Students will explore the study of riots and rebellions, and examine what these movements can tell us about the transformation of pre-modern societies in the eighteenth century into modern societies in the nineteenth century. Examples from the 'British World' include the 1798 Irish rebellion, the Scottish Jacobites, the Welsh Rebecca riots, and English machine-breaking protests, as well as the American War of Independence and the 1857 Indian rebellion. We will examine their changing aims and methods, their impacts on socio-economic and cultural relations, on political structures within domestic Britain, and on the development of a 'British world' overseas. Students will critically consider three popular assumptions: that Britain's status as a pre-eminent industrial world power was unchallenged; that domestic Britain was both peaceful and secure; and the development of a 'British world' involved the reproduction of a relatively settled and homogenous society 'at home'.

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