Introductory description

The module contextualises later modern history by providing a framework in which major historical processes of the later modern era are studied on a world-wide scale.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Winter Term:
Week 1: Introduction: What makes the modern world?
Week 2: The Enlightenment in Global Perspective
Week 3: Revolutions in the Atlantic World
Week 4: The Industrial Revolution
Week 5: Wealth, Poverty and Inequality in the Modern World
Week 6: Reading Week
Week 7: Science, Nature and the Environment in the Modern World
Week 8: Liberalism and Nationalism
Week 9: Challenges to Liberalism: Socialism, Communism and Fascism
Week 10: Colonizing and Decolonizing the World

Spring Term:
Week 1: War and Violence and the Making of Modernity
Week 2: The Modernity of Genocide?
Week 3: Identities: Class and Urbanity
Week 4: Identities: Gender and Sexuality
Week 5: Identities: Race, Nation, and Citizenship
Week 6: Reading Week
Week 7: Consumer Society and Popular Culture
Week 8: Religion and the Questioning of Science
Week 9: History and Memory in the Modern World
Week 10: Dividing and Uniting the World: Slicing up Time and Space

Summer Term:
Week 1: The Post-War World: Post-Colonialism and Post-Modernism
Week 2: The Contemporary World in Historical Perspective
Week 3: Revision, Exam Preparation, and Outlook into Year 2

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Identify a range of theoretical frameworks, conceptual approaches and historiographical debates.
• Gain a broad understanding of the historical processes of the later modern era and of associated terminologies in global perspective.
• Identify and critically engage with related primary sources including official documents, statistics, memoirs, oral history, film, music, painting, architecture, radio, television, museums, memorials, monuments.
• Demonstrate an ability to work effectively with others and recognise factors that affect team performance.
• Devise a well-defined focus for essay and project tasks, collect relevant data from a variety of sources and communicate results in an effective fashion.

Indicative reading list

• Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolutions.
• E.P. Thompson, “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism”, Past & Present, 38 (1967).
• Bruce Podobnik, Global Energy Shifts.
• Niall Ferguson, Civilization: Six Killer Apps of Western Power.
• Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism.
• Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes.
• Stephen Howe, Empire: A Very Short Introduction.
• Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved.
• Christian Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World.
• Callum Brown, Postmodernity for Historians.

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.