-
Interpretations of the French Revolution
Classic Pamphlet
The French Revolution raises many questions not least: What sort of Revolution was it - one of "poverty" or "prosperity" ? a bourgeois revolution that overthrew feudalism? A national struggle for liberty, democracy, or "eternal Justice" ? or, again, a criminal conspiracy against the old social order? What did it...
Interpretations of the French Revolution
-
The Terror in the French Revolution
Classic Pamphlet
A natural reaction to the history of the French Revolution is to see it as a glorious movement for liberty which somehow ‘went wrong', ending in a nightmare of blood and chaos. This pamphlet explains what really happened, and why. It shows how the apparent achievements of the first two...
The Terror in the French Revolution
-
Polychronicon 150: Interpreting the French Revolution
Teaching History feature
For most of the last two centuries, historical interpretations of the French Revolution have focused on its place in a grand narrative of modernity. For the most ‘counter-revolutionary' writers, the Revolution showed why modernity was to be resisted - destroying traditional institutions and disrupting all that was valuable in an...
Polychronicon 150: Interpreting the French Revolution
-
Podcast Series: The French Revolution to the Fall of Napoleon
The French Revolution
In this set of podcasts we look at the origins and the development of the French Revolution, the rise and fall of Napoleon, the Peninsular War and the Battle of Waterloo.
These podcasts feature: Professor David Andress, Emeritus Professor Malcom Crook, Emertius Professor William Doyle, Emeritus Professor Alan Forrest &...
Podcast Series: The French Revolution to the Fall of Napoleon
-
The Flight to Varennes
Historian article
On the night of 20 June 1791 a portly middle-aged man, dressed inconspicuously in brown, with a dark green overcoat and his hair covered by a grey wig, walked out of the Tuileries palace past the guards. For the past 12 nights the Chevalier de Coigny, dressed in a similar...
The Flight to Varennes
-
It’s just reading, right? Exploring how Year 12 students approach sources
Teaching History article
Frustrated by the generic statements that her Year 12 students were making about sources, Jacqueline Vyrnwy-Pierce resolved to undertake a research project into how her students were approaching sources about the French Revolution. Fascinated by the research of American educational psychologist Sam Wineburg, Vyrnwy-Pierce decided to use Wineburg’s methods to find...
It’s just reading, right? Exploring how Year 12 students approach sources
-
Podcast Series: Thomas Paine
Multipage Article
In this set of podcasts Emeritus Professor W. A. Speck of the University of Leeds looks at the life and ideas of Thomas Paine.
Podcast Series: Thomas Paine
-
Counterfactual Reasoning: Comparing British and French History
Teaching History article
Year 8 use counterfactual reasoning to explore place and social upheaval in eighteenth-century France and Britain
Two linked motivations inspired Ellen Buxton's research study: she wanted pupils to make connections between British and French history and she wanted to explore the potential of counter-factual reasoning within a causation enquiry. It...
Counterfactual Reasoning: Comparing British and French History
-
Age of Revolutions Resources
Information
The Age of Revolutions is a period in history between c.1775-1848. Over the course of these years, society underwent a series of revolutions in almost all theatres of life: political, war, social and cultural, and economic and technological. Revolutionary ideas and revolutionary actions swept across the world, and historians still discuss and...
Age of Revolutions Resources
-
Catherine de Medici & the Ancien Regime
Classic Pamphlet
Catherine de Medici is one of the most controversial figures of the early modern period. Her name has come to symbolize her age and both have long retained an exceptionally powerful emotive force. Consequently they have attracted many writers primarily seeking to apportion blame for the sombre events of the...
Catherine de Medici & the Ancien Regime
-
Cunning Plan 152.2: using Gillray’s cartoons with Year 8
Teaching History feature
The past 30 years have seen a general revival in scholarly activity relating to ‘all aspects of 18th-century British history'. However, this increase in academic study, which has broadly coincided with the introduction and development of the National Curriculum in England, has not resulted in the period being studied in great...
Cunning Plan 152.2: using Gillray’s cartoons with Year 8
-
Women and Gender in the French Wars
The Napoleonic Wars
In this podcast Dr Louise Carter critically examines the role of women in Britain during the French Revolution. During these wars, women were typically called on for army cooking, laundry, nursing and spying, and as such were considered part of the war machine. While women in the French wars accounted for...
Women and Gender in the French Wars
-
Podcast: Re-imagining Democracy
Podcast
This podcast feature Professor Mark Philp of the University of Warwick discussing how people's perceptions of democracy changed between 1750 and 1850 and is based on the findings of the Re-imagining democracy project, begun in 2005 by Joanna Innes and Mark Philp.
Re-imagining Democracy: 1750-1850
1. Introduction. Democracy from negative...
Podcast: Re-imagining Democracy
-
1066: The Limits of our Knowledge
Historian article
As the most pivotal and traumatic event in English history, the Norman Conquest continues to generate controversy and debate, especially among those who know little about it or enjoy passing judgement on the past. Who had the better claim to the English throne, William the Conqueror or Harold Godwineson? Was...
1066: The Limits of our Knowledge
-
Warfare - GCSE
Links to Articles & Podcasts
Warfare
Warfare - GCSE
-
Louis XIV
Classic Pamphlet
Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 and became King on May 14 1643 at the age of four years and eight months on the death of his father Louis XIII. He attended the Conseil d'en haut from 1649 when he was eleven years old. He announced his coming...
Louis XIV
-
Napoleon III and the French Second Empire
Article
The French Second Empire has been variously described as a precursor of Twentieth Century Fascism and a prime example of a modernising regime. Roger Price continues recents efforts to achieve a more balanced assessment by setting the regime within its particular social and political context. The origins of the Second...
Napoleon III and the French Second Empire
-
Popular revolt and the rise of early modern states
Historian article
In the 1960s and 1970s, historians and sociologists who were not specialists in the Middle Ages constructed models of pre-industrial crowds and revolt to understand the distinctiveness of modern, post-French Revolutionary, Europe. Foremost among these scholars were George Rudé, a historian of eighteenth century England and France, and Charles Tilly,...
Popular revolt and the rise of early modern states
-
The Effect of Prior Knowledge on Teaching International History
IJHLTR Article
International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research [IJHLTR], Volume 15, Number 1 – Autumn/Winter 2017ISSN: 14472-9474
Abstract
The students’ prior knowledge is considered to be a factor of paramount importance to the learning process, particularly when teaching history in a diverse and multicultural learning environment. This paper explores the issue...
The Effect of Prior Knowledge on Teaching International History
-
Polychronicon 151: Interpreting the Revolution of 1688
Teaching History feature
John Morrill, one of the foremost historians of the British civil wars, has described the events of 1688-9 as the ‘Sensible Revolution'. The phrase captures the essence of a long-standing scholarly consensus, that this was a very unrevolutionary revolution.
The origins of this interpretation go back to the late eighteenth...
Polychronicon 151: Interpreting the Revolution of 1688
-
The German Revolution 1918-19
Classic Pamphlet
Like other revolutions the German revolution of November 1918 was a product of different causes, some of which formed part of the events immediately preceding it, while other belonged to the less recent past. The revolution began as the improvised revolt of an exhausted and disillusioned population against an authoritarian...
The German Revolution 1918-19
-
Women, War and Revolution
Classic Pamphlet
On the surface, the period 1914 to 1945 seems to have encompassed massive changes in the position of women in Europe, in response to the demands of war and revolution. Yet historians have questioned the extent of the transformation, since the acquisition of the vote, as well as improvements in...
Women, War and Revolution
-
French chivalry in twelfth-century Britain?
Historian article
The year 1066 - the one universally remembered date in English history, so well-known that banks advise customers not to choose it as their PIN number - opened the country up to French influence in spectacular fashion. During the ‘long twelfth century' (up to King John's death in 1216) that...
French chivalry in twelfth-century Britain?
-
A comparative revolution?
Teaching History Article
Although the curriculum changes of 2008 brought with them new GCSE specifications, Jonathan White was disappointed by the dated feel of some ‘Modern World' options, particularly the depth studies on offer. Drawing on his experience of teaching comparative history within the International Baccalaureate, and building on previous arguments in Teaching History...
A comparative revolution?
-
Polychronicon 162: Reinterpreting the May 1968 events in France
Teaching History feature
As Kristin Ross has persuasively argued, by the 1980s interpretations of the French events of May 1968 had shrunk to a narrow set of received ideas around student protest, labelled by Chris Reynolds a ‘doxa’. Media discourse is dominated by a narrow range of former participants labelled ‘memory barons’ –...
Polychronicon 162: Reinterpreting the May 1968 events in France
