Example history dissertation topic 12:

The race for city status: An analysis of the changing criteria for attainment – from Victoria to the Diamond Jubilee Cities

As the historian John Beckett notes, ‘City status’ is a much coveted municipal accolade. Traditionally, its award (apart from those historic cathedral cities that had been given the title seemingly from time immemorial) was dependent upon a number of criteria including for instance population and the returning of an MP. The recent award of City status as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations has shown not only that there is no longer a prerequisite for an urban centre to have an advanced population mass to be awarded such status but also highlighted, through the number of applicants, the sheer extent to which ‘city status’ is desired. A dissertation that combines not only modern history with modern day civic-political aspiration but also reviews both the Victorian ‘explosion’ in cities as well as aspects of their mediaeval past.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• BBC News (2012) ‘Three towns win city status for Diamond Jubilee’, BBC News [online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17364651 [accessed 26 May 2012].Beckett, J. (2005) City status in the British Isles, 1830-2002. Abingdon: Ashgate.