Histoire des îles Britanniques

Tea: commodity, civility, Empire

This course will discuss tea as a symbol illustrating the development of three interdependent phenomena in the Long Eighteenth Century (1660-1830): the development of the British Empire, with the creation of colonies in the Americas and in Asia, affecting local peoples and the environment; the rise of mercantilism and global trade, with tea becoming the first true global commodity; and the increasingly codified culture of civility, as tea was a class and gender marker in civil conversation, along with coffee. Tea is more than a hot drink: it is an essential component of the British way of life, capable of provoking the American Revolution in the West and two opium wars in the East. Using tea as a common thread, this course will introduce students to cultural, intellectual, economic and material history.

This source-based course builds on the skills acquired in the previous semesters and aims to develop students’ ability to analyse and critically assess primary and secondary sources. It introduces students to cultural, intellectual and material history.

• Formule standard session 1 - Contrôle continu : une vidéo de 5-7mn à mi-parcours (commentaire historique et culturel) 40%, un devoir écrit de 2h en fin de semestre (commentaire de document historique) 50%, participation (préparation de textes, fiches de lecture, prise de parole, etc. tout au long du semestre) 10%.
• Formule dérogatoire session 1 : 1 devoir écrit de 2h (commentaire de texte)
• Session 2 : 1 devoir écrit de 2h (commentaire de texte)

Anglais B2

Français B2

A more comprehensive reading list will be available online (coursenligne.parisnanterre.fr).

Seren Charrington Hollins. A Dark History of Tea. Yorkshire/Philadelphia, Pen and Sword History, 2020.

George L. van Driem. The Tale of Tea: A Comprehensive History of Tea from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day. Leiden/Boston, Brill, 2019.

Roderick Floud, Paul Johnson (éds.). The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, Volume 1. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Melanie King. Tea, Coffee & Chocolate: How We Fell in Love with Caffeine. Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2015.

Jane T. Merritt. The Trouble with Tea: The Politics of Consumption in the Eighteenth-Century Global Economy. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017.

Erika Rappaport. A Thirst for Empire: How Tea Shaped the Modern World. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2017.

Sarah Rose. For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World’s Favorite Drink and Changed History. London, Penguin, 2011.

Woodruff D. Smith. Consumption and the Making of Respectability, 1600-1800. London, Routledge, 2002.

Other resources

BBC Radio 4, “In Our Time”, episode on Tea: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y24y