The British Empire

Catalog description

At the height of its power, the vast British Empire covered one-fifth of the earth?s land mass?quite literally, an empire on which the sun never set. Studying British imperialism, then, is studying the history of the modern world. This course will examine the heyday of the empire, roughly from the end of the American Revolution (1782) to the era of Decolonization (1950s-1970s). Our approach will be both chronological and thematic, and will deal with diverse components of the empire including Britain, sub-Saharan Africa, India, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and the settler colonies of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa.