Pax Britannica: Britain';s Imperial Century, 1815-1914 - Einzelansicht

This course will address the British Empire between 1815 and 1914, referred to by some as Britain’s ‘imperial century’, during which Britain was unrivalled as the foremost world power and exerted control over a territorial empire that constituted an imperial web of diverse and interrelated connections rather than a monolithic structure of global hegemony. We will explore a range of case studies from across the British Empire that allow us to engage critically with such central but diverse themes as imperial rivalries and networks, visions and critiques of empire, technologies, violence, racism and the ‘rule of colonial difference’, experiences of the colonized, and self-government. Classes will take place in English. Strong verbal and writing skills in English are essential for participation.

– Duncan Bell, Reordering the World: Essays on Liberalism and Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016);

– John Darwin, The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011);

– John Darwin, Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain (London: Allen Lane, 2012);

– Caroline Elkins, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire (London: The Bodley Head, 2022);

– Ronald Hyam, Britain’s Imperial Century, 1815–1914: A Study of Empire and Expansion, 3rd edition (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002);

– Ronald Hyam, Understanding the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010);

– Dane Kennedy, The Imperial History Wars: Debating the British Empire (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018);

– Alan Lester, Kate Boehme and Peter Mitchell, Ruling the World: Freedom, Civilisation and Liberalism in the Nineteenth-Century British Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2021);

– Timothy H. Parsons, The British Imperial Century, 1815–1914: A World History Perspective, 2nd edition (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019);
– Andrew Porter (ed.), The Oxford History of the British Empire, Volume III: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

Klausur im Umfang von 90 Minuten. / Written exam lasting 90 minutes.