This module is intended to provide you with an introduction to the modern and contemporary periods of world history.  By adopting a European and global perspective, the module aims to provide you with a broad knowledge and understanding of the main political, economic, social and cultural factors that have shaped the modern world.  Individual themes – the impact of industrialism, the nature and impact of nationalism, imperialism and decolonization, women and gender, culture and representation, war and peace – are explored in the context of several countries or regions of the world.  This comparative approach will not only deepen your understanding of the making of the modern world, and how historians have written about modern world history, but also highlight the interconnected nature of the development of societies and peoples in different locations.  The geographical range – a distinctive feature of this module – encompasses many countries of Western Europe as well as Asia and Africa.

• to introduce students in broad terms to the historical processes that contributed to the making of the modern world;
• to enable students to acquire understanding of a range of specialised approaches used within the historical discipline such as political, social, economic, cultural, gender and women’s history;
• to develop student skills in comparative historical analysis.

The module will be delivered via a programme of lectures which will introduce students to the main factual and conceptual issues to be discussed and analyse during the module.  Students are also required to attend seminars related to lectures, in which key issues and topics are analysed and discussed further.

Knowledge and Understanding

·         to demonstrate a broad knowledge and an understanding of the historical processes that contributed to the making of the modern world;

·         to demonstrate a critical understanding of a range of historical approaches used to analyse the making of the modern world;

·         to demonstrate a critical ability to gather, assimilate and interpret historical knowledge.

Intellectual Skills

·         to demonstrate, as a necessary foundation for more detailed analysis in the second and final years of the degree, an understanding of concepts such as “modernization”;

·         to use a range of techniques to initiate and undertake analysis of information.

Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills

·         to identify strengths, weaknesses, problems, and/or peculiarities of alternative historiographies;

·         to develop causal explanations of historical processes;

·         to demonstrate skills in comparative historical analysis;

·         to deepen understanding of broad themes and developments considered in the course through case studies of particular historical phenomena.

Transferable Skills

• to evaluate the merits and demerits of alternative views and interpretations;
• to formulate and justify their own arguments and conclusions about a range of issues in the setting of seminar discussion;
• to present, accurately, succinctly and lucidly, and in written or oral form their arguments;
• to use a range of information technology resources to assist information retrieval;
• to organise their own study methods and workload;
• to work as part of a team in seminar or tutorial discussions.

Summative assessment takes the form of one 2,000-word essay (excluding empirical appendices and references).

Topics to be covered may include:

1. Social Consequences of Industrialisation;

2. Patterns of Industrialisation

3. Nationalism: constitutional;

4. Nationalism: ethnic;

5. Gender and Nationalism;

6. Imperialism in China;

7. Heyday of Empire;

8. Citizenship, Suffrage and Empire;

9. Class and Popular Culture;

10. Sex and Society.

C.A. Bayly The Birth of the Modern World (2004)

Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789-1848 (London, 1973)

Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, 1848-1875 (London, 1977)

Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875-1914 (London, 1987)

Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The short twentieth century, 1914-1991 (London, 1994)

Pat Hudson, The Industrial Revolution (1992)