Courses

This course surveys the main currents of British history from 1900 to the present, with particular attention to the changing place of Britain in the world and the changing shape of politics.  Throughout this course, we will ask:  Where is power located in Britain and its empire?  What held Britain and the empire together, and what tore them apart?  What was life like for Britons – young and old, men and women, rich and poor, white and black – across the course of this century?  When and how did social change happen?  How did people respond?

We will tackle these questions by looking closely at some key periods of political conflict and resolution, by reading key texts from the time, and – for the latter part of the course – by viewing films and speeches.  The course requirements include section participation (10%), a midterm (20%), a final (30%), and two short research/writing assignments (20% each); you must complete all assignments and exams to pass the course.  The research assignments are devised to help familiarize you with historians’ practice, so that you can search for answers to historical questions on your own.  The assignments are integrated into section discussion: due dates are (as a result) not flexible and section attendance is required.  The films are an essential part of the course and will be discussed in section.  There will be course-wide screenings for the films, but they are also on reserve in Butler Media Reserves.  You can view them in the library provided you do so before the section discussion.