History

Course Aims

• To consider the significance of events, individuals, issues and societies in history;
• To understand the nature of historical evidence and the methods historians use to analyse and evaluate it;
• To develop an understanding of how the past has been interpreted and represented and to evaluate the theories of historians;
• To express historical ideas confidently and effectively

Overview of the AS Modules

Unit 1: Historical Themes in Breadth
Ideology, Conflict and Retreat: the USA in Asia, 1950-73 and Politics, Presidency and Society in the USA, 1968-2001

Topics include:
• Growing US participation in Vietnam, 1954-68: Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson and retreat under Nixon, 1969-73
• The Presidencies of Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton
• The changing nature of American society, 1968-2001

Unit 2: British History Depth Study
British Political History, 1945-90: Consensus and Conflict

Topics include:
• Reasons for the Labour election victory of 1945 and the key features of domestic policy in the ‘age of austerity’, 1945-51
• Britain and the age of discontent, 1964-79. A study of domestic problems including unemployment, inflation and national strikes
• Reasons for the Conservative election victory of 1979 and the key features of Thatcherism

Overview of the A2 Modules

Unit 3: Depth Study and Associated Historical Controversies
From Kaiser to Fuhrer: Germany, 1900-1945

Topics include:
• The rise of the Nazis: origins to 1928; growing support and coming to power
• Life in wartime Germany, 1939-45: opposition and conformity; persecution of the Jews and the development of the ‘Final Solution’
• Power within the polycratic Nazi state

Unit 4: Historical Enquiry – coursework assignment
Crime and Punishment in Britain, c.1830-1965

Students will complete two extended essays for coursework, each one being approximately 2000 words