We will look at the syllabus, and discuss ways of approaching the British Empire as a subject of study.

This unit examines the rise of the so-called ‘First British Empire’, from its Elizabethan foundations until the Glorious Revolution of 1688. What kind of material and ideological forces lay behind the early attempts at building an empire?

This unit discusses how international war with European rivals and naval developments facilitated a dramatic expansion of British overseas power and imperial expansion from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century.

Why did ‘civil war’ among British subjects break out in the Thirteen Colonies in the 1770s? This unit looks at this question and considers the implications of the breakaway United States of America for the Empire.

Although British imperial connections with Asia extend to the 16th century, it was only in the later 18th century that the Pacific region became really established within the Empire. This session looks at British exploration, knowledge acquisition, missionary activity and growing commercial and strategic interests in the Pacific.

This unit examines the circumstances in which Britain, primarily by way of a private company (the East India Company), came to commercial, political and military supremacy over much of the Indian sub-continent – and the bloody response to this in the form of rebellion in 1857.

In-class, written exam. No computers but notes and copies of key materials can be consulted.

This discussion seminar examines a hardening in British attitudes towards the governed which came about in the context of a number of events in the 1850s and 60s: the Great Indian Mutiny; the Morant Bay Rebellion and the American Civil War.

The high-water mark of the imperial age came with the Berlin Conference of 1884, which was followed by the so-called ‘Scramble for Africa’, in which the continent was rapidly divided between various European imperial powers. What motivated Britain to claim its ‘share’ in Africa?

Empire proved vital to Britain’s survival of the First World War. But what kind of Empire was being fashioned in the crucible of total war? This unit surveys soldiers and subjects, nationalists and imperialists during at a time when the cards of global affairs were thoroughly reshuffled.

This module looks at the Empire in the era of World War II. Was this the moment when the British finally lost their imperial golden touch, on the brink of invasion at home, humiliated by Japan in Asia and dependent upon American deliverance? Or were imperial connections and British morale more resilient than subsequent events would suggest? Group D present their conclusions on the question of 'Collaboration and British Imperialism'

Britain, victorious in 1945 and with a self-proclaimed imperialist as prime minister in Sir Winston Churchill, had by 1970 divested itself of almost entirely of its empire. What explains this transition? This module examines the condition of Britain in the post-war age, particularly at the growing gap between its self-image and its capacity. It also looks at the growth of nationalism in the colonies, and ponders whether Britain’s decolonisation was as voluntary and benevolent as is sometimes suggested.

Was the British Empire the harbinger of modernity and the founder of a modern international economy of which we are all beneficiaries? Or was it an unending tale of slavery, brutality, famine, genocide and underdevelopment? Many historians reject the framework of this debate: yet, the question never seems to go away.

Format same as for the mid-term. Good luck!