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MASTER SYLLABUS

Master Syllabus

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Administrative Unit: History and Political Science Department
Course Prefix and Number: HIST 358
Course Title: The Making of Modern Britain
Number of:
Credit Hours 3
Lecture Hours 3
Lab Hours 0
Catalog Description:

This exploration of the most important social, economic and political developments in Britain since the beginning of the eighteenth century covers topics including the rise of industrial society, Victorian ideas and attitudes, British feminism, the rise and fall of the British Empire, the emergence of the Labour Party and British socialism, the impact of the two world wars and postwar political and social changes. Certain themes will be stressed, such as the relationship between elite and popular politics, the development of the state, changing configurations of empire, and transformations in social and gender relations. Prerequisite: HIST 102 or HIST 112.
 
Prerequisite(s) / Corequisite(s):

HIST 102 or HIST 112.
 
Course Rotation for Day Program: Offered even Fall.
 
Text(s): Most current editions of the following:


REQUIREMENTS:

- Choose a PRIMARY SOURCE from among the following:

  -- Text 1 

  -- Texts 2 and 3 combined

  -- Texts 4 and 5 combined

- In addition, choose at least two texts from among Texts 6-20.




A History of Modern Britain, 1714 to the Present
By Wasson, Ellis (Wiley-Blackwell)
Category/Comments - PRIMARY SOURCE
Recommended
The Age of Aristocracy: 1688-1830
By Willcox, William B. Bradford and Walter L. Arnstein (Houghton Mifflin)
Category/Comments - PRIMARY SOURCE (pair with Text 3)
Recommended
Britain Yesterday and Today: 1830 to the Present
(Houghton Mifflin)
Category/Comments - PRIMARY SOURCE (pair with Text 2)
Recommended
The Peoples of the British Isles: A New History from 1688 to 1870
By Heyck, Thomas William (Lyceum)
Category/Comments - PRIMARY SOURCE (pair with Text 5)
Recommended
The Peoples of the British Isles: A New History from 1870 to the Present
By Heyck, Thomas William (Lyceum)
Category/Comments - PRIMARY SOURCE (pair with Text 4)
Recommended
The Past Speaks, Sources and Problems in British History, Vol 11: Since 1688
By Arnstein, Walter, ed. (Houghton Mifflin)
Category/Comments - Primary Sources Reader
Recommended
There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation
By Gilroy, Paul (University of Chicago Press)
Recommended
Popular Politics in Nineteenth-Century England
By McWilliam, Rohan (Routledge)
Recommended
The Birth of Industrial Britain: Social Change 1750-1850
By Morgan, Kenneth (Pearson Longman)
Recommended
Coming Up for Air
By Orwell, George (Harvest Books)
Recommended
The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes
By Rose, Jonathan (Yale University Press)
Recommended
Britain Under Thatcher
By Seldon, Anthony and Daniel Collings (Longman)
Recommended
Life isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee
By Syal, Meera (Picador)
Recommended
The First Industrial Woman
By Valenze, Deborah (Oxford University Press)
Recommended
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
By Wollstonecraft, Mary (Penguin)
Recommended
Regeneration
By Barker, Pat (Penquin)
Recommended
Reflections on the Revolution in France
By Burke, Edmund (Penguin)
Recommended
The Condition of the Working Class in England
By Engels, Freidrich (Penguin)
Recommended
She: A History of Adventure
By Haggard, H. Rider (Oxford World Classics)
Recommended
The Road to Wigan Pier
By Orwell, George (Mariner Books)
Recommended
 
Course Objectives

  • To develop an intellectual perspective which recognizes the interrelated political, economic and cultural factors involved in British historical change since the early 1700s.
  • To heighten awareness of the specific contributions and perspectives of diverse members and constituencies in British society.
  • To understand the emergence of new political constituencies, and efforts within Britain to appeal to and co-opt them over the course of the last three centuries.
  • To understand the influence of the past on contemporary events and problems in Britain, or, in other words, to develop “historical mindedness.”

    		•
     
    Measurable Learning Outcomes:

  • Describe major eighteenth-century developments pertaining to British state-formation.
  • Explain major reasons for, and effects of British industrialization in terms of political, economic, social and cultural change.
  • Identify and characterize key effects of the French Revolutionary struggle upon British society and politics.
  • Describe major 19th-century political reforms, and the political and public pressures which gave rise to them.
  • Explain core cultural concerns which emerged during the Victorian period, including religiosity, scientific authority, and the centrality of middling-class values.
  • Identify motivating factors for British imperialism/colonization, including economic, cultural and political factors.
  • Explain the effects of empire upon domestic British society.
  • Describe the emergence of “mass politics" in Britain, in terms of new political discourses, media, and forms of political organization.
  • Explain the struggles accompanying British decolonization during the 20th-century, including the effects of decolonization upon Britain’s perceived geopolitical status.
  • Explain how changing relationship of gender, race, and class affected Britain at key historical moments.
  • Identify major reasons for and characteristics of youth culture as it emerged in Britain during the 1950s.
  • Analyze Thatcherism as a response to perceived economic and social malaise of the 1970s.
  • Describe the changing configurations of political culture in Britain during the 1990s with the emergence of New Labour.

    		•
     
    Topical Outline:

    NOTE: Students will write a historical research paper which utilizes primary texts, an original argument, historical analysis, and proper Chicago documentation.

  • Background to the 18th century
  • The Structure of society in the early 18th Century
  • Oligarchy secured?: The search for political stability
  • Industrializing society
  • Authority, property, and the criminal law
  • Popular religion in 18th-Century Britain
  • Intellectual currents: The British enlightenment
  • War, the State and the 18th-Century Empire
  • Urban popular politics in the Georgian Britain
  • The impact of the French Revolution
  • The end of the wars: Post-war politics, Liberalism and reform
  • Workers and the Chartist Challenge
  • The question of Ireland
  • Darwinism and religious revivals
  • Victorian womanhood: ideals/realties
  • The late Victorian Empire
  • 1867, and the challenge of Democracy
  • Challenges to the Liberal State: Trade-Unionism and feminism
  • English society and the Great War
  • A land fit for heroes?: Labour and British socialism
  • World War II and British society
  • The creation of the welfare state
  • Dismantling empire
  • The angry young men: British culture in the 1950s
  • Race anxiety and immigration
  • The swinging sixties
  • Ireland, and “The Troubles”
  • Stagflation: the bleak 1970s
  • From Thatcherism to New Labour

    		•
     
    Culminating Experience Statement:

    Material from this course may be tested on the Major Field Test (MFT) administered during the Culminating Experience course for the degree. 
    During this course the ETS Proficiency Profile may be administered.  This 40-minute standardized test measures learning in general education courses.  The results of the tests are used by faculty to improve the general education curriculum at the College.
     

    Recommended maximum class size for this course: 35
     
    Library Resources:

    Online databases are available at http://www.ccis.edu/offices/library/index.asp. You may access them from off-campus using your CougarTrack login and password when prompted.
     
    Prepared by: David Karr Date: January 8, 2011
    NOTE: The intention of this master course syllabus is to provide an outline of the contents of this course, as specified by the faculty of Columbia College, regardless of who teaches the course, when it is taught, or where it is taught. Faculty members teaching this course for Columbia College are expected to facilitate learning pursuant to the course objectives and cover the subjects listed in the topical outline. However, instructors are also encouraged to cover additional topics of interest so long as those topics are relevant to the course's subject. The master syllabus is, therefore, prescriptive in nature but also allows for a diversity of individual approaches to course material.

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