Revolutions in Three Kingdoms: England, Ireland, Scotland

Catalog description

This course examines the political, religious, and military conflicts and social and cultural transformations that wracked England, Ireland, and Scotland between the late 1630s and 1660. While much of the focus will be on events from the breakdown of royal authority and the coming of rebellion and Civil War through the restoration of the Stuart monarchy, we will also consider the longer-term roots of conflict in religious Reformation, state-formation, social change, and colonial conquest, as well as its legacies in subsequent imperial expansion, political thinking, and historical memory. Readings will include a mixture of classic works and contemporary scholarship, and students will develop a research project based in extensive engagement with primary sources.