Carole Shammas Spring 2006
History Dept. SOS 265, 740-1671 W 2-5 MRF 229
Office hours: M&W 12-1 and by apptmt . shammas@usc.edu
Class website http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~shammas/hist432/index.htm
HISTORY 432: BRITAIN IN THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Reading: Thomas Heyck, Peoples of the British Isles v. 2 1688-1870
John Locke, Two Treatises of Government
James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (Penguin version)
Frances Burney, Evelina
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Men …Rights of Woman
Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population
Course Subject and Objectives: It might be said that Britain's long eighteenth century, beginning with the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and going through the Napoleonic Wars to 1815, included almost every important development historians have associated with modernity. The union of kingdoms into a nation-state based on the consent of the governed, a global economy dominated by European commercial interests, the rise of a public sphere, the demand of citizenship and individual human rights for all, the beginnings of industrialism, and the adoption of a scientific approach to the study of society. As it is impossible to study Britain in this period without reference to other parts of the globe, frequent reference will be made to North America, Africa, and Asia.
This seminar will be studying the century in Britain and its Empire mainly through reading, discussing, and analyzing a group of influential books written by eighteenth century British men and women -- John Locke's Two Treatises for which he could have been hanged, if the Glorious Revolution had turned out differently, James Boswell's portrait of the quintessential public sphere intellectual, Samuel Johnson, a pioneer of intensely conservative views, whose life was much more interesting than his major literary works, even though almost nothing ever happened to him. The same could not be said for Mary Wollstonecraft, the proto-feminist author of the Vindication of the Rights of Woman, whose short life was one drama after the other. Other authors include a precursor of Jane Austen, novelist Frances Burney, the travel narrator and anti-slavery advocate Olaudah Equiano, and two of the most important economic thinkers of all time, Adam Smith and Robert Malthus. In all these works we pick up the conflict and turmoil that otherwise is obscured by time and the spin put on the past by later generations.
Upon completion of this course students
should benefit from not only learning to put important works into their historical context
but also be able to take them out of that context by identifying the social processes that
make these texts of relevance not only to those living over two centuries ago in a group
of small islands off the European continent but also to later readers as well. Students will be introduced to the use of several major
databases for primary printed texts, visual material, reference sources as they complete a
series of research essays associated with the assigned texts. At the end of the semester,
all students will choose one of the assigned texts as an entry point to the writing of a 10-12 page research paper. This paper could
serve as a beginning for an honors thesis if the student qualifies for the program and is
interested in pursuing that option in the History major.
Assignments and Grading: This course is intended as a readings seminar on important eighteenth century texts. The texts provide evidence about the problems and issues of the time and how people reacted to them. Grades will be based on (1) Discussion of texts and study questions (20%), (2) short research assignments relating to the texts (50%), and (3) a final paper in which you delve more deeply into an issue or problem in one of the texts by reading other texts from the period (30%).
Schedule: reading and assignments due by date listed. Thomas Heyck’s text is there for informational purposes and the reading I assigned from it is optional. I suspect, however, that you will need the background he provides to guide you in reading the 18th c. texts and completing the research essays.
Jan 11 Introduction to Eighteenth C. Britain – Heyck ch. 1
Jan 18 Discussion of Two Treatises – Locke: Laslett intro; 1st treatise ch. 1ⅈ 2nd
treatise; study questions
Lecture – 17th Century Revolutions, Religion and Republicanism; Heyck ch. 2
Jan 25 Research essay on
Two Treatises
Conflicting Interpretations of 18th C. British Politics: Heyck ch 4,
Film: Madness of King George
Feb 1 Video: Johnson’s life
Discussion of Boswell’s Johnson – Boswell:intro, skim pts I&II for bio. info.;
read pts. III-VI; study questions
Lecture: Coffee House London and the Public Sphere; Heyck ch 5
Feb 8 Research essay on Boswell’s Johnson
Lecture: The Power of the Landed Classes in Britain; Heyck ch. 3,9
Feb 15 Discussion of Evelina; study questions
Lecture: Women’s Legal Status and Marriage Market Literature
Feb 22 Research essay Evelina;
Film: Tom Jones
Mar 1 Discussion of Equiano’s Narrative: study questions
Lecture:Slavery and Anti-Slavery in Britain & Empire; Heyck pp 252-259
Mar 8 Research report from trip to Huntington Library
Lecture: Consumer Demand, Trade, and the British Empire; Heyck ch 6&7
Mar 22 Discussion of Smith’s Wealth of Nations Bk I minus all ch XI except conclusion,
Bk II ch. III only, Bk IV ch. I, VII-IX, Bk V ch. I&III; study questions
Lecture: The American Revolution in Britain; Heyck ch. 8
Mar 29 Discussion Armitage lecture
Research essay on Wealth of Nations
Apr 5 Lecture: Struggle against the French Revolution; Heyck ch.11
individual meetings on final paper
Apr 12 Discussion of Wollstonecraft’s Vindication; study questions
Individual meetings on final paper
Apr 19 Research essay on Vindication
Lecture: Rationalists Romantics, Methodists, and Origins of Victorian Moral Reform; Heyck ch. 12
Apr 26 Discussion
of Principles of Population; study questions
Lecture: Sorting out Economic Change at the End of the 18th C.; Heyck ch.10
May 8 Presentation of papers 2-4 pm