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Fascism in Europe 1919-1945
Classic Pamphlet
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...
Fascism in Europe 1919-1945
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Polychronicon 177: The New Deal in American history
Teaching History feature
Over 50 years ago I read my first serious book on American history. I can still remember the excitement of reading William E. Leuchtenburg’s Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940. His description of FDR and American politics in the 1930s seemed so much more colourful and dramatic than...
Polychronicon 177: The New Deal in American history
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‘I need to know…’: creating the conditions that make students want knowledge
Teaching History journal article
Chloe Bateman recognised the value to her Key Stage 3 pupils of developing rich subject knowledge, but wanted to find a way of encouraging them to value that knowledge for themselves. In this article she explains how she provided that inspiration by setting her Year 7 class the challenge of...
‘I need to know…’: creating the conditions that make students want knowledge
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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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Couching counterfactuals in knowledge when explaining the Salem witch trials with Year 13
Teaching History journal article
Puzzled by the shrugs and unimaginative responses of his students when asked certain counterfactual questions, James Edward Carroll set out to explore what types of counterfactual questions would elicit sophisticated causal explanations. During his pursuit of the ‘gold standard’ of counterfactual reasoning, Carroll drew upon theories of academic history in...
Couching counterfactuals in knowledge when explaining the Salem witch trials with Year 13
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Seeing beyond the frame
Teaching History article
History teachers frequently show pupils visual images and often expect pupils to interrogate such images as evidence. But confusions arise and opportunities are missed when pupils do this without guidance on how to ‘read’ the image systematically and how to place it in context. Barbara Ormond gives a detailed account...
Seeing beyond the frame
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Cunning Plan 100: teaching the First World War in Year 9
Teaching History feature
History teacher and head of department stand outside noisy Year 9 class. Bombs (paper ones) fly everywhere; in corner of room mutiny is being discussed ... many pupils are refusing to follow their leader's last minute orders - they will not be opting for history! The war of attrition (excessive...
Cunning Plan 100: teaching the First World War in Year 9
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Inverting the telescope: investigating sources from a different perspective
Teaching History article
As historians, we are dependent on evidence, which comes in many varieties. Rosalind Stirzaker here introduces a project which she ran two years ago to encourage her students to think about artefacts in a different way. They have examined randomly preserved artefacts such as those of Pompeii, and sets of...
Inverting the telescope: investigating sources from a different perspective
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Cunning Plan 97: A-Level: International Relations 1890-1914
Teaching History feature
'No war is inevitable until it starts.' Good quote. Not mine, but A.J.P. Taylor's. The outbreak of the First World War is a good way to test it! Did the statesmen of the day know the First World War was coming? Put another way, why was there no general European...
Cunning Plan 97: A-Level: International Relations 1890-1914
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British Defence and Appeasement Between the Wars 1919-1939
Classic Pamphlet
Armed forces never exist in isolation, but always operate against a background of political, economic, social, cultural, intellectual and ideological conditions and attitudes, as well as in relation to diplomatic and strategic factors. Some governments regards their military forces especially their armies, more as instruments for maintaining internal order than...
British Defence and Appeasement Between the Wars 1919-1939
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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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Polychronicon 163: Europe: the longest debate
Teaching History feature
On 23 June, electors in the United Kingdom will vote on whether they wish to remain part of the European Union. The passionate debate around the question has seen the spectre of Hitler and the example of Churchill invoked, with varying plausibility, by both sides. It has also drawn on the...
Polychronicon 163: Europe: the longest debate
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Does the grammatical ‘release the conceptual’?
Teaching History article
Jim Carroll noticed basic literacy errors in his Year 13s’ writing, but on closer examination decided that these were not best addressed purely as literacy issues. Through an intervention based on clauses, Carroll managed to enable his students to write better, but he did this by teasing out principles of...
Does the grammatical ‘release the conceptual’?
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Welsh archers at Agincourt: myth and reality
Historian article
Adam Chapman debates the evidence for a Welsh presence among Henry V’s highly-successful force of archers at Agincourt in 1415.
Michael Drayton, in his poem of 1627, The Bataille of Agincourt, described the Welsh presence in Henry V's army: ‘who no lesse honour ow'd To their own king, nor yet...
Welsh archers at Agincourt: myth and reality
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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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Teaching the very recent past
Teaching History article
‘Miriam's Vision' is an educational project developed by the Miriam Hyman Memorial Trust, an organisation set up in memory of Miriam Hyman, one of the 52 victims of the London bombings of 2005. The project has developed a number of subject-based modules, including history, which are provided free to schools...
Teaching the very recent past
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Enabling Year 7 to write essays on Magna Carta
Teaching History article
Setting out to teach Magna Carta to the full attainment range in Year 7, Mark King decided to choose a question that reflected real scholarly debates and also to ensure that pupils held enough knowledge in long-term memory to be able to think about that question meaningfully. As he gradually prepared his pupils to produce their own causation arguments in response to that question, King was startled by...
Enabling Year 7 to write essays on Magna Carta
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Polychronicon 159: Interpreting Magna Carta
Teaching History feature
First some history: the question of how historiographic and public historical representations of Magna Carta have changed over the last 800 years is an important one. The ‘myth' of Magna Carta as a foundational document for modern democracy is still very powerful.
That tradition of understanding the legacy and history...
Polychronicon 159: Interpreting Magna Carta
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Cunning Plan 159: Was King John unlucky with his Barons?
Teaching History feature
Typical teaching of King John and Magna Carta focuses either on the weakness of John or the importance (as Whig historians would see it) of Magna Carta. The first question is a bit boring and the second discussion unhistorical. This enquiry sequence is designed for students aged 11 to 13. It...
Cunning Plan 159: Was King John unlucky with his Barons?
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Developing transferable knowledge at A-level
Teaching History article
From a compartmentalised to a complicated past: developing transferable knowledge at A-level
Students find it difficult to join up the different things they study into a complex account of the past. Examination specifications do not necessarily help with this because of the way in which history is divided up into...
Developing transferable knowledge at A-level
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Medieval Trade Routes
Classic Pamphlet
The subject of Medieval Trade Routes presents certain difficulties at the outset. There is no clear definition of the word ‘medieval' and, whatever period is chosen, it is obvious that trade routes within that period would be unlikely always to follow the same direction or to be of the same...
Medieval Trade Routes
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Captain Thomas and the North West Passage
Classic Pamphlet
In the early years of the seventeenth century Englishmen vigorously prosecuted the search for a North West Passage to the Pacific. The fabled wealth of India and Cathay beckoned to them as enticingly as it had attracted their sixteenth century predecessors. The foundation of the English East India Company in...
Captain Thomas and the North West Passage
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The Local Community and The Great Rebellion
Classic Pamphlet
A.M. Everitt goes past a normal look at The English Civil War, and examines individual communities and resurgence in popular interest in it. More than that, how the Civil War has been documented and what the effect of this flawed teaching and writing on the subject has had on popular...
The Local Community and The Great Rebellion
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The Indian Mutiny - Pamphlet
Classic Pamphlet
Harrison's booklet takes an evaluative look, at not just the effects of the Indian Mutiny on Indo-British history, but at the reporting of this event over the years. He begins with a look at the prejudices of British writers and British historians' attitude towards the mutiny, highlighting the flawed confidence western...
The Indian Mutiny - Pamphlet
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'But why then?' Chronological context and historical interpretations
Teaching History article
When Michael Fordham was introduced to Dr Seuss's Butter Battle Book he immediately recognised its potential value in the classroom as a popular interpretation of the Cold War.
Wanting his Year 9 pupils to explain how and why the past has been interpreted in different ways he shows the potential pitfalls...
'But why then?' Chronological context and historical interpretations