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Cunning Plan 167: teaching the industrial revolution
Teaching History article
‘Disastrous and terrible.’ For Arnold Toynbee, the historian who gave us the phrase ‘industrial revolution’, these three words sum up the period of dramatic technological change that took place in Britain across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We may not habitually use Toynbee’s description in the classroom, but it is...
Cunning Plan 167: teaching the industrial revolution
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Copernicus and the Reformation of Astronomy
Classic Pamphlet
During the past four centuries, the processes of nature have come to be viewed in a new light through the progressive acquisition of the systematized, verifiable knowledge that we call science. The associated advances in technology have profoundly affected the circumstances of our daily lives, and have revolutionised the mutual...
Copernicus and the Reformation of Astronomy
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From Sail to Steam
Classic Pamphlet
From the time when primitive man first went adrift on a bundle of reeds or learnt to balance himself on a floating log, to the days where his descendants, no more than a few generations ago, raced scrambling aloft to trim the towering sails of a full-rigged ship, the skill...
From Sail to Steam
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Tudor Enclosures
Classic Pamphlet
Tudor enclosures hold the attention of historians because of the fundamental changes which they wrought in our system of farming, and in the appearance of the English countryside. At the same time, the subject is continually being re-investigated, and as a result it is no longer presented in the simple...
Tudor Enclosures
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Limited Monarchy in Great Britain in the Eighteenth Century
Classic Pamphlet
There was hardly anything in Great Britain which political thinkers on the continent of Europe in the eighteenth century admired more than its limited monarchy. But what were the limitations? Were they deliberate or not? Were they effected by acts of parliament or by the silent encroachments of usage? Did...
Limited Monarchy in Great Britain in the Eighteenth Century
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Dickens...Hardy...Jarvis?! A novel take on the Industrial Revolution
Teaching History article
‘Empathy with edge' was the editorial description given eight years ago to the kind of historical fiction that Dave Martin and Beth Brooke first argued history students should be writing (TH 108). The winning entries from the annual ‘Write Your Own Historical Story Competition' to which their work gave rise...
Dickens...Hardy...Jarvis?! A novel take on the Industrial Revolution
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The Russian Constitutional Monarchy, 1907-17
Classic Pamphlet
The defeat of the revolution of 1905 afforded the absolutist Tsarist monarchy an opportunity to reform the administration and to seek a new basis of support in place of the declining gentry class. Historians have been divided ever since over the constitutional system's chances of success. Had Tsardom advanced far...
The Russian Constitutional Monarchy, 1907-17
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Between the Revolutions: Russia 1905 to 1917
Classic Pamphlet
"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...
Between the Revolutions: Russia 1905 to 1917
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... expanding the reach of the American Revolution
Teaching History feature
The Founding Fathers of the United States of America are never far from current political and cultural discussions. Whether prompted by the phenomenal success of Hamilton: the musical (2015), or the shocking scenes of riotous attack on the US Capitol in January 2021, the revolutionary intentions and legacy of such...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... expanding the reach of the American Revolution
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... immigration in French history
Historian feature
3 July 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of a significant, yet little known, event in French history: the declaration of an end to the recruitment of economic migrants. Over the previous decades, some three million migrant workers had arrived to surprisingly little fanfare, building the economic growth later mythologized by...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... immigration in French history
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Cunning Plan 190: Using art to make A-level history more accessible
Teaching History feature
Many pupils love the Horrible Histories books, television programmes and songs. Over the years a number of A-level pupils have proudly told me that it was Horrible Histories that sparked their love of the subject, and they are quick to recite the songs word for word! But it is also the...
Cunning Plan 190: Using art to make A-level history more accessible
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Government and Society in Late Medieval Spain
Classic Pamphlet
Government and Society in Late Medieval Spain: From the accession of the House of Trastámara to Ferdinand and IsabellaThe history of late medieval Spain is usually seen as a tiresome introduction to the reigns of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. Modern historians tend to portray them as ‘new monarchs',...
Government and Society in Late Medieval Spain
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Vive la France! A comparison of French and British history teaching, with practical suggestions from across La Manche
Teaching History article
It is possible for teachers to learn a great deal within their own classrooms, departments and schools. However, stepping outside that daily experience, whether by reading a journal, contributing to a web debate or attending a conference, can always provide refreshing ideas. Evelyn Sweerts takes the concept of sharing good...
Vive la France! A comparison of French and British history teaching, with practical suggestions from across La Manche
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New, Novice or Nervous? 171: Teaching Medieval History
Teaching History feature: the quick guide to the no-quick-fix
Was your diet of school history mostly modern? Are you more comfortable debating the industrial revolution than the feudal revolution? And do you now find yourself teaching more medieval history, particularly at GCSE and A-level? Recent changes to the examination specifications in England have made the medieval mainstream, and as...
New, Novice or Nervous? 171: Teaching Medieval History
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The Coming of War in 1939
Classic Pamphlet
I. The Legacy of Versailles
The Outbreak of a second world war on 1 September 1939 might have been expected to produce in due course a great controversy on ‘war guilt'. But there has been nothing comparable with the debate which took place during the 1920s on the 1914 issues. The...
The Coming of War in 1939
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Scots Abroad in the Fifteenth Century
Classic Pamphlet
(Historical Association Pamphlet, No. 124, 1942)
Dunlop's research into the occupations and attitudes of Scots abroad during the 15th century uncovers some surprising revelations about all members of the Scottish ex-pat society.
She particularly notes the ‘scurrilous' opinions of the French regarding Scotsmen's behaviour. While Scottish diplomatists and envoys tended...
Scots Abroad in the Fifteenth Century
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On the campaign trail: walking the Hundred Years War
Historian article
In the tradition of landscape historians, Peter Hoskins has explored some of the route marches taken by English armies during the Hundred Years War.
After the battle of Crécy in 1346 and the capture of Calais by Edward III in the following year the Hundred Years War settled into an...
On the campaign trail: walking the Hundred Years War
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Francis I and Absolute Monarchy
Classic Pamphlet
Francis I of France reign lasted for more than thirty years and coincided with movements as significant as the Renaissance and the Reformation. Text-books are apt to gloss over the domestic history of France before the outbreak of the Wars of Religion and convey the impression that Francis was more...
Francis I and Absolute Monarchy
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Polychronicon 158: Reinterpreting Napoleon
Teaching History feature
On 18 June 2015, the two-hundredth anniversary of the great battle of Waterloo will be commemorated in Britain and on the continent (though not in France). It will represent the climax of the Napoleonic bicentenary, which has been in full flow since the turn of the twenty-first century. Fresh biographies...
Polychronicon 158: Reinterpreting Napoleon
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The Scottish Enlightenment
Classic Pamphlet
In recent decades, Scotland's distinctive contribution to the Enlightenment has been of increasing interest to scholars. Often very remarkable in an analytical view, such studies may nevertheless miss their sense of the story by treating Scottish insight in abstraction from Scottish life. Taking a more concrete approach, the present study...
The Scottish Enlightenment
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The Enlightenment
Classic Pamphlet
Can a movement as varied and diffuse as the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century be contained within the covers of a short pamphlet? The problem would certainly have appealed to the intellectuals of that time. Generalists rather than specialists, citizens of the whole world of knowledge, they relished the challenge...
The Enlightenment
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Ufton Court
Visit
Ufton Court, an Elizabethan Grade 1 Manor House between Reading and Newbury, is an inspirational centre for schools. The Ufton team lead residential and day visits for KS2 that aim to give children a passion for history.
Find out more: https://www.uftoncourt.org.uk/
Ufton Court
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Film: Stalin - Early Life
Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
Joseph Stalin was born Joseph Besarionis dze Jughashvili in 1878 into a poor family in Gori, Georgia, part of the then Russian Empire. Stalin attended the Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary while his own radicalism grew, before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He edited the party's newspaper, Pravda, and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction through...
Film: Stalin - Early Life
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Agincourt 1415-2015
Historian article
Agincourt has become one of a small number of iconic events in our collective memory. Anne Curry explores how succeeding generations have exploited its significance.
In his budget statement of 18 March 2015 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced £1m had been awarded to commemorate the 600th anniversary...
Agincourt 1415-2015
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Franz Ferdinand
Historian article
The Kapuzinerkirche (Church of the Capuchins) in Vienna's Neue Markt is one of the more curious attractions of the city, housing as it does the Kaisergruft crypt in which the Habsburgs are entombed, or rather in which their bodies are entombed: the hearts are usually kept in the Loreto Chapel...
Franz Ferdinand
