Applying to University

The Marxist interpretation of history: A brief introduction

A quick look at a school of history that sees past events in a particular way. This may be useful for those wanting to study history at university.

AJP Taylor: A brief overview

Johnny Isaac today gave our Oxbridge History group an excellent overview of AJP Taylor’s work and significance as an historian. I’ve uploaded his presentation below.

Many thanks Johnny.

View the presentation here.

Gavin Mortimer reveals the historical writer’s craft

Gavin Mortimer, the writer of bestselling books, visited our school last week and gave our Historians an insight into the life of the historical author. Gavin, who has published books on topics as diverse as the SAS, sporting heroes of the Great War and the race to be the first female to swim the channel, revealed the painstaking process behind the researching and writing of his tomes. For his book on the SAS he had to go through a lengthy and delicate approval process before the Regiment would give him permission to talk to their veterans. After this hurdle was negotiated it was a case of flying all over the world to interview former soldiers – many of whom had not told their story since the end of the Second World War.

Have politicians always ruined the work of soldiers? The Oxbridge Group write up

Many thanks to Gareth Thomas for writing this up…

This week’s session mainly focussed on the effect the involvement of politicians had on peace treaties. The main questions asked were:

What makes a lasting peace treaty?
Why have so many treaties in the past failed?
Is the failure of a peace treaty due to poor planning on behalf of the main players involved, i.e. politicians?
Why do politicians tend to ‘screw up’ when it comes to peace treaties?

The session started with a detailed look at Iraq. The group was dissolved into pairs whereupon each pair would compare/contrast/discuss, and produced five reasons why the current situation in Iraq can be classed as a failure.

Have politicians always destroyed the work of soldiers?

This morning we start our extra sessions for students in our school who are thinking about studying History at university. The classes are designed to broaden out pupils’ historical knowledge, understanding, their awareness of history as a discipline and to enable them to explore their own interests beyond the syllabus that we teach.

To start we’re going to look at how, over the last couple of hundred years, politicians have formalised the work of soldiers. After each major war there is nearly always a political settlement, in the form of a treaty. The question for our pupils is how far the politicians have made a settlement that has done justice to the work that the soldiers have done. Prior to the session we’ve asked the participants to research the following treaties:

Treaty of Utrecht, 1713
Treaty of Paris, 1763
Congress of Vienna, 1816
Treaty of Paris 1856
Treaty of Vereeniging, 1902
Treaty of Versailles, 1919
Yalta and Potsdam Conferences, 1945
The situation in Iraq today