philosophy, politics and economics (ppe) is a popular interdisciplinary undergraduate/post-graduate degree which combines study from the three disciplines. the first institution to offer degrees in ppe was the university of oxford and this particular course has produced a significant number of notable graduates such as christopher hitchens, the british american author, philosopher, polemicist, debater, and journalist,'hitchens, christopher eric', who's who 2012, a & c black, 2012; online edn, oxford university press, december 2012 ; online edn, january 2012 accessed 5 december 2014david cameron, the current prime minister of the united kingdom, ed miliband, the current leader of the opposition, and tony abbott, the current prime minister of australia,. in the 1980s, the university of york went on to establish its own ppe degree based upon the oxford model; the university of warwick, the university of manchester, and other british universities later followed. according to the bbc, it "dominate[s] public life" (in the uk). it is now offered at several other leading colleges and universities around the world. ==history== ppe was established at the university of oxford in the 1920s, "balliol was the birthplace of the modern degree of ppe in the 1920s. a.d. lindsay, who subsequently became the master of the college, played a key role in the establishment of the degree and balliol has long remained a major college for the study of ppe, and ppe has long been a major subject within balliol." as a modern alternative to classics (known as greats at oxford) because it was thought that a course in philosophy and ancient history was no longer relevant for those entering the civil service. it was thus initially known as modern greats. christopher stray has pointed to the course as one reason for the gradual decline of the study of classics, as classicists in political life began to be edged out by those who had studied the modern greats.christopher stray, classics
Academic_courses_at_the_University_of_Oxford Education_in_economics General_economics Philosophy_education Political_science_education Subfields_of_political_science