This course will cover the history of the United Kingdom since the 1800 Act of Union. It will analyse the shifting meanings of the 'Union', and of the concept of unity, from the gradual, differentiated inception of the UK, to its heyday during the imperial expansion of Britain. The course will also analyse how the concepts of the 'Union' and of unity shifted in the 20th century, first when the southern counties of Ireland seceded from the UK, then during the decline of the imperial design and identity in the transition to decolonisation. Finally, the course will study the contemporary challenges to the 'unity' of the UK in the context of devolution and Brexit. The course will be based on the analysis of oral and written primary and secondary sources. 
Objectives  
Students will gain extensive knowledge as historians specialised in the History of the United Kingdom and Ireland. The students will gain specialist training in the study of historical documents, and they will also seek to hear the voices of the people involved in the events by looking at written and oral primary sources. They will develop critical thinking and will learn to articulate historical and personal analyses of past events.  

Students will gain extensive knowledge as historians specialised in the History of Ireland, which partly concerns British Imperial history, in its first phase at least, but which gives insight into the history of a nascent state in European.

The students will gain specialist training in the study of historical documents, and they will also seek to hear the voices of the people involved in the events by looking at archives of oral testimonies.

They will develop critical thinking and will learn to articulate historical and personal analyses of past events.

Première session : CC écrit

Deuxième session : dossier écrit

AUGHEY, Arthur. Nationalism, Devolution, and the Challenge to the United Kingdom State. London Sterling (Virginia, USA): Pluto Press, 2001
BOGDANOR, Vernon. Devolution in the United Kingdom. Updated and reissued. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
BOUR, Isabelle et al. Bonds of Union : Practices and Representations of Political Union in the United Kingdom (18th-20th Centuries). Tours: Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2017
BRENNAN Paul et Valérie PEYRONEL. Civilisation irlandaise, Paris: Hachette, 1995, 2e éd. 1999 COCHRANE, F. Northern Ireland: The Reluctant Peace, London: Yale University Press, 2013 
Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN) Background on the Northern Ireland Conflict Online at: 
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/index.html  
CONNOLLY Seán J. The Oxford Companion to Irish History, Oxford: OUP, 1998, 2nd ed. 2002. 
DALZIEL Nigel et al. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the British Empire. London: Penguin, 2006
DIXON, P. Northern Ireland: The Politics of War and Peace, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001, 2è édition 2008 
FERRITER Diarmaid. The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000, London: Profile Books, 2005  GRIFFITH, K. and O’GRADY, T. Ireland’s Unfinished Revolution: An Oral History. Roberts Rinehart, 1999. 
HARPER, Marjory. Migration and Empire. Oxford New York (N.Y.): Oxford University Press, 2010
JACKSON, Ashley. The British Empire : a Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013
KEATING, Michael. State and Nation in the United Kingdom : the Fractured Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021
KENNY Kevin. Ireland and the British Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004
LEVINE Philippa, Gender and Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007
MAIGNANT Catherine. Histoire et civilisation de l’Irlande, Paris: Nathan, 1996. 
MARSHALL Peter James. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996
MORGAN Philip D et al. Black Experience and the Empire. Oxford New-York: Oxford University Press, 2004
TONGE, J. Northern Ireland, Cambridge: Polity, 2006