One action that marks the successful step up to an A2 historian is the ability to undertake effective independent reading. This website is designed to help you with this. The teacher schemes of work have advised reading for students from Oxley before you come to the lesson. Equally the further reading section of the site has a coded library guide and supporting fiction.
We understand however that this is not something that you have been required to do all that much to date. As such, we thought it might be a good idea if we posted what we are going to read over the summer to support our Russia teaching.
Mr Kydd ~
I like to read something academic and something from Russian literature. I have nocticed that recent themed question have increasingly asked students to compare Tsarist and Communist society. As such I will be reading Edward Acton’s chapter entitled “State and Society under Lenin and Stalin” in Themes In Modern European History. Acton is one of my favourite historians to read as he combines pace and orginality without being too fussy. I picked a general reader because I understand the topic but want to deepen the evidence I have to deploy when I teach. I also intend to read Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky because it gives a personal insight into living on the fringes of an autocratic society (and because I have never managed to finish Crime and Punishment)
I’m currently reading ’20 Letters to a Friend’ by Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin’s daughter. So far it’s fascinating, all the people we’ve studied as political figures become much more real when they’re discussed in a personal account of their families and their personalities. Haven’t got very far in yet, but after this I’m aiming to tackle ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ by Dostoyevsky. I enjoyed Crime and Punishment by him, although did find it hard work!
I’m reading ‘A Radical History of Britain’ by Edward Vallance. You can read a review here – here. I’m finding it interesting, and the bravery of people taking a stand that they thought likely would end with their own deaths is inspiring. I’ve just started the chapters that refer to the ideas behind the American Revolution, which I’m fascinated by. Fiction wise I just finished ‘A Sense of an Ending’, which was an amazing read. You can see a review here . I really enjoyed the idea that a simple, but thoughtless act committed years ago might cause one to rethink how our whole lives were spent when the results come back to haunt us later.