Lecture 1

Method, assessment and objectives

General Introduction

L2 S3 BCC2 UE2
Civilisation britannique
The British Isles, 1688-1901
 Method, assessment, objectives
• Twelve hours of lecture : mission impossible

• Reading list:
– Kenneth Morgan’s Oxford History of Britain (about 200 pages):
• Chapter 7 – The eighteenth century (1688-1789), by Paul Langford
• Chapter 8 – Revolution and the rule of law (1789-1851), by Christopher Harvie
• Chapter 9 – The liberal age (1851-1914), by H. C. G. Matthew
– Stéphane Lebecq (et al), Histoire des îles britanniques, PUF, 2007, from the
end of Chaper 12 (p. 431) to the end of Chapter 21 (p. 711).
– The Oxford Dictionary of British History (A to Z entries for reference)
– Antoine Mioche, Les grandes dates de l’histoire britannique, Hachette, 2010,
pp. 64-153
– The Poly : to be read from the first to the very last text
 Method, assessment, objectives
• Assessment : Commentary (text and possibly iconographic
document) or « dissertation »
• Contrôle continu 1 (WEEK 6 - 8 in class); then Contrôle
continu 2 at the end of the semester (WEEK 13)
• CC1: short text or image or outline (rather than full
commentary) + class participation (1,5h)
• CC2: full commentary (3 or 4h)
• Rattrapage (after the end of the second semester) : same
type of assessment as CC2
 Method, assessment, objectives
Moodle :

– For those of you not yet familiar with Moodle, the

platform is to be found at the following address:
http://moodle.univ-lille3.fr/

– The title of the course : Anglais : L2 S3 BCC2 UE2 -

Civilisation britannique

– the key : dear-old-vic

 Method, assessment, objectives
• What’s on Moodle:
– Past exam papers and examples of written commentaries
– Lecture notes
– The « Poly » in .pdf format
– Methodological guidance on the commentary and the « dissertation » - An
absolute must-read at the beginning of term
– The class schedule, week after week
– Glossaries (biographical profiles and key notions that may be written and
posted onto the glossaries by students)
– Links to useful sites on British history
– The forum : asking questions to your teachers or to fellow-students
– The iconographic material analysed in class, week after week
– Important texts that are not included in the « poly » (legal and constitutional
texts for instance)
 Method, assessment, objectives
CLASS SCHEDULE

•WEEK 1-2 - The Glorious Revolution/A Protestant nation – poly pp. 2-6
•WEEK 3 - England, Scotland and Ireland in the 18th century – poly pp. 7-12
•WEEK 4 - The rise of commercial society – poly pp. 13-15
•WEEK 5 - Enlightenment in the British Isles – poly pp. 16-21
•WEEK 6 - Britain and the French Revolution – poly pp. 22-27
•WEEK 7 - The debate over slavery – poly pp. 28-33
•WEEK 8 - The Industrial Revolution – poly pp. 34-36
•WEEK 9 - The Age of Liberalism – poly pp. 37-51
•WEEK 10-11 - Contesting liberalism – poly pp. 37-51
•WEEK 12 - Imperial England – poly pp. 51-56
 Method, assessment, objectives
• Objectives:
– reinforcing your cultural competences
– developing your ability to work autonomously, to think
critically and to synthesize information
– developing your skills in terms of research and use of
documentation (finding out information, sorting out
what’s useful and what’s not, …)
– reinforcing your linguistic competences (written
expression and comprehension)
– introducing you to the salient features of British history
from the 17th c. to the early 20th c.
 General introduction: the British Isles from the
late 17th to the early 20th century
• 1688- 1914 rich and complex period: The Rise and Fall of Liberal
England
• Keyword = Expansion: from a second-rate European country to a
superpower, an industrial giant, a very-densely populated country
• From oligarchy to near universal suffrage
• No revolution (as opposed to France for instance) but dissent and
popular mobilisation = Age of reform
• « The peaceable Kingdom »?
• Image of the British Empire as bringing the light of democracy and
civilisation to other parts of the world (thus competing with
France)
• The making of the English working class?
 General Introduction: competing views
• The Whigs and the Tories competed in the British Parliament from the
1680s to the 1850s
Whigs: opposition to abolute monarchy, in favour of contitutional
monarchism
Tories: supported a strong monarchy to balance the power of parliament

 Competing historiographies and different views of history depending on

the historian and his background = 3 main traditions

– Whig history (Lecky, Macaulay, Froude)

• See history as a progression towards enlightenment
• heroes : Locke, Walpole, Charles James Fox, Gladstone, the middle
classes
• landmarks : the Glorious Revolution as opposed to the French
Revolution
• villains : High-Church Anglicans, the supporters of absolutism
General Introduction: competing views
– Tory history (Disraeli, Carlyle)
• Oppose radical liberalism and advocate monarchism
• villains : the « Venetian oligarchy »(idea that the model for the British
Empire was Venice), the Dissenting sects, « Manchesterism » (principles
of free trade and laissez-faire)
• Heroes : the Anglican Church, Burke, Pitt the younger, the Duke of
Wellington, Disraeli, the gentry

– radical history
• From the 1930s onwards
• Greater emphasis on the working class
• villains : Old Corruption, the unreformed House, Tories
• heroes : the People, the Luddite, Wilkes, Thomas Clarkson, William
Cobbett, Richard Cobden, Oliver Cromwell