Empire: The British Experience, 1500-1960
Lisa Bowers Isaacson
Using the abundant primary historical sources available in London, students will explore the way
Britain’s imperial experience shaped the world and how the country itself was re-formed as a result.
They will discover how the growth of the city and the country was dependant at each stage on the
gathering human, raw material and financial resources of the Empire and its impact on changing
national consciousness.
Course description: This course will explore the impact on Britain of gaining an empire, from the 16 th
century to the present day. Each of four main chronological sections begins with a historical narrative
which is then followed by study of special topics. These are intended to illuminate both the benefits and
costs of empire to Britain and to explore the contradictions of Empire: the increase in trade balance by
the increased conflict, taking European wars onto a global scale; the willing migration of many for
religious and economic opportunity versus the forced migration of black Africans in the slave trade (and
to a much smaller extent of prisoners); the enrichment of English culture by the cultures of the Empire
versus the Imperialist enforcement of British superiority; and finally, the creation of a multi-cultural
Britain valued for its diversity and yet distrusted as a source of conflict.
Course requirements: there will be a mid-term and final exam, plus a short essay in the first half and,
in the second half, a substantial project on an ethnic community in London today.
Intro:
The meaning of Empire
A) 16th C. to mid-17th C.: Trade and Empire
1) Voyages of discovery, European trade and the economic foundations of Empire
2) The first colonists: why did they leave England? (focus on North American colonists)
3) The Rise of the East India Company
Readings:
Thomas More, Utopia
appropriate section of textbook, of which there are several possibilities,
including Niall Fergusson’s rather quirky and recent Empire; the
workmanlike, but nicely multi-faceted Cambridge Illustrated History of
the British Empire, P. J. Marshall, ed. (1996); or the magisterial and
lengthy Lawrence James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire
(1994)
Visits/walks:
Tudor London, including Royal Exchange and guildhalls
Museum of the Docklands
B) Mid-17th C. to Mid-19th C.: Coffee, Tea and Slavery
1) The Consolidation of Colonial Rule: the Office for Trade and Plantations and the politics of
Empire (political narrative)
2) Britain’s role in the slave trade
3) The Anti-Slavery Movement at home
4) A Consumer Revolution and the Fashion for Empire: the rise of the coffeehouse culture in
London
5) The Raj: the British imperial experience
6) Captain Cook’s Voyages and the ecological consequences of empire
Readings:
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
James Boswell, London Diary
Linda Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600–1850
(2002)
Visits/walks:
Enlightenment Gallery at the British Museum
Nehru Gallery at the V&A
Coffeehouse walk in the City
Kew Gardens
(Ideally the group would have an opportunity to visit the excellent
exhibition on the slave trade at the Maritime Museum in Liverpool)
C) Mid-19th C. to Mid-20th C.: Imperial Britain
1) the New Imperialism and the Scramble for Africa: assessing the political and economic costs
of Empire
2) Religion and Empire: the missionary and the orientalist
3) London as Imperial Capital: display the the fruits and plunder of empire
4) Exporting Britishness and the Imperial Ideal
Readings:
George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant
Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share (4th ed., 2004)
Jonathan Schneer, London 1900: the imperial metropolis (1999)
David Cannadine, Ornamentalism: how the British saw their empire
(2001)
possibly Edward Said, either his Orientalism or his Culture &
Imperialism
Visits/walks:
Maritime Museum at Greenwich
The Royal Geographic Society
Leighton House (Victorian London mansion, with its famous arab hall)
D) Mid-20th C. to the present day: the Empire Strikes Back
1) The Demise of empire and the rise of multi-cultural Britain
2) Empire and Identity: what does it mean to be British?
Readings:
Nick Merriman, ed. The Peopling of London (1994)
Ian McAuley, Guide to Ethnic London (most recent ed.)
Melvyn Bragg, The Adventure of English: the biography of a language
(2003) the chapters on colonial influence on today’s English
Visits/walks:
The Museum of Docklands
various neighbourhood walks, including Southall, Brixton, Soho
I envision this fourth section being based on individual or group projects exploring different
ethnic communities in London today; these would culminate in either class presentations or
papers, possibly both.
NOTE: there is obviously too much material here, so that it will have to be pared down. I hope, however,
that the committee will see: the broad outline of such a course,; the opportunities to use the museums
and galleries available in London to enhance the content of the course; and the excitement for students
of engaging, not only with a history of empire, but with the question of identity and with the rich diversity
of today’s multi-cultural London.