Britain in the Twentieth Century: Narrating the Nation
(2013-14)
This module explores the challenge of narrating the history of twentieth-century Britain. In particular, it asks whether the story of Britain in the twentieth century is in part one of the making and un-making of the nation. It examines the roles of social change, total war, the imperial experience, and the emergence of mass culture in the construction of the nation. It assesses the extent to which class, gender and race divided as well as united the British people. It explores the relationship between British identity and that of the four constituent nations which made up the United Kingdom. And it concludes with an examination of the roles of history and heritage in the narration of the nation.
The course is taught through a combination of lectures and seminars. Lectures will be delivered by Mathew Thomson and will take place in RO.12 from 2-3 on Tuesdays. Seminars will take place after the lecture on Tuesdays at 3-4 or 4-5 and will be led by Jennifer Crane (rooms to be announced). Both lectures and seminars will begin in the first week of the autumn term, and these will meet weekly according to the schedule that follows. There will be no lectures or seminars in the History Department reading weeks of the autumn and spring terms (week 6 in both instances). Students will also meet individually by appointment with seminar tutors in weeks 7, 11, and 17 for feedback on essays and seminar performance, and guidance on selection of long essay topics. For other issues, they can email to arrange a meeting with seminar tutor Jennifer Crane. They can also contact the module coordinator Mathew Thomson () or visit him during in his office hours (Room H310).
You will write three short essays (maximum word-length 2,000 words) on topics selected from the seminar question lists or from the list that follows. The first essay should relate to one of the seminars in term 1 and is to be handed in to your seminar tutor no later than 5pm on Friday of week 5 of the autumn term. The second and third essays (one relating to the seminars in term 2, and the other relating to either term) should be submitted no later than 5pm on Friday in week 10 and week 15. Essays will be marked and returned within two weeks, and students will have the opportunity to discuss feedback in the tutorial meeting. Students will also write a longer essay (maximum 4,500 words) due in the summer term. In this essay, students will have the opportunity to create their own title (with the assistance of your seminar tutor) and will be encouraged to utilise primary as well as secondary sources. It is the chance to tackle one of the themes of the module via a case study offering an original angle and based on original research. Students are expected to develop their essay topic and to have had it approved by the module tutor before the end of the second term. The earlier you get going on this piece of the work the stronger and more rewarding it will be (and remember it accounts for half your overall mark). A seminar towards the end of the Spring Term will be devoted to discussion of how to approach this piece of research. The three 2000 word essays are formative pieces of work (they will receive a mark but this will not count towards your final result). The 4,500 word essay will account for 50% of your final assessment, with the second 50% based on answering two questions (in two hours) on an examination paper at the end of the year. The examination paper will consist of ten questions addressing central themes across the module. Revision seminars in the summer term will offer further guidance on tackling this examination.
Short Essay Questions
You can write essays on any of the seminar questions. You can also select from the following list:
1. Why did the Britishness of British history begin to trouble historians by the late twentieth century?
2. How helpful is the idea that nations define themselves against an ‘other’ when it comes to the history of Britain in the twentieth century?
3. In what respects can Britain be regarded as an imperial nation in the early twentieth-century?
4. How important were ideas of race in contemporary understanding about the nation in early twentieth-century Britain?
5. To what extent was there a crisis of confidence in the nation in early twentieth-century Britain?
6. Was the relationship between the nation and gender challenged and changed by the First World War?
7. Can the success of the interwar Conservative party be attributed to an ability to present itself as the party that best represented national interests and values?
8. Does the attraction of the countryside indicate an anti-modern sentiment within British culture during the first half of the twentieth century?
9. To what extent did interwar Britain see the emergence of a ‘common culture?
10. Did the emergence of a welfare state after the Second World War entail a transformation in the relationship between the British state and its people?
11. Should we view mid-twentieth-century Britain as a welfare or a warfare state?
12. What has been the long-term legacy of the Second World War for national identity in twentieth-century Britain?
13. What do the Festival of Britain and the coronation of Elizabeth II suggest about the state of the British nation at the start of the 1950s?
14. Evaluate the thesis that the 1960s saw the ‘Death of Christian Britain’.
15. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the view that Britain became a permissive society in the 1960s?
16. What were the aims of British immigration policy from the Second World War up to the start of the 1980s, and does it deserve to be described as racist?
17. What was the domestic impact of Britain’s loss of Empire?
18. What lay behind the move towards European integration in post-war Britain?
19. To what extent did Scotland and Wales function as nations in the twentieth century?
20. At what points in the twentieth century did the factors that divided multi-national Britain threaten to overwhelm those that held it together?
21. Evaluate the relationship between heritage culture and decline in twentieth-century Britain.
Course Aims and Objectives
Context
This option is available to History students in their first and second years. It complements the first year core course by providing the opportunity for study in greater depth of a region, period and theme.
The course introduces students to the problems of constructing a national history and serves as introduction to the department’s range of advanced options and special subjects in twentieth-century British history.
Syllabus
The course introduces students to the rapidly expanding body of historical work on twentieth-century Britain. Its focus is primarily cultural and social rather than political. It adopts the identity of the nation as its central problematic. In doing so it considers the following themes:
· the position of Empire in national life
· the impact of the First World War
· the position of the countryside within national culture
· the role of new media, leisure and culture
· the impact of the Second World War
· the extent to which the Welfare State changed the relationship between the people and the state
· the degree to which traditional values declined in the 1960s
· immigration and race in post-war Britain
· nationalism, Europe and the ‘break-up’ of Britain
· the role of the heritage culture
Teaching and Learning
The module is taught through weekly lectures and one-hour seminars. It also offers individual tutorials to discuss essays.
Assessment
Students are assessed on the basis of the best two of three short (2000 word) essays and one long (4500) word essay. Second year (and Part-time Honours-level) students may choose between a 3-hour, three question exam paper, OR a 2-hour, two question paper plus a 4500 word essay.
Expected Learning Outcomes
· The further development of study, writing and communication skills.
· The opportunity, through writing a 4,500 word essay, to develop capacities needed to advance a well-informed and independent historiographical argument. This will involve: Locating and analysing relevant material - mainly secondary literature, but also an awareness of the potential for supplementing this with primary material if appropriate; understanding, summarising and intelligently responding to the historiography on the subject in question; and writing up research findings in a form similar to that employed by articles for academic journals.
· The ability to think critically about the nation as an organising category in the writing of modern history.
· A critical appreciation of the idea that the nation is in part an ‘imagined community’, an awareness of the multiple factors, contestation, ideology and power which may lie behind this process, and an appreciation of the divisions of class, gender and race.
· The development of an historical and reflexive perspective to situate contemporary debates about national identity and sovereignty in Britain.
Schedule of Lectures
Autumn Term
Week 1: Introduction: The British Problem
Week 2: An Imperial People?
Week 3: National Fitness and Decline
Week 4: The Great War and the Nation
Week 5: Landscape, Englishness, and the Common Culture
Week 6: Reading Week
Week 7: Research and Sources for the Long Essay
Week 8: The People’s War
Week 9: A Welfare State
Week 10: Film, Popular Memory and the Second World War
Spring Term
Week 11: Modernity, Tradition, and the Decline of Christian Britain
Week 12: The Affluent Society
Week 13: A Permissive Society?
Week 14: Rivers of Blood
Week 15: Towards a Multi-Cultural Britain
Week 16: Reading Week
Week 17: Four Nations or One?
Week 18: Britain and Europe
Week 19: The Monarchy and the Invention of Tradition
Week 20: Heritage Baiting, History, and Public Memory
Summer Term
Week 21: No lecture (term starts on Wednesday)
Week 22: The Making and Unmaking of the Nation
Week 23: The View from 2012/13
Schedule of Seminars, Meetings, and Deadlines
Week 1: The British Problem
Week 2: An Imperial People?
Week 3: National Fitness and Decline
Week 4: The Great War and the Nation;
Week 5: The Interwar Nation; Submission of Essay 1
Week 6: Reading Week
Week 7: Visit to Modern Records Centre; Return of Essay 1
Week 8: The People’s War
Week 9: A Welfare State
Week 10: The Second World War, Film and Popular Memory; Submission of Essay 2
Spring Term
Week 11: The Decline of Christian Britain; Return of Essay 2
Week 12: The Affluent Society
Week 13: A Permissive Society?
Week 14: Decline and End of Empire
Week 15: Rivers of Blood; Submission of Essay 3
Week 16: Reading Week
Week 17: Towards a Multi-Cultural Britain; Return of Essay 3
Week 18: The Break-Up of Britain?
Week 19: Long Essay Research Workshop
Week 20: A Heritage Culture?
Summer Term
Week 3: Revision Seminar (i)
Week 5: Revision Seminar (ii)
General Reading and Sources
For a good general account covering the whole of the period (available in paperback): Peter Clarke, Hope and Glory: Britain 1900-1990 (1996). On national identity in modern Britain: Richard Weight, Patriots: National Identity in Britain 1940-2000 (2002); and Paul Ward, Britishness since 1870 (2004) - ebook. For insight on the Britain at the start of our period: Jose Harris, Private Lives, Public Spirit: A Social History of Britain, 1870-1914 (1993). For a useful collection of introductory thematic essays: P. Johnson (ed.), Twentieth Century Britain: Economic, Social and Cultural Change (1994).
A number of books with a particular interest in the issue of national identity will prove useful across much of the course: R. Samuel, Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity 3 volumes (1989); R. Colls & P. Dodd (eds.), Englishness (1987); R. Samuel, Theatres of Memory; R. Samuel, Island Stories (1998); A. Grant & K. Stringer (eds.), Uniting the Kingdom? The Making of British History (1995); M. Wiener, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980 (1981); P. Mandler, The English National Character: The History of an Idea from Edmund Burke to Tony Blair (2006). Less directly attentive to national identity but still very useful for an understanding of the nation and its divisions in the first half of the century: R. McKibbin, Classes and Cultures: England, 1918-1951 (1998).
Useful survey essays of key themes can be found in: F.M.L. Thompson (ed.), The Cambridge Social History of Britain, 1750-1950, 3 volumes; Judith Brown & W.R. Louis (eds.), The Oxford History of the British Empire Volume iv: The Twentieth Century (1999); M. Daunton, The Cambridge Urban History of Britain Volume iii, 1840-1950 (2000).
Useful information and statistics can be found in reference books such as: B.R. Mitchell & P.M. Deane, Abstract of British Historical Statistics (1962); A.H. Halsey (ed.), British Social Trends since 1900; D. Butler & G. Butler, British Political Facts, 1900-1994 (1994).
For the latest articles on the subject, look at recent issues of journals such as 20th Century British History; the Journal of British Studies, and Contemporary British History.