45 History Dissertation Topics and Ideas to Consider

Writing a history dissertation starts with identifying a topic to explore in your area of study. Unfortunately, the brainstorming stage can take so much of your time and leave you with ideas you simply won’t find interesting. To help you make the research process as easy as possible, we put together some history dissertation topics ideas that you can start exploring right away.

Your dissertation will play an important role in your area of study. It can add a new insight to the existing studies, help other researchers to understand existing scholarship better, or offer an analysis of existing work via a new analytical approach.

It’s important to understand that history dissertations are projects that must evolve around objectives and scopes. As such, we strongly recommend that you choose a dissertation topic that you find interesting to explore. By doing so, you’ll find it easy to produce a high-quality piece of academic research within the shortest period.

History Dissertation Topics: 25+ Examples For Further Evaluation

History is a monstrous area of study by itself so much so that narrowing your focus on a specific topic can be quite challenging. To make your work easier, here are some topics ideas that you might want to consider:

Italian Unification Dissertation Topics

1. What were the most pressing concerns confronting Italy’s newly formed government, and how were they resolved?
2. Examine the societal forces that contributed to Italian unification.
3. Evaluate Cavour’s role to Italian unification – was he a major factor for Italy’s success?
4. How did Italy’s foreign policy stance compare to that of other countries at the time?
5. Examine the claim that Guiseppe Mazzini was the primary motivating factor behind Italian unification.

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German Unification Dissertation Topics

1. In what respects did German unity represent a win for German liberals at the time?
2. Did German unification help to heal societal and political schisms?
3. Examine the claim that German unification was essentially a display of Prussian nationalism.
4. What were the foreign policy consequences of German unification for the existing major European powers?
5. Explain the relevance of the Schleswig Holstein issue to German unification – was it the primary reason for unity?

Crimean War Dissertation Topics

1. Was the Crimean War unavoidable given the key participants’ strategic objectives?
2. Why is the participation of women in the Crimean War regarded as so significant?
3. Why did so many attempts at peace in the Crimean War fail?
4. What considerations influenced the French and British empires to resist Russia and support the Ottomans in the Crimean War?
5. What was the most significant incident that contributed to the end of the Crimean War?

Napoleon III Dissertation Topics

1. What was Napoleon III’s stance toward the Vienna system, and how did he implement this policy?
2. What were Napoleon III’s primary issues when he came to power, and how did he solve them?
3. How do you think Napoleon III’s legacy has affected European relations after his death?
4. What reasons influenced Napoleon III’s choice to advocate for Italian unification?
5. What were the most important aspects of Napoleon III’s economic and social policies, and how did they enable him to maintain power?
6. What was the significance of Napoleon III’s participation in the Crimean War?
7. Given his enormous social and political accomplishments, why do you believe many historians see Napoleon III’s legacy negatively?

History Dissertation Topics on British and the Great Depression

1. Why were the consequences of ‘The Great Depression’ particularly severe in Britain’s former industrial and mining districts?
2. What were the primary issues confronting the British government during the Interwar era, and were they successfully resolved?
3. What was Britain’s greatest achievement during this time, and where did it fall short?
4. Was appeasement truly a strategy to prepare Britain for the impending battle with Hitler?
5. To what degree did the First World War contribute directly to the government’s incapacity to respond to the Great Depression?
6. During the Munich crisis, was Neville Chamberlain “the voice of the British people”?
7. What causes outside of Europe contributed to ‘The Great Depression?’ Was it the collapse of the US economy alone?

World War I History Dissertation Topics

1. What motivated Gavrilo Princip to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand? Was the logic behind this decision flawed?
2. What was happening in the rest of the globe at the time that led to the beginning of war in Europe?
3. Evaluate the role of intelligence services on the result of a war, focusing on a specific country.
4. Why did German opinions toward Austria shift over this time period?
5. Why were Europe’s major powers able to handle the Balkan crises of 1912 and 1913, but unable to avert a European-wide war in 1914?

Second World War Dissertation Topics

1. Was Finland’s conflict with Stalin’s Russia an example of Finland losing the war but gaining the peace?
2. How much did the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands serve as a model for their actions in other seized territories?
3. What was the deciding reason in the German inability to break through in the Battle of Britain?
4. What was the most important incident in the conflict that resulted in the war’s outcome?
5. How did Britain endure as the primary opposition to Nazi Germany’s total conquest of Europe following the collapse of France?

Stalin’s Russia Dissertation Topics

1. What were the major issues confronting Russian/Soviet society following Lenin’s death, and how, if at all, did Stalin address them?
2. How did Russia go from appearing to be one of the West’s staunchest friends during WWII to being widely dreaded afterward?
3. How and why did communism expand from the Soviet Union to the rest of the world?
4. What were the advantages of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 from the Soviet point of view?
5. Why was it permissible for the USSR to expand into other nations when a similar program in Nazi Germany resulted in war?
6. Was Stalin’s ruthless approach to controlling the Soviet Union during the purges justified?

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Conclusion

As you can see, there are many history dissertation topics worth exploring. All you have to do is to identify what area interests you and start investigating the topic further.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you need dissertation writing or dissertation editing services.