Mar 28, 2024  
Fall 2017 Catalog 
    
Fall 2017 Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

HI 112 - British History since 1688


Credit Hours: 3

The growth of modern Britain from the Glorious Revolution to the present. Constitutional, political and social developments are stressed together with the impact of the Industrial Revolution on British society.

Fulfills SUNY General Education – Western Civilization.

Course Outcomes
Upon completion of the course, the student will be able to:

  • Relate developments in modern British history (such as industrial and political reform) to the development of North American, European and global history;
  • Demonstrate an understanding of British parliamentary democracy, including the role of the House of Commons;
  • Describe the mainstream ideologies and political parties in contemporary Britain and analyze their historical evolution;
  • Summarize and explain the first-past-the-post electoral system;
  • Describe the role of the prime minister within the cabinet;
  • Outline the importance of the Bill of Rights (1689);
  • Analyze the origins and consequences of the Industrial Revolution;
  • Explain the impact of the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) on the relationship between Britain and her American colonies;
  • Describe the American Revolution from multiple viewpoints;
  • Summarize the salient points of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776);
  • Summarize the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham, author of An Introduction to the Principles of Moral and Legislation (1780);
  • Describe the effort by William Wilberforce to abolish the British slave trade;
  • Illustrate various British reactions to the French Revolution, including those of Edmund Burke;
  • Explain the historical circumstance that led to the creation of the Great Reform Bill in 1832;
  • Demonstrate the dysfunctional politics that produced the Corn Law of 1815;
  • Relate Sadler Committee testimony about child labor industrialization and assess the impact of laissez faire economics on the working class;
  • Analyze the development of Chartism;
  • Relate the Charge of the light Brigade to Britain’s involvement in the Crimean War (1854-1856);
  • Compare the writings of Samuel Smiles with those of Karl Marx;
  • Explain the global impact of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859);
  • Outline the effectiveness of whistlestop campaigning in the late 19th century;
  • Explain the causes and consequences of the First World War;
  • Explain the causes and consequences of Irish Home Rule;
  • Summarize the arguments of George Dangerfield’s Strange Death of Liberal England;
  • Analyze the impact of the suffragette movement;
  • Identify the traumatic consequences of World War I through art and poetry;
  • Describe the impact of the Great Depression on Britain;
  • Differentiate between the attitude of Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain toward the appeasement of German aggression in the 1930’s;
  • Explain why the evacuation of Dunkirk may have been the single most important turning point of WW II;
  • Assess the political, social, and economic consequences of WW II;
  • Conclude why the welfare state (including the National Health Service) was established after the end of the war;
  • Explain why the Suez Crisis was a blow to Britain’s standing in the world;
  • Compare and contrast the domestic and foreign policy records of every post-war prime minister;
  • Define and categorize Thatcherism as both and ideology and a political style;
  • Describe the rejuvenation of the Labour Party under first Neil Kinnock and then Tony Blair; and
  • Analyze the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’ in the light of British support for American foreign policy in Iraq.


F/S (S)