The Victorian age: state and society in Britain before the Great War
Margaret Hamersley
8 points * 2 lectures and 1 tutorial per week * Second semester * Clayton
This subject is concerned with some of the major issues confronting later Victorian society and the debates they engendered. These issues include the role of traditional institutions, such as the monarchy and aristocracy in a modernising society; the causes of persisting poverty in the world's wealthiest nation: the role of the state in ensuring the fair distribution of wealth and opportunity; the implications of Darwinian biological theories for social and religious thought; and the challenges to liberalism posed by democracy, feminism, the new labour movements and conservative reaction, Irish home rule and Britain's participation in the new European imperialism.
Assessment
Written (5000 words) * Examination (1 hour) * Class participation/attendance
Prescribed texts
Fraser D The evolution of the British welfare state Macmillan, 1984
Gaskell E North and South Penguin
Read D England 1868-1914 Longman, 1979
Recommended text
Best G Mid-Victorian Britain Fontana