Participants in this course will study the process by which many British people came to believe, over the course of the eighteenth century, that they were living in a fundamentally new kind of society - a ‘commercial society' - and they will investigate a range of early responses to that belief.  They will study the development of new forms of consumer culture during this period, and they will examine a range of contemporary and modern theories seeking to link these developments to broader transformations in society - from the rise of the British Empire, to industrialization, cultural evolution and political change. 

The course will offer participants the opportunity to develop an informed and critical perspective on the history of a range of 21^st-century concerns: from globalisation and market philosophy to models of social development, theories of the modern state and anxieties about ecological sustainability. 

The unit introduces issues central to the history of Britain and to that of the modern world. It will help students to develop their intellectual resources in three major ways:

• by increasing knowledge and understanding of key issues relating to the development of Britain as an industrial, commercial and democratic polity and as a world power
• by introducing students to important conceptual issues in the study of change in modern societies
• by relating history to present-day debates

Students can expect to develop their skills in the following areas:

• research technique
• document and image analysis
• critical thinking
• argument formation
• narrative and analytical writing
• oral presentation

Brewer, J., McKendrick, N. & Plumb, J.H., The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of eighteenth-century England (Europa, London, 1982)

P. Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783, (Oxford University, 1989 (new edition 1998)).