- •Lectures in british studies lecture 01 one of the greatest countries of the world
- •1.1. General description: what comes to mind first?
- •1.2. Contributions to human civilization.
- •1.3 Contributions to world culture.
- •1.4 English, one of the world languages.
- •Lecture 02 britain’s geography and climate
- •2.1. The geographical position.
- •2.2. Britain's relief.
- •2.3. British climate.
- •2.4. Mineral resources.
- •Lecture 03 an outline of early british history
- •3.1. Ancient history of the nation.
- •3.2. The beginning of the Christian era and after.
- •3.3. The Anglo-Saxon period.
- •3.4. Christianity in Britain.
- •Lecture 04 an outline of medieval british history
- •4.1 The formative centuries, 1066 – 1500s.
- •4.2 Wars and conflicts.
- •4.3 Tudor England.
- •4.4. The age of Elizabeth.
- •Lecture 05 the puritan revolution and after
- •5.1. The Civil War.
- •5.2. The Republican rule
- •5.3. The events after 1660.
- •5.4. The Industrial Revolution.
- •Lecture 06 the victorian age, long and glorious
- •6.1. The Victorian Age (1837 – 1901).
- •6.2. Political movements of the Victorian Age.
- •6.3. Social issues during the Victorian Age.
- •6.4. British political life in the XIX century and after.
- •7.1.4. Political writing
- •7.2. Painting and architecture.
- •8.2. The period between the world wars.
- •8.3. World War II
- •8.4. Postwar Britain.
- •Lecture 09 education in the uk
- •9.1. Secondary education.
- •9.2. Tertiary education.
- •9.3. Great universities: Oxford and Cambridge.
- •9.4. Other establishments of note.
- •Lecture 10 social life in the uk
- •10.1. Social life.
- •10.2. Youth life.
- •10.3. Communications and travel
- •10.4. Radio, television and computers
7.1.4. Political writing
Wells
Morris
The Fabian Society
Socialism
7.2. Painting and architecture.
7.2.1. Many painters stood against Victorian middle-class materialism, with its concern for worldly objects. In 1848 several painters came together and founded a movement called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. They sought to return to an earlier, simpler time, and their works exhibited the brightness, color, and purity of medieval and Renaissance painting done before the time of Italian artist Raphael. Artist and poet William Morris sought to return to medieval traditions in craftsmanship. He is credited with founding the Arts and Crafts movement, which became influential in furniture, decorative items, and textile designs.
7.2.2. Victorian architecture borrowed from a variety of styles, including classical, Gothic, and Renaissance. The most famous Victorian neo-Gothic building is Parliament, built between 1840 and 1870. The only truly original building of the Victorian era was the Crystal Palace. It was designed by English architect Joseph Paxton to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. Spreading over 7,3 hectares (18 acres), the building consisted entirely of panels of glass set within iron frames. Paxton adapted two major features of the Industrial Revolution to the architecture of the Crystal Palace: mass production (in the manufactured glass panels and iron frames) and the use of iron rather than traditional masonry (stones or brick). Many things were done for the first time during that famous exhibition. For instance, the first constructions of dinosaurs were exhibited at the Crystal Palace, where their creator zoologist Richard Owen held a banquet inside the belly of the Iguanodon before its reconstruction was completed.
7.2.3.
7.2.4.
7.3.1
7.3.2.
7.3.3.
7.3.4.
7.4.1.
7.4.2.
7.4.3.
7.4.4.
LECTURE 08
BRITAIN IN THE XX CENTURY
8.1. World War I.
8.1.1. The danger of war with Germany had been clear from the beginning of the 20th century, and it brought France and Britain together. By 1914 the political situation in Europe was extremely dangerous. In June 1914 the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand was killed in Serbia. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Russia, which was an ally of Serbia, declared war on Austria-Hungary. Automatically, it meant a war with Germany. France was Russia’s ally, so it was now also at war with Germany. In August 1914 Germany's troops invaded France through Belgium. Britain, which had been Belgium's ally since 1838, immediately declared war on Germany Thus, practically the whole of Europe was fighting. The First World War began.
8.1.2. World War I was primarily a European conflict with many facets: immense human sacrifice, stalemate trench warfare, and the use of new, devastating weapons – tanks, aircraft, machineguns, poison gas, U-boats. The war at sea was more important than the war on land, because defeat at sea would have caused Britain's surrender. Being an island state, Britain had always depended on imported goods. Beginning with 1915, German submarines started sinking merchant ships which carried supplies to Britain. 40 percent of Britain's merchant fleet was sunk during the war. There was one period in the course of the war when for six weeks the British population was on the point of starvation. Since 1916, the British population was greatly disillusioned with the war. It caused a spiritual crisis for the whole generation.
8.1.3. World War I proved to be the decisive break with the old world order, marking the end of absolutist monarchy in Europe. The post-war failure to deal effectively with many of the causes and results of the War would lead to the rise of Fascism in Italy, Nazism in Germany and the outbreak of World War II within a generation. The War was the catalyst for the Bolshevik Russian Revolution, which would inspire later Communist revolutions in a number of countries, and would lay the basis for the Cold War.
8.1.4. The peace settlement for World War I – the Treaty of Versailles (1919), severely punished Germany for its aggression by setting limitations on the size of the German military and leveling high reparation payments. Britain absorbed some of the German colonies in Africa and received a small part of the reparation payments, but otherwise attempted to soften more severe French proposals for revenge.