Europe 1901-present

While war seems to be a backdrop to events in Europe in this time period the articles collected here explore many of the wider impacts and elements to the war. Medicine and technology are explored alongside dramatic changes in social attitudes. The political events that disrupt and shape Europe of the 20th century are explored though a range of engaging articles that include Russia and the USSR, Fascism and European co-operation.

Sort by: Date (Newest first) | Title A-Z
Show: All | Articles | Podcasts | Multipage Articles
  • Fascism in Europe 1919-1945

    Article

    The importance of fascism in 20th Century Europe is beyond question. But what was - or is - fascism?It is synonymous with authoritarian rule or the totalitarian state, or with both? In political terms, is fascism ‘right-wing' or ‘left-wing', revolutionary or reactionary? Why did it develop? Was it truly only...

    Click to view
  • 32 Postkarten: Last post from Nazi Germany

    Article

    32 Postkarten retells the story of a German-Jewish family from the outbreak of the Second World War to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. It is a story of the end of two love affairs, the one between Liesbeth and Walter, and the one between Germany and its Jews.  ...

    Click to view
  • Polychronicon 135: Post-modern Holocaust Historiography

    Article

    The field of Holocaust studies has been hit by an intellectual earthquake whose precise magnitude and long-term consequences cannot be ascertained at this stage. In 2007 Saul Friedländer published The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945. The book has been rightly celebrated as the first victim-centred synthetic history...

    Click to view
  • Polychronicon 134: The Great War and Cultural History

    Article

    Over the past two decades the historiography of the Great War has witnessed something of a revolution. Although historical revisionism is, of course, nothing out of the ordinary, the speed with which long-held assumptions about the First World War and its impact have been swept away has been quite astonishing....

    Click to view
  • Between the Revolutions: Russia 1905 to 1917

    Article

    "The key question is this - is the peaceful renovation of the country possible? Or is it possible only by internal revolution?"This quotation succintly expresses the problem that faced both contemporaries and subsequant generations of historians confronting the development of Russia between the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. The upheavals...

    Click to view
  • The Versailles Peace Settlement

    Article

    This classic pamphlet takes you through the Paris Peace Conference and the 'German Question', Peacemaking and the Treaty of Versailles, Europe and the German question after Versailles.

    Click to view
  • Nazism and Stalinism

    Article

    Is it legitimate to compare the Nazi and Stalinist regimes? There might seem little room for doubt. It is often taken as self-evident that the two regimes were variations of a common type. They are bracketed together in school and university courses, as well as text books, under labels such...

    Click to view
  • Cunning Plan 126: What can Berlin tell us about Germany in the 20th century?

    Article

    Berlin is a microcosm of twentieth century European history; a city that still bears many of the signs and scars of its experiences and upheavals. It is a must for any history department teaching the Modern World, taking history out of the textbooks and breathing life into it. All pupils...

    Click to view
  • After the Uprising of 1956: Hungarian Students in Britain

    Article

    Much has been written during the last 50 years about the events leading up to and during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. Less consideration has been given to the students who arrived in Britain as refugees. During the weeks following the Soviet intervention in Hungary around 25,000 people were killed...

    Click to view
  • Mussolini's marriage and a game in the playground: using analogy to help pupils understand the past

    Article

    Diana Laffin and Maggie Wilson want their pupils to connect with people in the past and to experience some of their emotions. The emotional factor is a difficult one in history, both for pupils and professional historians. When studying Eden’s actions at Suez, for example, what we lack is a...

    Click to view
  • Polychronicon 119: The Second World War and popular culture

    Article

    Polychronicon was a fourteenth-century chronicle that brought together much of the knowledge of its own age. Our Polychronicon in Teaching History is a regular feature helping school history teachers to update their subject knowledge, with special emphasis on recent historiography and changing interpretation. This edition of 'Polychronicon' investigates World War...

    Click to view
  • The Spice of Life? Ensuring variety when teaching about the Treaty of Versailles

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Much has been said and written about different learning styles in recent years. Some people have responded with evangelical enthusiasm, others exercise a more cautious approach, whilst a few disregard it completely. Certainly, there are...

    Click to view
  • Polychronicon 115: historians and the Holocaust

    Article

    Polychronicon was a fourteenth-century chronicle that brought together much of the knowledge of its own age. Our Polychronicon in Teaching History is a regular feature helping school history teachers to update their subject knowledge, with special emphasis on recent historiography and changing interpretation. This edition of 'Polychronicon' focuses on historians...

    Click to view
  • Drop the dead dictator: a Year 9 newsroom simulation

    Article

    Rosalind Stirzaker has big ambitions for her students. She wants them to do more than make a simple list of the key causes of the Second World War. Yes, she wants them to complete a piece of written work, but she wants – and gets – a great deal more...

    Click to view
  • Learning and teaching about the history of Europe in the twentieth century

    Article

    In the first of our special, extra ‘Europages’, funded by the Council of Europe (CoE), Mark McLaughlin briefly outlines the purpose and outcomes of a CoE project on ‘learning and teaching about the history of Europe in the twentieth century’. His short article reminds all history teachers of the need...

    Click to view
  • Parallel catastrophes? Uniqueness, redemption and the Shoah

    Article

    Nicolas Kinloch’s 1998 review of Michael Burleigh’s Ethics and Extermination in Teaching History, 93, sparked a debate amongst our readers about the teaching of the Holocaust, concerning both rationales and practical approaches. Citing the damage caused to pupils’ understanding by a Spielberg view of history, he emphasised that the rationale...

    Click to view
  • Moral dilemmas: history teaching and the Holocaust

    Article

    The new Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London has been very favourably received by the general public, and by teachers and their students. Initially controversial - was a war museum the ideal site for such an exhibition, for example? - it has since been widely praised for...

    Click to view
  • Teaching the Holocaust: the experience of Vad Vashem

    Article

    No institution is better known for its continuing work on the Holocaust than Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem. In this article Richelle Budd Caplan offers guidelines for teachers, based on its unrivalled experience. She demands that our teaching of this subject should aim to restore the identities of the victims. To do...

    Click to view
  • Working as a team to teach the Holocaust well: a language-centred approach

    Article

    Clear themes run through the work of the history department at Huntington School. A remarkably consistent emphasis on language and literacy, including work on speaking and listening of many types, is a hallmark of this sequence of six Year 9 lessons on the Holocaust, described in detail by head of...

    Click to view
  • Challenging stereotypes and avoiding the superficial: a suggested approach to teaching the Holocaust

    Article

    Alison Kitson provides a rationale for a scheme of work for Year 9 (13-14 year-olds). She argues that teachers should analyse the kind of historical learning that is taking place when the Holocaust is studied. Critical of the assumption that learning will take place as a result of exposure, she...

    Click to view