Alpha history – Weimar Germany enrichment

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Mr Kydd

59c88Happy New Year all,

As you will soon be writing on Weimar Germany I thought that you might like to bookmark this page from Alpha history. It is really most useful as securing information, but there are plenty of hyperlinks to explore.

Mr Kydd.

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2014 in archaeology

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Mr Kydd

_79943716_458698126Happy New Year all.

Please click here for a super review of the year in archaeology from the BBC magazine webpage. As Dr Iles suggests “it’s been a fascinating year for ground-breaking archaeology around the globe, with cholera-stricken “vampires”, armour made of bone, and the invention of trousers. Here’s just a selection of what has made an impact this year…”

Enjoy…

Mr Kydd.

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Viewpoint: Why the shadow of the First World War and 1989 hangs over world events.

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Mr Kydd

_79742440_solidarityIf you click here then you can read an excellent article from Jeffrey Sachs on the BBC magazine website. In it he reflects “this has been a year of great geopolitical anniversaries. We are at the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One, an event that more than any other shaped world history during the past century. We are at the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the opening chapter of the demise of the Soviet empire and the end of the Cold War. Yet we know that painfully we observe something far more than a mere remembrance.

As William Faulkner remarked, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” World War One and the fall of the Wall continue to shape our most urgent realities today. The wars in Syria and Iraq are the legacy of the closure of WW1, and dramatic events in Ukraine are unfolding in the long shadow of 1989.”

I consider it an orginal and thought provoking article – have a look, and see what you think.

Mr Kydd.

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That training paragraph from today’s lesson.

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Mr Kydd

lessonAll,

Excellent feedback today – most pleasing. A huge thank you to Jade for typing up our training paragraph on the interpretations work that we did today. A colour coded version can be found here. I hope that it is helpful.

Mr Kydd.

 

 

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The best history books of 2014

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Mr Kydd

God's traitorsPlease click here for the Guardian’s review of the best history books of 2014. Hopefully there will be something that interests you (for when you get the Christmas book tokens).

God’s Traitors is described as follows;

Jessie Childs’s account of cloak-and-dagger intrigue in Tudor England, God’s Traitors: Terror & Faith in Elizabethan England (Bodley Head £25), conjures a John le Carré-like underworld of political double-dealing and “spiery” (as the Elizabethans called it). This was a time when moles were planted in Catholic seminaries and Elizabethan diplomacy created a looking-glass war in which priest was turned against priest, informant against informant. In crisp prose, Childs recreates a world of heroism and holiness in Tudor England.

Mr Kydd.

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Book Review – Joan of Arc: A History, by Helen Castor

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Mr Kydd

helen-castorIf you click here then you will be taken to the Times Higher Education review of the wonderful Helen Castor’s  Joan of Arc. In it, Rachel Moss praises “an elegant account that sets a charismatic Maid of Orleans in political context“. She concludes that “while this book offers a clear and elegant account of the broader political context of Joan’s life and also gives a sensitive reading of Joan as a determined, charismatic and vulnerable human being“.

I know what I want for Christmas…

Mr Kydd.

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Enrichment – Medieval city ‘detected’ by experts

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Mr Kydd

_79459147_79459146All,

If you click here then you will get to a BBC report explaining how archaeologists from the University of Southampton have built up a detailed plan of Old Sarum (Salisbury) using modern techniques. These included  “magnetometry, earth resistance, ground penetrating radar and electric resistivity tomography, which uses electrodes to probe underground”. No actual digging was undertaken.

As such, it fits in well with what we were talking about in history society yesterday. The past is not fixed, and technology is increasingly being used to develop our understanding.

Mr Kydd.

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Enrichment – places to visit over the holidays.

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Mr Kydd

gassedAll,

If you fancy a trip out over the holidays, then the following museum exhibitions have all had excellent reviews, and are well worth a visit.

 

Enjoy,

Mr Kydd.

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History Society – The fall of the Berlin Wall – turning points in history

Posted on November 29, 2014 by Mr Kydd

berlin-wall_2526447cYou may have seen in the news that this month saw the twenty fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. If you click here you will get a detailed account of the events of that day from the Daily Telegraph. If you click here you get a consideration of the perhaps bigger question from Slate magazine of  how this changed the world. In it, Fred Kaplan argues “if the Berlin Wall were still standing, it is hard to imagine that there would have been an Arab Spring or a thriving al-Qaida“.

We are going to use the Berlin Wall to discuss the idea of turning points in history in History Society next week, but for now, you might like to watch Brian Hanrahan reflect on his own report from November 1989.

Mr Kydd

 

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1900 map that includes north Africa.

Posted on November 28, 2014 by Mr Kydd

MorrocoAll,

As promised the map we were using last lesson. This is more useful than the text book ones because it reflect the collapse of the Ottoman Empire – thus showing how Morocco and the Balkans are two sides of the same problem.

You may like to note also,

  • Germany has no obvious interest in either theatre (another Bismarckian principle gone).
  • The logic of French interest in Morocco.
  • The chaos of Austro-Hungarian boarders in an age of nationalism.
  • The legitimacy of German fear of Russia and Einkreisungpolitik. 

Have a good weekend.

Mr Kydd.

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