Was Britain the maker of the modern world? This small, cold, and wet island was the first to develop representative politics, to industrialize, to urbanize, and to infamously build a global empire. And yet it was unable to rid itself of ancient institutions like the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the established church. The class explores this paradox by tracing the rise, fall and reinvention of a ‘liberal’ political economy that laid out how markets, governments, empires, and even people, should work. It shows how people of color, as subjects of slavery and imperialism, as well as residents of Britain, were integral to this story. It concludes Britain did not make the modern world, the world helped make Britain modern.

The aim of the class is not just to teach you something about Britain, its empire and the world since 1750, but to get you thinking and writing like a historian. That is to say we will focus on thinking about change over time, identifying what changes where and when, as well as how and why it happens. In doing so we explore everything from environmental degradation, racism and the reinvention of the monarchy to the histories of the urinal and the mutual orgasm. A brilliant and relatively cheap textbook, written by me, will support the lectures. Assessment will be based upon responses to lecture questions (20%), bi-weekly quizzes (40%), and an open book final exam or short research paper of 10 pages (40%).

Lectures will be divided into two 30 minute sections with break out discussion sessions and Q&A. Recordings of lectures will also be available asynchronously. Assessment by quiz, paper or take-home final.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills