HIST 2521

England's Age of Revolutions, 1500-1815

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2020-2021.

Why did a relatively poor, marginal island garner a reputation for rebelliousness and embark on radical (though often failed) experiments in toleration and democracy over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? This course explores the social, religious and political upheavals that rocked the British Isles, from the Henrician reformation to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Topics include: the relationship of puritanism to political radicalism; the trial and execution of King Charles I, anti-Catholicism as an ideology; the twinned threats of theocracy and Cromwellian military rule; the role of the press and public opinion in early modern politics, the struggle for and limits of religious toleration, and the relationship of revolutions in England to violence in Scotland and Ireland. Finally, we will look at how the memory of earlier revolutions shaped British responses to the American and French Revolutions.

When Offered Spring.

Breadth Requirement (HB)
Distribution Category (HA-AS, HST-AS)
Course Subfield (HEU)

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