HIST39002: Lecture Response Unit (20 Credit Points) The Politics of Decline in Britain s postwar golden age and after Dr Hugh Pemberton 10 x 1.5 hour interactive lectures, 1 x 3000 word essay, 1 x 2 hour exam Teaching block: TB2 This unit will consider the issue of Britain s decline and its impact on British politics via an analysis of the two and a half decades after 1948, dubbed by Eric Hobsbawm a golden age. It will introduce students to the concept of declinism ; the idea that decline might best be seen as an ideology. But it will encourage students to question both the thesis of decline and that of declinism, to distinguish the impact of each on the actions of British policy-makers, and to consider the degree to which both decline and declinism distorted Britain s post-war politics. Issues of economic policy and performance are necessarily at the core of this unit. However, it focuses on the politics of decline, in terms of both strategic and economic policy, not on its economics and demands no economic expertise other than an ability to understand the concept of an annual rate of economic growth. PROVISIONAL LECTURES: 1. Decline and declinism 2. Inventing decline in the golden age of affluent Britain 3. Declinism and the Left 4. Declinism and the Right 5. The Treasury s great reappraisal 6. The Tories modernisation of Britain 7. Labour s white heat of technology 8. From empire to Europe 9. Defence policy 10. Reassessing decline and declinism INTRODUCTORY READING: Alt, J.E., The Politics of Economic Decline (1979) Bernstein, G.L., The Myth of Decline: The Rise of Britain Since 1945 (2004) Clarke, P. and Trebilock, C. (eds.), Understanding Decline: Perceptions and Realities of British Economic Performance (1997) Clarke, P., Hope and Glory: Britain, 1900-1990 (2004) Coates, D. and Hillard, J. (eds.), The Economic Decline of Modern Britain: The Debate Between Left and Right (1986) Coates, D. and Hillard, J. (eds.), UK Economic Decline (1995) English, R. and Kenny, M., Rethinking British Decline (1999) Fry, G., The Politics of Decline (2005) Gamble, A., Britain in Decline (1994) Middleton, R., The British Economy Since 1945 (2000) Pemberton, H., Policy Learning and British Governance in the 1960s (2004) Tomlinson, J., The Politics of Decline (2000)
HIST39006: Lecture Response Unit (20 Credit Points) THE TROUBLES : POLITICS, CONFLICT AND CULTURE IN NORTHERN IRELAND, 1965-1998 Dr Jim MacPherson The Troubles in Northern Ireland stand out as the most bloody and violent period in modern British history. This unit examines the challenge to the Unionist government in Northern Ireland during the 1960s and how this was rapidly transformed into political violence that brought longstanding enmities into the open, pitting Catholic against Protestant, Republican against Unionist. The second half of the course will assess the emergence of a peace process during the 1980s and address the implications of, for example, the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the Belfast Agreement for politics in the province. Theories of ethnic conflict and political violence will be considered, placing the events of the Troubles in an interdisciplinary and comparative context, enabling students to contrast the politics of Northern Ireland with recent ethnic conflicts, such as those in the former Yugoslavia. Students will be asked to address the role of ethnic and religious identities in modern British politics, the role of the British state in Northern Ireland, and the sustainability of the peace process. This unit makes use of a wide range of primary sources, including the exceptionally rich collection of political ephemera, visual sources and material culture (such as political murals) found on the CAIN website (http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/) and in film, television, and documentaries. PROVISONAL LECTURES: 1. Introduction: The Unionist Regime during the 1960s 2. The Civil Rights movement in Northern Ireland 3. Bloody Sunday and the establishment of direct rule 4. Republican political violence 5. Loyalist political violence 6. Constitutional nationalism and unionism 7. The 1980s: Hunger strikes, Armalites and ballot-boxes 8. The Anglo-Irish Agreement 9. The Peace Process 10. Conclusion: Endgame in Northern Ireland? INTRODUCTORY READING: Arthur, P. and Jeffrey, K., Northern Ireland since 1968 (1996) Bell, J.B., The Irish Troubles: A Generation of Violence, 1967-1992 (1993) Bruce, S., The Red Hand: Protestant Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland (1992) English, R., Armed Struggle. The History of the IRA (2003) Hennessey, T., Northern Ireland: The Origins of the Troubles (2005) Jackson, A., Ireland 1798-1998: Politics and War (1999) McKittrick, D., Making Sense of the Troubles (2000) Mulholland, M., The Longest War: Northern Ireland s Troubled History (2002) Patterson, H., and Kaufmann, E., Unionism and Orangeism in Northern Ireland since 1945 (2007) Rose, P., How the Troubles Came to Northern Ireland (2000) Tonge, J., Northern Ireland (2006) Whyte, J.H., Interpreting Northern Ireland (1990)
HIST 39008: Lecture Response Unit (20 credit points) ENGLAND AND FRANCE AT WAR AND PEACE, 1259-1399 Dr Rachel Gibbons 10 x 1.5 hour interactive lectures, 1 x 3,000-word essay, 1 x 2-hour exam Teaching Block: 2 This unit addresses the causes and nature of the series of Anglo-French hostilities in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries that would develop into the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) and set the seal (it might seem) on a permanent state of rivalry and distrust between the two nations. Since the height of the Angevin Empire in the mid-twelfth century, when the king of England had held more territory within the kingdom of France than did the French king, the two kingdoms had been almost continuously at war or preparing for war. However, when Edward III put forward a claim to the French Crown itself, conflict became unremitting and a compromise peace harder to conclude. For almost sixty years, English armies invaded several regions of France, achieving notable battlefield victories, devastating the landscape, but ultimately unable to push forward their advantages. This series of lectures examines the period of prelude to the Hundred Years War, following the Treaty of Paris (1259), the relations between the two kingdoms, and the strong links between the English and their first colony, Gascony. We will explore the reasons behind the English success prior to 1360, and for failure and stalemate thereafter, and consider the impact of war deliberately aimed at damaging civilians and domestic infrastructure, and the effects of sustained conflict on both kingdoms. PROVISIONAL LECTURES 1. Introduction to sources, historiographical debate and key issues 2. Plantagenets and Capetians 3. The International Dimension to European warfare 4. Military Organisation 5. The Crécy and Poitiers Campaigns, 1345-60 6. Total War economic, political and social crises 7. The Home Front non-combatants and popular reaction 8. From Brétigny to Leulingham, 1360-96 9. Chivalry and Warfare 10. Monarchy, National Identity and Warfare INTRODUCTORY READING Froissart, Jean, Chronicles, ed. & trans. Geoffrey Brereton (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1968) Allmand, Christopher, The Hundred Years War: England and France at War, 1337-1453 (Cambridge, CUP, 1988) Burne, Alfred H., The Crécy War: a military history of the latter part of the Hundred Years War from 1337 to the Peace of Brétigny, 1360 (London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1955) Curry, Anne, The Hundred Years War (2 nd edn., Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) Rogers, Clifford J., War cruel and sharp: English strategy under Edward III, 1327-1360 (Woodbridge, Boydell, 2000) Sumption, Jonathan, The Hundred Years War: Trial by Battle, vol. 1: Trial by Battle (London, Faber & Faber, 1990) Vale, Malcolm G.A., The Angevin Legacy and the Hundred Years War, 1250-1340 (Oxford, Blackwell, 1990)
HIST 39009: Lecture Response Unit (20 Credit Points) HOLOCAUST LANDSCAPES Dr Tim Cole This unit examines the Holocaust and its post-war memory through a primarily geographical rather than chronological focus. Taking a number of spaces and places associated with the implementation of, and evasion from, the final solution of the Jewish question we examine the landscapes of the Holocaust in both past and present. Three major ideas will be examined in each landscape: The construction and or transformation of these places during the Holocaust Victims experiences of these landscapes The post-war history of these sites and especially their selective re-imagining as sites of memory The choice of sites allows us to range widely across the history and geography of the Holocaust. We will examine the landscapes of Poland, but will also look further afield at the Baltic States, Hungary, the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria and Germany. Chronologically the unit will stretch from the first years of the Second World War, to its immediate aftermath, and right the way up to the present day. Thematically we will examine the concentration, deportation and mass killings of Jews as well as slave labour, death marches, hiding, resistance and rescue, native collaboration, the post-war displaced persons camps and contemporary memory of the Holocaust. Methodologically we will explore the intersections between history and geography, and the possibilities of examining landscape as a focus of analysis. PROVISIONAL SEMINARS 1. Introduction to Holocaust Landscapes 2. Forest 3. Ghetto 4. Cattle car 5. Concentration camp 6. Attic 7. Sea 8. River 9. Road 10. DP camp INTRODUCTORY READING Tim Cole, Holocaust City (New York 2003) esp. ch. 1 & ch. 9 Debórah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt, Holocaust. A History (London 2002) Martin Gilbert, Holocaust Journey. Travelling in Search of the Past (London 1998) Dan Stone (ed.), Historiography of the Holocaust (Houndmills, 2004) esp. Charlesworth essay James Young, The Texture of Memory. Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven 2000) Elie Wiesel, Night (London 2006)
HIST39010 Lecture Response Unit (20 Credit Points) POSTCOLONIAL AFRICA: POLITICS, SOCIETY AND CULTURE Dr Rob Skinner This unit focuses on the history of post-independence Africa from the 1950s through to the present. It seeks to engage with, and to challenge, pre-conceptions of this period as one of unremitting decline, disaster and crisis without denying the reality of conflict and political failure. While recent observers such as Martin Meredith and Robert Guest have characterized the past half century in calamitous terms, a critical historical approach may help us move beyond the dichotomy of good news versus bad news when it comes to contemporary African issues. Should we, in fact, talk of African issues at all, given the environmental, social and cultural diversity of the continent? We shall therefore explore the contemporary political, social and cultural history of sub- Saharan Africa through comparative studies of specific states and regions. The themes of the unit will include the political ideologies of post-independence leaders; militarism, autocracy and oneparty rule; the influence of tradition ; poverty, economic development and decline; cultural production and popular culture; the revitalisation of civil society and popular protest. The lectures will provide a chronological and thematic background, while discussion will focus on more in-depth examination of aspects of the weekly topic. PROVISIONAL LECTURE SCHEDULE 1. Decolonisation in Africa 2. Independent ideologies pan-africanism and African Socialism 3. The Power of Tradition 4. 'Big Men', Masculinity and Militarism 5. Liberation deferred southern Africa 6. Debt, Dependency and Despondency 7. Conflict and violence 8. Postcolonial African cultures 9. Civil Society, protest and democracy 10. Africa into the 21 st Century PRELIMINARY READING Kwame Anthony Appiah, In My Father s House (London: Methuen, 1992) Frederick Cooper, Africa Since 1940 The Past of the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Paul Nugent, Africa Since Independence (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Martin Meredith, The State of Africa (London: Free Press, 2006) Robert Guest, The Shackled Continent: Africa s Past Present and Future (London: Pan Macmillan, 2004) Roy Richard Grinker and Christopher B. Steiner (eds), Perspectives on Africa: a reader in culture, history, and representation (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997)