AMER0054: London and the United States: The Difference a City Makes

***NOT RUNNING IN 2021/2022***

Tutor: Dr Zoe Hyman

Level: 5

Credits: 15

Term: 2

This module explores the relationship between London and the United States over four centuries and pays special attention to how this history is depicted, commemorated, and researched. In the first half of the module students will uncover London’s role in the founding of the American colonies; explore the capital’s links to the Founding Fathers and American Independence; examine the central role London played in the slave trade that populated American Colonies and the independent US with slave labour; and assess the long campaign of London’s abolitionists to eradicate the institution of slavery before and after the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act. In the second half of the module students will learn about the American Civil War and US imperial expansion through the lens of Parliament and working Londoners; explore a century of cultural connections from the jazz era, through the British invasion, to the present day; examine the impact of American protest on movements for racial equality in London and the importance of wider British responses to US civil rights; and critically assess the ‘special relationship’ through an exploration of the history, myth and reality of diplomatic links between London and Washington, D.C. Throughout the module, students will engage with primary source materials and heritage sites that reveal how London and Londoners impacted the trajectory of American history, what London’s common folk, merchants, and political elites thought about the American colonies/US and its institutions, and how Americans have related to, and impacted, London and its people.

Assessment:

25% Research project presentation

75% Research project (3000 words)