HIST2002 The Rise of Britannia's Empire and the Colonial Experience

2020

4.5

1 x 50-minute lecture weekly
1 x 50-minute tutorial weekly
1 x 2-hour film screening monthly

HIST3004 has been successfully completed

Associated major: History

At the peak of its power, it was often said that 'the sun never sets on the British Empire'. By 1922 the British Empire held sway over one-quarter of the world's population and about a quarter of the Earth's total land area. This topic explores the history and legacy of the British Empire in its political, social, economic and cultural dimensions, primarily from the 1840's until the 1940's. It places in comparative context the issues of explaining British imperial expansion across the globe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, methods of rule, the encounter between colonised and coloniser (British and native narratives) and the development of political modernity. The topic engages with a range of textual and visual sources, from historical writing and film (both documentaries and fiction), to documents, including images.

This topic aims to:

• Provide a critical insight into British imperial/colonial expansion, methods of rule, and the imperial/colonial encounter;
• Provide a comparative insight into British imperial/colonial expansion, methods of rule, and the imperial/colonial encounter;
• Provide a critical insight into colonial attitudes to British imperial/colonial expansion, methods of rule, and the imperial/colonial encounter;
• Provide a comparative insight into colonial attitudes to British imperial/colonial expansion, methods of rule, and the imperial/colonial encounter;
• Assist students understand the key themes in British imperial history;
• Help students understand the key themes in Colonial experiences of British imperial and colonial history;
• Further students' experience with a variety of historical sources and develop their skills of evaluating these sources to form arguments;
• Develop further students' communication skills (written and oral; informal and formal)

On successful completion of this topic students should have:

• obtained a critical and comparative insight into colonial attitudes to British imperial expansion, the imperial and colonial experiences, methods of rule, and the imperial encounter;
• analysed a range of secondary reading, assessing the value of this material in terms of argument and research;
• analysed a wide range of primary sources and determine their contexts;
• developed the ability to use their knowledge to plan, analyse, think critically, reflect upon and evaluate ideas, options and decisions;
• become aware of ethical issues related to the field of history generally and to the issues of this topic;
• gained effective oral and written communication skills so as to write/present properly structured, clearly argued, fluently expressed essays and oral presentations;
• exchanged and debate ideas with other members of the class and with the tutor with the utmost integrity and respect;
• worked regularly, independently and collaboratively to meet the prescribed deadlines and activities