Macquarie University

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

Over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Britain transformed the world. Beginning with the Glorious Revolution of 1688, 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 Empire functioned as a carrier of modernity around the globe over two hundred years. It will look at Britain’s rise to power through trade; its establishment of settlements in the Americas, with its attendant institutionalization of both slavery and a rhetoric of liberty; and the crumbling of British Atlantic holdings in revolution by 1776. It also looks at British renewal in the Indo-Pacific region, alongside growing calls at home for liberal political reform. The unit will briefly survey the relatively rapid unravelling of the Empire through the twentieth century. Throughout we will investigate the nature of resistance to empire. The unit will appeal especially to students of European history and postcolonial studies.