History 331 - English History 1688-Present

This course examines the modern history of England, with some discussion of Scotland, Wales and Ireland, from the Glorious Revolution to the present. Topics include: the effects of agricultural and commercial revolutions on rural life in the eighteenth century; the English and Scottish Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment; the growth of manufacturing towns and consumer culture; gender and class based contests to define the boundaries of belonging in the nation; England's ties to the Atlantic World and slavery; popular and official responses to the French Revolution; the rise and eventual collapse of the British Empire; the social effects of steam-driven industry; the nineteenth-century workhouse and prison; England's involvement in the great wars of the twentieth century; the legacies of Empire in the shaping of today's "multicultural Britain"; the central role of mass media in British politics; and the rise of public surveillance (e.g. CCTV) as a ubiquitous element of English daily life.