HIST 6101 - Early Modern Britain, 1485-1815

Credit Hours: 3

Description Surveys the history of Britain’s rise as a great world power during the Early Modern period. Themes include the creation of the Tudor monarchy and the Reformation; the Glorious Revolution and the rise of party politics; and the American Revolution, abolition, and industrialization. At the end of the fifteenth century Britain was a “comparatively minor power whether judged in military or wider political terms.” Yet, in just three hundred years, it became a global superpower, possessed of “the most advanced and dynamic economy, the soundest and strongest financial base, and formidable naval might,” as the historian E.A. Wrigley put it. In this course we will consider why and how Britain transformed from a European backwater into one of the world’s leading powers between 1485 and 1815. We will explore the sweeping political, social, religious, and economic changes that fueled that transformation, from the creation of the Tudor monarchy and the Reformation to the Glorious Revolution and the rise of party politics to the American Revolution, abolition, and the French Revolutionary wars.