International School History - European School History and Human Science

International School History - European Schools - S6 4 hour option - S6 2 hour option

S6 History

Last update - 26 September 2011

Official European School History S6 Syllabus: English, French, German

Textbooks and further recommended resources

Compulsory		Recommended
	The only 'must buy' textbook resource for S6 and S7 history is Ben Walsh's Modern World History. If you are studying the 2 hour option you will probably need to use very little else. Written originally for English GCSE students (aged 14-16 years), it is well written and clearly laid out with images and graphics that make it the single best textbook for students of modern history. For a good second hand price try Amazon UK.		Written for the International Baccalaureate the 20th Century World History Companion provides a more challenging narrative and more abstract approach than Ben Walsh. Written for international students (aged 16-18) it is more age appropriate, internationally minded and conceptually more suited to 4 hour option history.

Other Resources: a personal list

Unit 1 1870-1914

The best general book I have ever read on this period is Eric Hobsbawm's Age of Empire which I can still remember reading some 20 years later. Another popular textbook is M.S Anderson's The Ascendancy of Europe the latter sections of which are directly relevant to this course, The outstanding recent text is The Birth of the Modern World by C. A. Bayly

On imperialism, students in Brussels ought to read Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A story of greed, terror and heroism or at least see the film based on the account. On the causes of World War 1, Graham Darby's text is short and all the extra you will need.

Unit 2 1914-1921

The first two chapters of Hobsbawm's Age of Extremes 1914-1991 cover the topics of war and revolution and provide you with the outstanding text of 20th century world history. For its thematic approach and the fact that he taught me, I also recommend Clive Ponting's Pimlico History of the Twentieth Century.