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Bismarck
Historian article
Readers of this journal will need no introduction to Otto von Bismarck. There are almost as many English-language biographies of him as those written in German. The four short studies by Lynn Abrams, Bismarck and the German Empire, 1871-1918 (1995); Andrina Stiles, The Unification of Germany, 1815-1890 (1986); D. G....
Bismarck
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Bertrand Russell's Role in the Cuban Missile Crisis
Historian article
'An attack on the United States with 10,000 megatons would lead to the death of essentially all of the American people and to the destruction of the nation.’ ‘In 1960 President Kennedy mentioned 30,000 megatons as the size of the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.’ In the autumn of 1962...
Bertrand Russell's Role in the Cuban Missile Crisis
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Thomas Parkinson: the Hermit of Thirsk
Historian article
About the year 1430 the citizens of Thirsk decided that their ancient parish church of St. Mary was old-fashioned and unworthy of the developing town, so they decided to build a new one. As a result, over the next eighty years or so, they produced what Pevsner described as ‘without...
Thomas Parkinson: the Hermit of Thirsk
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Late Medieval Taxation Records
Historian article
There are more than 23,000 medieval taxation records from England and Wales in the Public Record Office alone. For many years the vast majority of them have lain undisturbed in their archive boxes, but recent work is showing the true value of some of these as historical sources and making...
Late Medieval Taxation Records
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Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Historian article
Much research has been devoted in recent years to Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (EH), completed in 731 at the joint monastery of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow; but in one crucial respect little progress has been made: the editing of the text. The excellent edition published by Charles Plummer in 1896...
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People
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The Origins of the Local Government Service
Historian article
The concept ‘local government’ dates only from the middle of the nineteenth century. ‘Local government service’ emerged later still. In 1903 Redlich and Hirst1 wrote of ‘municipal officers’, while in 1922 Robson2 preferred ‘the municipal civil service’. ‘Local government service’ perhaps derives its pedigree from its use in the final...
The Origins of the Local Government Service
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Two Babies That Could Have Changed World History
Historian article
'At last have made wonderful discovery in Valley; a magnificent tomb with seals intact; re-covered same for your arrival. Congratulations.’ This telegram was sent from Luxor on the 6th November 1922 by Howard Carter to his coarchaeologist Lord Carnarvon in Britain. It started the Tut·ankh·Amen story which led to a...
Two Babies That Could Have Changed World History
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A team-taught conspiracy: Year 8 are caught up in a genuine historical debate
Teaching History article
Are top sets always our top priority? Of course, we know that every child matters (should that now have capital letters?) but those of us who teach in an ability-setted context also know that a bottom set left unable to access the curriculum is likely to pose bigger problems than...
A team-taught conspiracy: Year 8 are caught up in a genuine historical debate
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Ralph Sadleir: Hackney's Local Hero or Villain: Examples of learning opportunities in museums and historic sites at Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
The benefits of learning in historical sites and museums are well documented. De Silva, Smith and Tranter wrote in Teaching History 102, Inspiration and Motivation Edition, about exploring identity through the biography of a house, suggesting the possibility of teaching from the local to capture the national picture. However, students...
Ralph Sadleir: Hackney's Local Hero or Villain: Examples of learning opportunities in museums and historic sites at Key Stage 3
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What's your claim: Developing pupils' historical argument skills using asynchronous text based computer conferencing
Teaching History article
The potential that e-conferencing and message boarding have to engage pupils in historical debate and to enhance their ability and inclination to argue is increasingly well understood, as practice reported in these pages recently and the success and expansion of the Historical Association’s Centenary Debates initiative both demonstrate. In this...
What's your claim: Developing pupils' historical argument skills using asynchronous text based computer conferencing
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Triumphs Show: A head, a hook and international theft: getting year 9 to debate the intricacies of the impact of empire
Teaching History feature
The draft of the revised Key Stage 3 programme of study for history brings a new prominence to the study of the British Empire. Here one department describes their triumph in enabling students to engage with a topic which could seem very distant from their own lives.
Triumphs Show: A head, a hook and international theft: getting year 9 to debate the intricacies of the impact of empire
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How do we get better at going on trips: Planning for progression outside the classroom
Teaching History article
School trips are, it seems, always in the news. They are under threat, or vital, or the preserve of wealthier students, or a forum for poor behaviour, or a day out of the classroom to build relationships, or a fantastic learning experience where students learn important life skills (such as...
How do we get better at going on trips: Planning for progression outside the classroom
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Polychronicon 126: Stonehenge
Teaching History feature
Secondary history ought to pay more attention to stones:
1. they are accessible, logistically and educationally, and highly instructive. The Neolithic is everywhere, and generally speaking, free2. venture outside the classroom, into real space or cyberspace, and you stumble into it eventually.3. Archaeological interpretation is an accessible way into aspects...
Polychronicon 126: Stonehenge
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Independent learning in a nutshell
Article
What is independent learning? Independent learning is a strategy whereby students are encouraged to develop the skills and dispositions to be able to think and study for themselves.
Independent learning in a nutshell
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Miss, now I can see why that was so important: using ICT to enrich overview at GCSE
Teaching History article
Reflection and evaluation are key tools in the box of the successful history teacher. However, a focus on resources or exam results is futile unless a desire to develop pupils’ historical understanding is at the heart of the evaluation process. Maria Osowiecki’s department faced two problems: how to develop their...
Miss, now I can see why that was so important: using ICT to enrich overview at GCSE
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Creating controversy in the classroom: making progress with historical significance
Teaching History article
No longer is historical significance the ‘forgotten key element.’ Indeed, it is now being remembered at last – by politicians, telly-dons and the media in any case. Matthew Bradshaw suggests that the popular emphasis on significant events is wrong. Instead, we should be enabling our pupils to make their own...
Creating controversy in the classroom: making progress with historical significance
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Maybe they haven't decided yet what is right: English and Spanish perspectives on teaching historical significance
Teaching History article
Historians and history teachers understand well that students, when they ‘answer’ questions, are creating their own interpretation. We take account of this in our teaching too: we do not pretend that, beyond the level of the simplest closed questioning, there is ever a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer approach to history....
Maybe they haven't decided yet what is right: English and Spanish perspectives on teaching historical significance
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High achievement in history in a nutshell
Article
History is a discipline that attempts to understand human beings, the civilisations, cultures, nations and communities that they make and that make them. History is about time because everything human has its time and time runs out: it is about change, development, coming into being and passing away and about...
High achievement in history in a nutshell
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Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime: using external support, local history and a group project to challenge the most able
Teaching History article
The most able can be challenged in a variety of ways and at a number of levels, from the extension question for the individual child to the extended enquiry for the most able class. In a Leading Edge History project, Guy Woolnough and his colleagues took the concept of challenge...
Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime: using external support, local history and a group project to challenge the most able
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When computers don't give you a headache: the most able lead a debate on medicine through time
Teaching History article
Dan Moorhouse begins with a complaint about ICT. It is not the clichéd teacher-complaint – that the computers keep crashing, and the students are messing around on the Internet (and how, exactly, do you turn the things on?) Instead, he observes that the use of ICT in the classroom is...
When computers don't give you a headache: the most able lead a debate on medicine through time
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Mussolini's missing marbles: simulating history at GCSE
Teaching History article
Arthur Chapman and James Woodcock have collaborated before: Woodcock extended Chapman’s familiar casual metaphor of the final straw breaking a poor abused camel’s back. Here, they collaborate more explicitly to suggest a means of teaching students to produce adequately nuanced historical explanation. Their two central ideas are to produce a...
Mussolini's missing marbles: simulating history at GCSE
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Duffy's devices: teaching Year 13 to read and write
Teaching History article
Rachel Ward’s intriguing title seems a little out of place in an edition on teaching the most able. The point she makes, though, is that even our very brightest post-16 students need to be encouraged both to engage with the historiography surrounding their course and to learn to write with...
Duffy's devices: teaching Year 13 to read and write
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Czech Uranium and Stalin's Bomb
Article
Z.A.B. Zeman uncovers a fateful link between Czechoslovakia’s brief monopoly of uranium in Europe and the country’s subordination to the USSR. The great uranium rush started in 1943 and lasted for about seven years. Unlike the gold rushes of the past, uranium did not promise untold riches to individuals but...
Czech Uranium and Stalin's Bomb
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William Morris, Art and the Rise of the British Labour Movement
Article
Commenting in early 1934 at the University College, Hull, at the time of the centenary of William Morris’ birth and of a large exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the historian and active socialist, G.D.H. Cole commented, William Morris’ influence is very much alive today: but let us not...
William Morris, Art and the Rise of the British Labour Movement
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Cholera and the Fight for Public Health Reform in Mid-Victorian England
Article
Of the many social changes that occurred during the Victorian age, public health reform is widely agreed to be one of the most significant. In the early Victorian era the vast majority of Britons drank water from murky ponds and rivers, carried to their dwellings in buckets; and their excrement...
Cholera and the Fight for Public Health Reform in Mid-Victorian England
