- The British Empire and the Making of the Modern World

Catalog description

A survey of the history of the British Empire over the course of its five-century history as a means of bridging the past to the present. Students will understand just how the empire helped to shape the map of our modern world. This course will focus on the political, economic, cultural, and ecological causes and consequences of Britain’s overseas expansion. Topics include the ecological and biological impact of British imperialism; Elizabethan commercial expansion; the plantings of Ireland; early settlements in the New World and the impact on indigenous peoples; the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the plantation system in the Caribbean; the American Revolution and the end of the first British Empire; the ideologies of the British Raj in India; the "New Imperialism" of the late nineteenth century and the "scramble for Africa"; the transfer of technology and culture; decolonization; and the contemporary legacy of empire.