Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Synopsis 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