Macquarie University

Britain, Empire and the Making of a Globalized World, 1688-1914 - MHIS217

Over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, Britain transformed the world. Beginning with the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that assured Protestant Ascendancy, this period saw the rise of Britain from a relatively weak position on the margins of Europe to the centre of the largest and most influential empire in the modern world. This unit will consider how the British World functioned as a globalizing carrier of modernity in the 18th and 19th centuries, both in the metropole and the colonies, and the heated political, social and cultural contests that always characterized imperial expansion and management. In so doing, this unit will also analyse the theme of 'freedom versus slavery' as a key to 'Britishness'; of changing ideas of political success during the transfer to a capitalist economy; of the increasing complexity of race, gender, and class within imperial relations; and of the nature of colonial resistance in its various indigenous, nationalist, and postmodern forms.

Timetable Information

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