and optional modules. Core modules will ground you in key theories and concepts, while optional modules allow you to study the areas of History and Sociology you are most interested in. You can choose from optional modules spanning the early medieval period to the present day and consider some of the biggest social challenges we face in the modern world.FacilitiesThe University of Leeds has world-class facilities for historians and sociologists, including a wealth of original archive material and political documents. The University Library Special Collections include the papers of Zygmunt Bauman, a prolific sociologist and writer, and the Gypsy, Traveller and Roma collection that contains documents from the 16th to 21st century.The University Libraries are among the largest in the UK and offer a course of workshops and webinars to help you make the most of their collections, digital resources and databases.Take a look around our libraries:Brotherton Library Laidlaw Library Edward Boyle LibrarySkills@Library also offers one-to-one support to taught students on a wide range of topics, including academic writing and data analysis.The Brotherton’s Library’s manuscripts are held in the Special Collections Research Centre, which has recently undergone an extensive refurbishment and extension, after a generous bequest from the John Victor Bedford Will Trust. This provides new working spaces for individuals or groups, and new teaching spaces that feature visualisers and projectors allowing you to engage with texts and sources using the latest techniques.In your degree, you’ll explore a range of different approaches to sociology in a challenging and supportive environment in the School of Sociology and Social Policy, home to the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, and the Bauman Institute.