20th century Britain

The aim of this course is to introduce students to some of the main aspects of Britain from the First World War to the present day. The CM takes the student from the eve of the war to post-Brexit Britain, and highlights the main social and political developments during this period. Some of the questions we shall try to answer are the following: What were the main changes which took place? In particular what were the effects of the two World Wars on Britain, and of Britain's membership of the EC/EU between 1973 and 2020? How did British society evolve during this period? In what ways has the UK become an increasingly divided country? What, particularly, were the main changes in the composition of the British population and the way the British state was governed? What has been the impact of the different nationalist movements across the UK and of devolution? In the TD we shall study contemporary documents and, by analysing and interpreting these, attempt to better understand how modern Britain functions, how it sees itself, and how others see it.

Session 1 :

Étudiants régime général et spécial : contrôle terminal : examen écrit 3h – commentaire

Session 2 (« rattrapage ») :

Étudiants régime général et régime spécial: un oral de 15 mn (avec 1h de préparation) document(s) à commenter

Organisation des enseignements

1h CM et 1h30 TD

Ouvrages au programme :

A corpus of contemporary documents for study in the TD will be placed on e-campus.

Bibliographie complémentaire :

• Childs, D. Britain since 1945: A Political History London: Routledge, 2001.
• Clarke, Peter. Hope and Glory: Britain 1900-2000 London: Penguin, 2004.
• Marwick, Arthur. A History of the Modern British Isles 1914–1999. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000.
• Marr, Andrew. Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain. 4 DVDs - available in the UBM library - 2009.
• Morgan, Kenneth O. Twentieth-Century Britain: a Very Short Introduction
• Oakland, John. British Civilistion: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 2011.
• Obelkevich, James and Catterall, Peter, eds. Understanding Post-War British Society London: Routledge, 1994.
• Paxman, J. The English: A Portrait of a People. London: Penguin Books, 2000.

Some useful web sites:

• www.mori.com
• www.ons.gov.uk
• www.thecommonwealth.org