INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE
(for the examinations 2003 onwards)
HISTORY, Higher level.
Nature of the Subject:
The core of the Higher level course is the study of Europe (including Russia) since 1750. Emphasis is placed on the political, social, economic and intellectual forces which have shaped the continent we know today. However, we are concerned that students should not develop a Eurocentric view of the world, so considerable attention is paid to the world outside Europe.
This course is designed to give students a thorough knowledge of the main themes in the development of Modern History in Europe and the World. In the 20th Century, we concentrate on three topics: "Causes, Practices and effects of War", "The Rise and Rule of Authoritarian states" and "The Cold War".
Students are expected to use a wide variety of sources in their study of the History. A wide reading programme is essential and familiarity with primary sources is encouraged. The aim is to become familiar with the widest variety of interpretations possible and we encourage a critical attitude towards the works read and the interpretations advanced for particular issues.
Assessment
External Assessment 80%
Written Papers (5 hours)
Paper 1: 1 hr (20%). A document-based paper set on prescribed subjects drawn from the twentieth century world history topics
Three Topics on the 20th Century World History. For 2003 examination sessions, the topics are; "The USSR under Stalin, 1924 to 1941.", "China: domestic developments, 1946 to 1964.", "The Cold War 1960 to 1979."
We are going to concentrate on the first topic mentioned above. The prescribed subject covers; Developments under Stalin's dictatorship up to the German invasion of the USSR during the second World war. It could take into account social, economic and political developments within the USSR as well as foreign relations.
Four questions based on given documents, one of the documents is a non-written document. Candidates are required to answer all four questions from one section.
Five minutes readingtime included.
Paper 2: 1 ½ hrs (25%). An essay paper based on the twentieth century world history topics.
Choice of TWO essays from 6 topics (5 questions on each topic) on 20th Century World History. The questions chosen has to be from different topics.
Knowledge of the topics beyond 1995 in not required.
-Two open questions - candidates may use their own examples.
-Two specific questions - naming either people or events.
-One question - addressing social, cultural, economic or gender issues.
One or two questions in each section will require examples of two different regions. When the word "region" is used in a question it refers to one of the five regional options (Africa, East and South East Asia and Oceania, Europe (including Russia/USSR), South Asia and the Middle East (including North Africa)).
Paper 3: 2½ hrs (35%). Choice of THREE essays from 25 titles on European History from 1750 to the late 20th Century. The syllabus is divided into 22 sections, and one question will be set on each of these 22 sections. The remaining three questions are "cross-overs".
Only proper names or events which are included in the syllabus will be used in the questions.
Internal Assessment
Historical investigation (20%): This is an integral part of the history course and it is compulsory for both higher level and standard level candidates. It enables the candidates to demonstrate the application of their skills and knowledge in history and to pursue their personal interests without the time constraints associated with written examinations.Students choose their subject in conjunktion with the tutor. One general topic is chosen and all candidates prepare a choicen question from the general topic.Internally assessed by the teacher and externally moderated.
The historical investigation is a problem-solving activity which enables candidates to demonstrate the application of their skills and knowledge to an area which interests them. The emphasis is on a specific historical enquiry tied to classroom activities that develop and apply the skills of a historian, that is, making sense of source material and managing conflicting interpretations. The activity calls for candidates to search for, select, evaluate and use evidence to make a decision or solve a problem. The investigation is not a major piece of research-candidates are only expected to evaluate two important sources which have arisen from a particular issue; nor should it be written up as an essay. It have to consist of the following four sections;
a. plan of the investigation
b. findings of the investigation
c. evaluation of two sources
d. analysis and conclusion
The written account should be 1700-2000 words for HL and 1200-1500 for SL.
PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE FOR 2003-2005
AUTUMN -03
Introduction of the course.
Planning of the course.
Discussions on the question, What is History?
How to write an essay.
19:th Century World History;
The dramatic and explosive changes of the World during this Century.
Nationalism
The end of the Napoleonic era and the Vienna Congress
The years of 1815, 1830 and 1848.
The unification of Italy and Germany.
The First World War;
The development from 1870 onwards to the outbreak of "The Great War". Examening the years 1870-1914 from different point of views (from the policies of the statesmen to the thoughts of the people, from the consequenses of the industrial development to the ideological changes).
The First World War (from the "Great" war to the dramatic catastrophy)
End of term exam
SPRING -04
Russia from the late 19:th century
The Russian revolution
The Russian Civil War and the struggle of power
Stalin
The Historical Investigation
The World re-made. The peacetreaties and especially Europe after the war. The germ to the next Worldcatastophy?
The World between 1920-45:
Examening different nations with an emphasis on Germany.
The diplomatic scene and international policies.
Economic and social development of the World (different and common features).
Mussolini's Italy
Hitler's Germany
The causes of the second World War to its outbreak in Europe.
The League of Nations and the struggle for Peace.
Japanese aggression and expansionism.
The second World War.
End of Year exam.
AUTUMN -04
East/West relations after 1945.
The Cold War, 1945-50. The Korean War. The Frigid Fifties. The 1960s - Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam (1945-73). Detente in the 1970s. The New Cold War and developments in the 1980s. China 1928-85. The breaking up of the Eastern Block.
End of term exam.
SPRING –05
The third World, decolonisation
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Satellite states
Reviewing the course.
Mockexam
Final exam.
During the course all students write shorter and longer essays. The essays are presented by the student to the class.
As a general rule the sudents have to prepare themselves for every lesson by reading on the topic which is dealt with. If suitable litterature isn't available the teacher will provide the sudents with material.
EVALUATION OF THE HISTORYPROGRAMME BY THE LAST GROUP;
-Long-term planning from the beginning of the first year to give an overview of the topics that will be covered during the two years - a comprehensive course plan.
-distributing the time spent more rationally, e.g. less about Weimar, more about the Cold War.
-Chronological order of events! (somewhat), especially HL.
-more regular assignments, e.g. week 2 oral presentation, week 4 essay. To give a routine (and make us work).
-tell us before what the lessons will be about to give us an opportunity to prepare.
-don't expect us to know too much or work without being forced to.
-no discussions without preparation!
WHAT IS HISTORY?
1. The discipline which studies the past.
-the analysis or description of the past.
-the notion of human activity during history (causes -consequences)
2. Events in the past, object to historical research.
-man is the object, therefore the historian is forced to extreme criticism.(You have to examine the motives and background of a certain text or source).
2.1. Every answer to the question "WHY" is in history an interpretation, generalization or a consolidation of different information. The historian's attempt to reconstruct and interpret the past, not the past itself. Predjudice!
3. History is the story of mankind.
Even when historians write about a natural process (climate, diseases) they do so only to understand why and how men and women have lived.
What is unique about the human species is not its possession of certain faculties or physical characteristics, but what it has done with them - its achievments, or history in fact.
4. History is a serious discipline with a rigorous methodology but it involves a high degree of interpretive and creativ imagination.
5. E.H. Carr: "a dialogue between the present and the past". In reconstructing and interpreting the past the historian is always influenced by the attitudes and prejudices of the age and society in which he lives.
A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT VIEW:
Many different kinds of history exists; History isn't about learning a lot of what have happened in the past or to understand cause-consequence-chains as someone have interpreted them to us. History is also to penetrate a world of prospects where one can get associations and ideas and thoughts which one is able to use in one's life.
History is also something we can not avoid, it's
something we continuosly experience and learn us. We collect a capital of history through our impressions. Fragments which imprint our view of the past, the present and the future but also our attitude towards blurred moralconcepts as wrong or right (evil-good).
JUSTIFICATIONS FOR THE STUDY OF HISTORY
What is the use of history?
Try to imagine what it would be like living in a society where there was no knowledge at all of history (G. Orwell; 1984). History is to community, as memory is to the individual. It's a question of identity. It also help us to orientate ourselves. Thanks to our knowledge of history we find that instead of being totally adrift on the endless and featureless (formlös, intresselös) sea of time, we do have some idea of where we are, and of who we are.
The social importance of history is brought out by the way in which we are constantly coming up against history.
WHEN DOES HISTORY BEGIN?
It's the one subject where you can not begin at the beginning. We can trace the chain of human descent back to the appearence of vertrebates (ryggradsdjur), or even to the photosynthetic cells. We can go even further, even to the origins of the universe. Yet this is not history. The historian is interested (or history appears) when MAN comes on the scene (just when exactly that was, is a matter of dispute.
ON HISTORY
George Orwell "Who controls the past controls the present" (1984)
History, or the image of the past has very much to do with power. The ones who has the power in the society usually also are the ones who "produces" history. A question of manipulating people into a certain view.
Certain values and views are emphazised. There is always somekind of objective behind this. Why do some events appear in the historybooks while others are valued as less important. In a totalitarian society this is quite obvious. A certain historical view has a clear purpose: to legalize and strengthen the rule of the totalitarian state. "Producing" history is a generally used method - falsification of facts. Could you mention any examples?
Generally, at least in the so called "democratic" countries, one assumes that one is presented with more objective history. Of course one seldom runs into examples of clear falsification but especially when dealing with modern history the presentations (or the history presented) are more or less biased. In more traditional cases it's the interpretation of the victors which is presented as "history". Just to mention one example from Finland; The history of our civilwar (1918).
This is of course traumatic and can result in a national historical trauma (something I will return to later) but usually it's dealt with when enough time has passed (In Finland this process began in the 1960's and during the 1990's the national historical trauma of the civil war is definetly accepted and dealt with).
I have mentioned Orwell (and his warnings) a couple of times but alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD.
In Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared thiose who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture.
While people are very well aware of the Orwellian warnings they tend to forget Huxley's visions.
Especially in the Western World (which in many cases is looked up to as some kind of model example) this is a definitive threat which also includes manipulating history to serve a certain purpose. The war in the Persian Gulf was one clear example of how people were served enrmous amounts of information without revealing what really happened. The war was presented as entertainment, a computergame-soapopera. Which were the objectives behind this?
An other way to manipulate history is to emhazise a certain event and at the same time forget an otherone. Noam Chomsky, an american professor in linguistqs has turned his attention to this feature. I will show you a short example of the American presentation of the genocides in Cambodia and East-Timor which took place approximately the same time. But while the Worldopinion was focused on what happened in Cambodia there was an almost complete silence about the terrible development on East-Timor. The reason why I think this is an good example of how history is produced is the fact that when historians creat history they use all avaible sourcematerial and the more sources they can get (the more a certain episode has been covered) the bigger is the chance that this event is valued as "important". How do you think the historian chooses what to include and what to exclude when he is writing for example a schoolbook in history?
Chomsky, who isn't actually working with the past but with the present, is talking about THE MANUFACTURE OF CONSENT - A technic to control the people to serve the purposes of the ruling class. When you can't control people with force you have to control what they think.
According to Chomsky it's, what he call the elitémedia which does this while they are the agendasetting media - the major televisionchannels and newspapers. They set the framework and local media adopt to their structure.
They do this in many ways;
-by selection of topics
-by distribution of concerns
-by emphasizm
-by framing the issues
-by filtering the information
The elitémedia determent, select, shape, control and restrict in order to serve the interest of dominant elitégroups of the society.
They produce a perception of the World.
I could examplify Chomsky's point by one example from the mid-70's.
If we study our historybooks of today (eventhough we are dealing with events which are not more than 20 years away) I'm quite convinced that we can find quite a lot on the atrocitys which the Khmer Rouge are responsible for while I think we would find it difficult to find anything on what happened on East-Timor the same time.
NATIONAL HISTORICAL TRAUMA
When a nation, or parts of the population in it, is suffering from a trauma the reason can usually be found in the past and how the history have been presented.
To understand this I think one could compare it with an individual trauma.
A trauma appears when you have experienced something terrible but you can't deal with it. The only way to cure yourself is to try to find out what happened in the past and deal with it.
When talking about a nation we are dealing with a historical trauma when something terrible have occured (civil war, war) but the people isn't allowed to find out what exactly happened. The only cure is to try to find the truth and in this case historical research is of great importance.
In this process one should aim at revealing the truth which requires sincerity and an openminded attitude.
Finally one can conclude that the written history, or the interpretations on what have happened is changed by time.
The historical view, or presentation, is usually becoming more objective as time goes by. The victors story turns into history.
Assignment: Examine a historical event (any) from two different point of views and present; a. the differences and possible explanations to them. b. Your personal judgement of the sources used. Which of them is more accurate or reliable?
HISTORICAL RESEARCH