Mordern History
Unit 1: Change and Conflict

In Unit 1, students examine life between the wars through two areas of study: Ideology and Conflict, and Social and Cultural Change.
In AoS1, students focus on the events, ideologies, individuals and movements of the period that led to the end of empires and the emergence of new nation states before and after World War One; the consequences of World War One; the emergence of conflict; and the causes of World War Two. They investigate the impact of the treaties which ended the Great War and which redrew the maps of Europe and its colonies, breaking up the former empires of the defeated nations, such as the partitioning of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. They consider the aims, achievements and limitations of the League of Nations.
In AoS2, students focus on the social life and cultural expression in the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, and their relation to the technological, political and economic changes of the period. Students explore particular forms of cultural expression from the period. We will look at things like the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and the impact of the rise of Nazism in Germany.

Unit 2: The changing world order

In Unit 2, students will explore the nature and impact of the Cold War and the challenges and changes to existing political, economic and social arrangements in the second half of the twentieth century. This will be done through two areas of study: Causes, Course and Consequences of the Cold War, and Challenge and Change.
Students explore the causes of the Cold War in the aftermath of World War Two. They investigate significant events and developments and the consequences for nations and people in the period 1945-1991. While the USA and the USSR never engaged in direct armed conflict, they opposed each other in a range of international conflicts such as those in Berlin, Korea, Cuba and Vietnam. They both tried to exert their influence through aid and propaganda in Africa, Asia and the Americas and engaged in an arms race and a space race, with competition also extending to sport and the arts. Students consider the reasons for the end of this long-running period of ideological conflict and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In the Challenge and Change area of study, students will focus on the ways in which traditional ideas, values and political systems were challenged and changed by individuals and groups in a range of contexts during the second half of the twentieth century and first decade of the twenty-first century. Students also consider the extent to which ideas, values and political systems remained the same and/or change was resisted. Students explore the causes of significant political and social events and movements, and their consequences for nations and people.

Unit 3 and 4: Revolutions

Revolutions are the great disjuncture of modern times and mark deliberate attempts at new directions. They share the common aim of breaking with the past by destroying the regimes and societies that engender them and embarking on a program of political and social transformation. As processes of dramatically accelerated social change, revolutions have a profound impact on the country in which they occur as well as important international repercussions.

Revolutions in history have been reconsidered and debated by historians. The study of a revolution should consider differing perspectives and the reasons why different groups have made different judgments of the history of the revolution.

At TC we study the Russian Revolution in Unit 3 and the Chinese Revolution in Unit 4, with both being examined at the end of the year. The focus of study for each revolution is broken into causes and consequences that are equally weighted for SACs and the exam.