資料介紹

• 歷史地理資料

MP3+pdf 錄音加課程講義

本課程第一部分帝國崛起將講授世界歷史上最大的帝國，大英帝國的成長和發展。從十五世紀晚期的都铎王朝開始到1901年維多利亞時代結束為止。直到二十世紀全世界沒有多少人不直接或間接的受到大英帝國的影響。帝國曾統治全球四分之一的土地，皇家海軍控制著整個海洋，全球四分之一的人口接受著帝國的統治。

This course will examine the growth and development of the largest empire in world history—the British Empire—beginning with the late fifteenth century Tudor dynasty in England and ending with the death of the Queen-Empress Victoria in 1901. By the beginning of the twentieth century, there were very few countries or people who had not been affected, one way or another, by the impact of the British. The Empire itself by then covered over a quarter of the world’s land surface, the Royal Navy dominated the oceans, and one in every four human beings lived under British rule.

Yet despite all of this global power and the emergence of Britain by the beginning of the nineteenth century as the world’s first true superpower, the British Empire had very humble, small-scale origins.

In the course, we shall proceed chronologically, but also look more closely at particular themes and countries. The course will not provide a fully comprehensive survey, an enormous task anyway; rather, we shall seek to uncover and understand the essential historical truths about this mightiest of empires
Course Syllabus

Lecture 1 The Tudor Empire from the Discovery of Newfoundland in 1497 to the Founding of Virginia and the Death of Elizabeth I in 1603

Lecture 2 Colonies in the New World

Lecture 3 The British in India, c. 1600-1815

Lecture 4 The American Revolution and the Restructured Empire

Lecture 5 Australia and New Zealand: Convicts, Settlers, and Self-Government

Lecture 6 Ireland: Mother Country or Exploited British Colony?

Lecture 7 The Canadian Crisis and the Spread of Internal Colonial Self-Government

Lecture 8 Trade and Dominion: The Profits and Commerce of Empire

Lecture 9 The British Raj, 1815 to 1905: The High Noon of Empire in India

Lecture 10 The Suez Canal, Egypt, Sudan, and the Middle East

Lecture 11 The Partition of Africa: Opening Up the “Dark Continent”

Lecture 12 Empire Builders and Empire Critics

Lecture 13 Conflict and War in South Africa

Lecture 14 Hurrah for the Jubilee! Queen Victoria’s 1897 Diamond Jubilee and the Meaning of Empire

第二部分



This course will examine the development of the British Empire from the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, via its greatest territorial extent in 1919 to its eventual decline and end in the years after World War II, and its final transformation into the Commonwealth of independent nations. We shall examine the material advantages that the Empire brought to Britain, and also scrutinize the burdens and anxieties that it imposed. It is important to realize what an extraordinary, complex, and huge organization the British Empire was. One quarter of the human race lived within its borders and it covered about the same amount of the globe. We shall proceed chronologically, but also look closely at particular themes and interactions. Not every single unit in this huge global organization will be assessed, but we will seek to uncover the basic historical truths overall about what happened and why

Course Syllabus

Lecture 1 The Edwardian Empire, 1901–1914

Lecture 2 Making the Most of Empire, 1901–1914

Lecture 3 The Empire and WWI, 1914–1919

Lecture 4 The 1924 Wembley Empire Exhibition: Empire, Trade, Unity, and Disunity

Lecture 5 Indian Nationalism and the British Raj, 1914–1939

Lecture 6 Sexuality and the British Empire

Lecture 7 The First Commonwealth: Dominion Status, the Self-Governing Colonies and Their Relations with Britain

Lecture 8 Sport and the British Empire

Lecture 9 The Empire-Commonwealth and WWII

Lecture 10 The Labour Government of 1945–1951 and the Empire-Commonwealth

Lecture 11 “Winston’s Back!”: Churchill, the Conservatives, and Empire, 1951–1955

Lecture 12 The Suez Crisis of 1956–1957 and the “Wind of Change,” 1957–1963

Lecture 13 Labour Back in Power: The Wilson Government, 1964–1970

Lecture 14 Embracing the Commonwealth and Winding Down the Empire, 1970–Present