From the age of improvement to globalization: the evolution

The aim of this course is to give students an overview of the history of the English-speaking world from the end of the eighteenth century to the onset of globalization, during the twentieth. We shall study such themes as the slave-trade, industrial revolution, imperial expansion, military conflict, the Commonwealth, and culture and identity. The course is designed to help students understand the major ideas, events and social/political movements which have sometimes brought the English-speaking countries together, and sometimes driven them apart. The main objective is to provide students with a synthesis of the evolution of the ‘British World’ and to enable them to understand better how the challenges of a more diverse international system have progressively and profoundly affected the character and geopolitical role of the United Kingdom.

Students attending classes will be required to do an oral presentation during the course and a written assignment to be handed in by the end of the semester. For students who are not required to attend classes: a written assignment to be handed in by the end of the semester; in addition, a specific oral exam will be organised for these students at the end of the semester.

• Berthezène, Clarisse, et al. Le monde britannique : 1815-1931. Paris : Belin 2010.
• Bonnet, Christian. Le Royaume-Uni de 1837 à 1914. De l’époque victorienne à la Grande Guerre. Paris : Nathan, 1997.
• Burton, Antoinette. At home with the empire: metropolitan culture and the imperial world. Cambridge University press 2006.
• Campbell, Chloe. Race and Empire: Eugenics in Colonial Kenya. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007.
• Cannadine, David. Ornamentalism: How the British Saw their Empire. London: Penguin, 2002.
• Chapman, James & Nicholas J. Cull, Projecting Empire: Imperialism and Popular Cinema, London & New York, I. B. Tauris, 2009
• Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837. New Haven (Conn.): YUP, 1992.
• Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language. 2nd edition. Cambridge: CUP, 1995.
• Dalziel, Nigel and John M. Mackenzie. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the British Empire. London: Penguin, 2006.
• Darwin, John. The End of the British Empire: the Historical Debate. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.
• Dickinson, Harry, Thomas (ed.). A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Britain. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
• Duby, Georges (ed.). Atlas historique mondial. Paris: Larousse, 2006.
• Frison, Danièle, et al. Expansion of the Anglo-American World 1688-1900. Paris: Ellipses, 2000.
• Grimal, Henri. De l'Empire britannique au Commonwealth. Paris : Armand Colin, 1999.
• Halévy, Élie. Histoire du peuple anglais au XIXe siècle. Paris : Hachette, 1912-1946.
• Jarrige, François et al. Le Monde britannique 1815-1931. Paris: Bréal, 2009.
• Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Vantage, 1989.
• Marshall, P. J. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire. CUP, 1996.
• Mattoso, Katia, M de Queiros. L’Angleterre et le monde XVIIIe-XXe siècle : l’histoire entre l’économique et l’imaginaire : hommage à François Crouzet. Paris : l’Harmattan, 1999. 
• Norel, Philippe. L’Histoire Économique globale. Paris: Seuil, 2013.
• Overy, Richard. The Morbid Age: Britain and the Crisis of Civilisation, 1919 - 1939: Britain Between the Wars. Allen Lane, 2009.
• Porter, Roy. Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World. London: Penguin, 2000.
• Porter, Roy. English Society in the Eighteenth Century. London: Penguin Books, 1991.
• Price, Richard. Making Empire. Colonial Encounters and the Creation of Imperial Rule in Nineteenth Century Africa, Cambridge University Press, 2008.
• Tharoor, Shashi. Inglorious empire: what the British did to India. Hurst & Company 2017.
• Wiener, Martin J. English culture and the decline of the industrial spirit, 1850-1980. Cambridge University Press 1981.