Module description
The effects of empire on Britain and other European nations have increasingly fascinated historians. In recent years, historians have reappraised the ways in which the society, culture, politics and economy of European nations were affected by being part of empires, provoking lively debates about the place of empire in British and European history. Was Britain ever an ‘imperial’ country, or was the empire something that passed most British people by? What exactly did the empire mean to the British? How unique was the British experience of empire? This course focuses on Britain, asking how important the empire was in British life. Politics and the economy are considered, as well as the effects of the empire on elite and popular culture, and how British peoples’ experience of empire varied with gender, class and region. The course also engages with the controversial historiographical debates about the cultural and social consequences of decolonisation in Britain, including debates around ‘race’ and immigration.
Assessment details
Coursework (100%)
1 x 1,500-word formative essay; 1 x 3,000-word essay (100%)
Educational aims & objectives
Provisional Teaching Plan
- Introduction
- Empire in later nineteenth-century British politics
- Race, ‘jingoism’ and empire in British popular culture, c. 1870-1902
- A ‘balance sheet of empire’: the economic costs and benefits of empire to Britain, c.1870-1914
- Empire, society and culture, c. 1902-39
- Domestic critics of empire, c. 1919-1939
- Colonial migrants
- The politics of decolonization
- The ‘persistence of empire’ in British culture after 1945
- Britain after empire
Teaching pattern
10 x 2-hour seminars (weekly)
Suggested reading list
It is not necessary for students taking this course to purchase any books but should they wish to do so then the following is recommended:
Andrew Thompson ed., Britain’s Experience of Empire in the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 2011).