Understanding the Modern World: The Romans to the Information Society

This course is being offered to members of the University of the Third Age in Worthing. Please feel free to use the material on your own courses. I can also supply you with the primary sources that go with the sessions.

1. Introduction: What is History?

2. The Romans in Britain

3. The Dark Ages and Alfred the Great

4. The Battle of Hastings

5. William the Conqueror and the Feudal System

6. The Struggle for Power: The Sons of William the Conqueror

7. The Monarchy, the Church and the Barons

8. The Economic Consequences of the Black Death

9. The Peasant's Revolt and the end of Feudalism

10. The Tudors and Religious Reforms

11. The English Bible

12. Mary and Elizabeth: Catholics and Protestants

13. The English Civil War

14. The Commonwealth and Restoration

15. The Birth of Capitalism: Richard Arkwright and Robert Owen

16. James Watt and Steam Power

17. Transport and the Industrial Revolution

18. The British Empire

19. Parliamentary Reform

20. Marxism and the 19th Century

21. Life in 19th Century Britain

22. Political Parties in the 19th Century

23. The Struggle for Women's Rights: 1500-1870

24. Emancipation of Women: 1870-1928

25. The Growth of Liberalism: 1880-1910

26. Political Crisis in Britain: 1910-1914

27. Outbreak of the First World War

28. First World War: 1914-1916

29. The Romanov Dynasty

30. Russia in Revolution: 1890-1918

31. The United States and the First World War

32. The First World War Peace Settlement

33. Russia: 1918-1924

34: Britain: 1918-1924

35. The Birth of Modern Capitalism

36. John Maynard Keynes and the Wall Street Crash

37. The Great Depression in Britain