History

Course summary

Our course comprises an exciting mix of options which help to explain why the world is the way it is today and how power has changed over the centuries. In year 12 we examine issues of dictatorship and democracy, vital to understand in a 21st century that seems at times so brutal. Paper 1 looks at Germany 1918-1989, setting the endlessly surprising and uncomfortable Nazi episode in context and continuing through the Cold War to the iconic fall of the Berlin Wall. Paper 2 considers the often bizarre rise and fall of fascism in Italy, led by a man who was expelled from school and enjoyed being photographed with his pet lion cub. Later work sees a deliberate contrast, but also parallels, in our Paper 3 study of the twists and turns, plots, disguises and double-crossing of rebellions in the Tudor period. Coursework is focused on an issue about which historians disagree; currently students can choose between interpretations of Martin Luther King (was his impact as important as we are led to believe?) and views of the causes of the First World War (how did a German historian argue – perhaps mistakenly – that it was)