Victorian Britain

(5 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This module examines Victorian Britain in detail, and what made it different, both from the past and the present. Starting in 1837, we will consider the world s first industrial society and its rapidly changing politics, and how the early Victorians challenged the political system by campaigning for greater democracy and battling for free trade and cheap bread. We will examine the mindset of the Victorians, from religious belief to Darwinism, and the society in which they lived from differing gender experiences to the impact of disease and death. We will consider the modernisation of politics and the emergence of two titanic political leaders, Gladstone and Disraeli, who shaped British politics as we still know it, but we will also see how the Irish Home Rule and British Labour movements made their mark. We will ask what Queen Victoria contributed to making nineteenth century Britain Victorian. We will examine how the British empire and its wars influenced British politics, culture, and society. We will conclude by considering the Victorian Age and its legacy.