Today’s presentation – Year Thirteen

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Mr Kydd

josef-stalin-009All,

A warm welcome back – it was lovely to see you all again today. If you click here then you will get to today’s presentation. It should be very useful in showing the skills and weightings of the papers at A2 standard.

Mr Kydd.

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Enrichment – DNA testing has for the first time confirmed the identity of the bacteria behind London’s Great Plague.

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Mr Kydd

paul_furst_der_doctor_schnabel_von_rom_hollander_versionIf you click here you will get to a BBC report on the causes of the 1665 plague outbreak. It states that;

“DNA testing has for the first time confirmed the identity of the bacteria behind London’s Great Plague.  The plague of 1665-1666 was the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in Britain, killing nearly a quarter of London’s population. It’s taken a year to confirm initial findings from a suspected Great Plague burial pit during excavation work on the Crossrail site at Liverpool Street. About 3,500 burials have been uncovered during excavation of the site. Testing in Germany confirmed the presence of DNA from the Yersinia pestisbacterium – the agent that causes bubonic plague – rather than another pathogen. Some authors have previously questioned the identity of pathogens behind historical outbreaks attributed to plague.”

This might not be as conclusive as it first seems however. Some diseases then were not as deadly as today. Smallpox, which Queen Elizabeth contracted in 1562,  for example was not the killer it later became. Thus, some historians accept that the dead had come into contact with the bubonic plague, but still argue that there was another killer.

If you  want to know more, then you might like to read Susan Scott’s “The return of the Black Death as a good starter.

Mr Kydd.

 

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Enrichment – something to watch – Understanding Stonehenge

Posted on August 16, 2016 by Mr Kydd

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Obituary – John Bossy

Posted on August 15, 2016 by Mr Kydd

f39ab74b-3176-4782-a28f-100f58736be3-1360x2040Year Twelve,

Apologies – this news passed me by at the time. You will come across John Bossy when you write on Elizabethan religion. He was very much an original thinker, and wrote beautifully. He died in December, and ‘s obituary in The Guardian can be found here.

An extract follows.

“Deftly bypassing traditional disputes between historians of the Catholic Reformation and Counter-Reformation, Bossy dug deeper to discern a profound shift from Christianity being conceived as a community of believers to its being understood in terms of rival confessions of belief. This he considered, controversially, to be a wholly negative development, leading to a diminished religious universe, in which Christianity no longer performed the social miracle of ritualised reconciliation, symbolised by the role of the kiss of peace at the Mass. Instead, there was a new stress on the distinction between the godly – represented by seminary-trained priests and dynamic missionaries spouting hell-fire sermons – and the majority, for whom printed catechisms reduced Christianity to what could be taught and learned.”

Mr Kydd.

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Enrichment – places to go

Posted on August 10, 2016 by Mr Kydd

If the video above interests you then you can visit the exhibition at The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford until the 25th September. Just £5 to you. I thought it was excellent, and please find a review from The Oxford Times here.

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Enrichment – Brexit and historians

Posted on July 23, 2016 by Mr Kydd

brexitSomething for your summer holidays.

If You click here then you will get to a History News network article which summarizes the reaction of different historians to the June vote. The strength of the article is that you can immediately contrast the views and approaches of fundamentally different thinkers.

These include;

  • Niall Ferguson
  • Andrews Roberts
  • Antony Beevor
  • Simon Shama
  • Mary Beard
  • Richard Overy

Have a read and see what you think.

Mr Kydd.

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“All the past repeats itself and acts only behind new masks”

Posted on June 29, 2016 by Mr Kydd

1870-map-full-forweb_0So said Birdiev – you will find out about him next year.

There is so much happening at the moment that lots of comparisons with events in the past can be drawn. However, Adam Green (in The Economist) seems particularly sharp. Click here to read his article on the 1870 French map which has Britain pictured as an old woman, “isolated and fuming with rage”, turning away decidedly from events on the mainland.

Mr Kydd

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Ten History Books I’d Love to See on Your UCAS Form

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Mr Kydd

martin-guerreIt is approaching personal statement time. If you click on the link at the bottom of the page you will get to an article by Jonathan Healey on what you might like to be reading in preparation.

A small extract follows…

“In schools up and down the country, budding young historians are just about to go on a quest: a quest for that perfect UCAS text. The history book you read and analyse in a couple of sentences that you hope will dazzle the admissions people at the university of your choice.

Unfortunately, most will choose terribly.

They will bore readers with the same old references to EH Carr, Richard Evans, David Starkey, and Niall Ferguson. Honestly, having read literally hundreds of these, I cry with joy whenever an applicant has read something a bit different.

Here, then, are some suggestions, for parents, teachers and students alike, to spice up those personal statements. Ten massively cool History books that are that little bit different, that little bit exciting, and that little bit radical and controversial. In interesting ways, and without the need to be a plonker on Newsnight.”

Ten History Books I’d Love to See on Your UCAS Form

Mr Kydd.

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History Today -why the Amada failed

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Mr Kydd

InvincibleArmadaYear Twelve,

If the click here you will get to Geoffrey Woodward’s 1988 article considering the reasons why the Armada failed.

He concludes “when the responsibility for the failure of the Spanish Armada is apportioned, the lion’s share of the blame should go neither to Parma nor to Medina Sidonia, but to Philip II. As Sir Walter Raleigh tersely put it somewhat later: ‘To invade by sea upon a perilous coast, being neither in possession of any port, nor succoured by any party, may better fit a prince presuming on his fortune than enriched with understanding’. The king had created the Armada, and in the end the king destroyed it.”

Have a read and see what you think.

Mr Kydd.

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Year Nine prep – reflecting on Auschwitz

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Mr Kydd

_80480260_80480259All,

Following on from today’s lesson, for prep I would like you to do the following.

  •  Explore the three BBC web pages below.

  This account of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz II-Birkenau (here).

The audio slideshow from the Auschwitz Museum explaining the problems of preserving the ageing and crumbling 191-hectare site, with limited funds (here).

Two experts on Auschwitz arguing for and against the idea that the former Nazi death camp should be allowed to crumble away (here)

  • Then post which view you agree with more (and why) below. One paragraph please.

Please note, for your post to appear, I will need to approve it – so don’t worry it is does not show up straight away.

You can of course discuss this with people at home.

Mr Kydd.

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