World 1901-present

Some of the most profound and influential changes in world history take place from 1901 to today and covered here are many of the important and well known ones as well as some of the smaller stories. In terms of reach this section covers huge themes on diplomacy, post imperialism and economics. The articles cover the time period right up into recent events such as the State of the Union address by the US President Barrack Obama.

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  • 1914: The Coming of the First World War

    Article

    This pamphlet argues that the outbreak of the First World War represented not so much the culmination of a long process started by Bismarck and his successors, as the relatively sudden breakdown of a system that had in fact preserved the peace and contained the dangerous Eastern Question for over...

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  • Stalinism

    Article

    Stalin's remarkable career raises quite fundamental questions for anyone interested in history. Marxists, whose philosophy should cause them to downgrade the role of ‘great men' as an explanation of great events, have problems in fitting Stalin into the materialist interpretation of history: did not this man ride rough-shod over the...

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  • Polychronicon 139: Civic denouncer: The lives of Pavlik Morozov

    Article

    Germaine Greer (in the context of the Pirelli Calendar) once commented that the defining feature of a legend was that almost nothing said and believed about it was true. Pavlik Morozov, notorious both inside Russia and internationally for having denounced his father, almost certainly never did so. In September 1932, local...

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  • Polychronicon 138: The Civil Rights Movement

    Article

    "He was The One, The Hero, The One Fearless Person for whom we had waited. I hadn't even realized before that we had been waiting for Martin Luther King, Jr, but we had." So spoke the novelist Alice Walker in 1972, looking back on her teenage years. And so wrote...

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  • World War 2 Website

    Article

    WW2History.com is a multimedia resource on World War II, brought to you by award winning historian and filmmaker Laurence Rees. The site was designed and built by Sunday Publishing on behalf of renowned historian and filmmaker Laurence Rees. It is designed to be an accessible and authoritative resource on World...

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  • The New Imperialism

    Article

    This Classic Pamphlet first published in 1970 comes with a new introduction written by the author M. E. Chamberlain.The New Imperialism - Introduction by M. E. Chamberlain Professor Emeritus at Swansea University. May 2010.When this pamphlet was first published imperialism was a hot political topic and battle raged between Marxist and...

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  • The Russian Constitutional Monarchy, 1907-17

    Article

    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...

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  • Polychronicon 137: Bringing space travel down to Earth

    Article

    It nearly began like this: ‘On Christmas Eve 1968, two episcopalians and a Roman Catholic were in orbit around the Moon.' I was writing a book called Earthrise, about the first views of Earth from space. Most other books about the Apollo programme of the 1960s and 1970s took an...

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  • The League of Nations

    Article

    It is common to see the failure of the League of Nations in its inability to stand up to the crises of the inter-war years.Peter Raffo shows that the League was flawed from the start. Never more than a voluntary association of sovereign states hoping to create ‘an atmosphere capable...

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  • Between the Revolutions: Russia 1905 to 1917

    Article

    "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...

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  • Triumphs Show 133: Little Miss Cold War

    Article

    Students can find it hard to understand and remember the differing schools of interpretation that they encounter at A2. The process of studying differing historiographic claims can also seem rather dry and tedious. It is crucial that they grasp differences in interpretation if they are to succeed in their examinations,...

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  • The American Diplomatic Tradition

    Article

    Indisputably, the United States of America has been and continues to be the leading power of the twentieth century. No country or people, however large or small, has been immune from American influence. A succession of American presidents have become international celebrities whose personal strengths and weaknesses are discussed and disssected...

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  • Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Introducing students to historical interpretation

    Article

    High school history teacher Brent Dyck is one of our Canadian readers. He has offered this item to The Historian as a contribution to our commitment to explore the historical approaches and values that we are seeking to convey to young people and the wider public. We hope that you may...

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  • History, citizenship and Oliver Stone

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. When is a work of art a work of history? How can we get our students to appreciate the difference without ignoring the overlap? How should we ask our students to approach the historical film...

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  • Martin Luther King - Judge for Yourself

    Article

    Judge For Yourself: Martin Luther King by Christine Hatt, pub 2009,Evans Publishing, p/b £9.99, ISBN: 978  0 237 53624 4 Reviewed by Alf Wilkinson This is a re-issue of a book published in 2002, but now out in paperback for the first time. The first part of the book is...

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  • Free Film Education Resources

    Article

    The Boy in Striped Pyjamas - free resource to coincide with the upcoming feature film release of John Boyne's critically acclaimed novel THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS, Film Education and Miramax Films have produced a comprehensive online resource for schools. It provides an extensive range of materials, activities and...

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  • Russian Revolution: Social Movements between the Revolutions Feb-Oct 1917

    Article

    On the 29th November Dr Jane McDermid gave the second of her lectures on the Russian Revolution, at the Weston Theatre, Manchester. John Laver, Principal Examiner in History at AQA also gave some invaluable advice on how to answer A Level History Exam questions. Click the links below to access their lecture notes>>>...

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  • Stalin 1928-1941: Listen to the podcast of Dr Jane McDermid's lecture on Stalin

    Article

    On 15th November Dr Jane McDermid gave the first lecture in the HA's Sixth Form Lecture Series on the making of the Stalinist State at the National Archives, Kew. Click on the following links below to listen to her lecture and read the lecture notes!

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  • Breaking the 20 year rule: very modern history at GCSE

    Article

    History is the study of the past; some of the past is more recent than a glance over many schemes of work might lead us to think. Chris Culpin makes the case for ignoring the 20 year rule and tackling head on – and, crucially, historically – the big issues...

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  • Why can't they just live together happily, Miss?' Unravelling the complexities of the Arab-Israeli conflict at GCSE

    Article

    How often do our students long for black and white rather than the shades of grey that history generally presents us with? Understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict is all about understanding diversity and complexity in all their shades of grey. Alison Stephen, teaching in an immensely diverse school herself, is determined...

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