Module Catalogue 2025/26

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

This module analysis British foreign policy since the Suez Crisis of 1956.

The module aims to explain British foreign policy since the Suez crisis of 1956, after which point Britain’s reduced global status was finally undeniable, and the country was infamously accused of having “lost an empire, but not yet found a role”. It considers Churchill’s conception of Britain at the centre of three concentric circles – the US, Europe, and Commonwealth – and the determinants of foreign policy, both external and internal. Case studies - often ongoing - will serve as a means of assessing whether British foreign policy was tied to coherent national interests, or was prone to “delusions of grandeur".

Continues through until the present (including events that have yet to take place), such as Britain's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the AUKUS treaty with the US and Australia, the October 2023 crisis in Gaza, and the general election of 2024.

Outline Of Syllabus

The following is a guide to the topics covered; actual topics may differ from those listed: the UK-US ‘special relationship’; European integration and disintegration; decolonisation; ‘East of Suez’; the Cold War; the Falklands; Gulf War; Iraq; ‘Liberal Interventionism’; aid and overseas development; the Foreign Office and central government. Students will be able to choose what to write about for the module assessment.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

Students will gain knowledge of the range of sources available for the study of the British foreign policy, their advantages and limitations. They will have a critical awareness of the historiography surrounding the subject, and be able to relate it to other relevant and ongoing debates in British history.

Intended Skill Outcomes

The students will develop the following intellectual skills: the capacity for independent study and critical judgement and of the ability to respond promptly, cogently and clearly to new and unexpected questions arising from this study; reading, understanding, critiquing, and comparing historical arguments; analysing and evaluating historians’ use of evidence; interpreting and contextualizing primary sources.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Independent learning and wide and varied reading are at the heart of this module.

For Seminars and Lectures, students are expected to develop critical reading and note-taking in an independent and effective manner. A significant part of the teaching will test the development of primary source analysis with an emphasis on contemporary history, and ongoing events.

Lectures will introduce student to the broader historical sense and seminars will develop this with an emphasis on contemporary events.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Submitted work during the delivery of the module forms a means of determining student progress. The essays test knowledge outcomes and develop skills in research, reading and writing.

Essay 1 will provide an opportunity for students to master the norms and vocabulary of foreign policy. Feedback will assist in the writing of the research essay.

Research essay will provide scope to analyse in depth a subject of interest to the student.

Students can choose freely between a wide range of subjects and questions.

Study-abroad, non-Erasmus exchange and Loyola students spending semester 1 only are required to finish their assessment while in Newcastle. Where an exam is present, an alternative form of assessment will be set and where coursework is present, an alternative deadline will be set. Details of the alternative assessment will be provided by the module leader.

General Notes

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