Unit information: Decade of Discord: Britain in the 1970's (Level I Special Field) in 2019/20

Unit name	Decade of Discord: Britain in the 1970's (Level I Special Field)
Unit code	HIST26008
Credit points	20
Level of study	I/5
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Dr. Charnock
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of History (Historical Studies)
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This Special Field explores a decade commonly seen as the fulcrum around which postwar British politics moved and one of profound economic crisis and mounting social and political unrest in Britain. But had the UK really become ‘ungovernable’ by the end of the 1970s. Were the governments of the decade really as bad as they’re today commonly alleged to have been? Was it really the case that ‘trade union barons’ were increasingly running the country by 1979? During the course of this unit students will examine a range of primary sources such as memoirs and diaries, political pamphlets, government documents, TV news and light entertainment, and popular music. These will be used to assess the degree to which the 1970s can be termed the ‘decade of discord’; to evaluate the performance of Conservative and Labour governments during the decade; and to reassess today’s ‘folk memory’ of events. Seminars will examine both ‘politics from above’ through an examination of elite responses to economic and political crisis, and ‘politics from below’ in the shape of nationalism, shifting class identities, the emergence of 2nd wave feminism, and the impact of new sub-cultures. In the process, students will consider whether recent historiography is right to argue that our view of the 1970s have to some extent been politically constructed.

Intended Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:

1. Identify and analyse key themes in the history of Britain in the 1970s
2. Understand and use historical methods specific to the study of contemporary history.
3. Discuss and evaluate the historiographical debates that surround the topic
4. Understand and interpret primary sources and select pertinent evidence in order to illustrate specific and more general historical points
5. Present their research and judgements in written forms and styles appropriate to the discipline and to level I.

Teaching Information

1 x 2hr Seminar per week

1 x 1hr Seminar per week

Assessment Information

• Portfolio Part 1: 750 word primary source analysis [10%] (ILOs 1-3)
• Portfolio Part 2: 750 word broad question [10%] (ILOs 1-3)
• 4000 word research project [80%] (ILOs 1-5)

Reading and References

• Beckett, A., When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies (2009);
• Pemberton, H., 'Strange days indeed: British politics in the 1970s', Contemporary British History, vol. 23, no. 4 (2009), pp. 583-96;
• Tiratsoo, N., ‘You’ve never had it so bad: Britain in the 1970s’, in N. Tiratsoo (ed.) From Blitz to Blair: a new history of Britain since 1939 (1997);
• Tara Martin López, The Winter of Discontent: Myth, Memory and History (2014);
• Pat Thane, Divided Kingdon: A History of Britain, 1900 to the Present (2018)