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History Pre-U

The History Pre-U course will further develop and extend the girls' abilities to interpret evidence, construct analytical arguments and to understand and make effective use of complex concepts. Students are encouraged to investigate key issues in much greater depth and to conduct extensive research. This is a very enriching programme of study with a range of exciting topics. The course is genuinely synoptic and cross-curricular. This allows meaningful connections to be established between all components of the course. This approach permits students to place societies, patterns of behaviour and belief systems under intense scrutiny and to challenge received wisdom.

The topics studied in the lower sixth focus on key issues in European and American history. These include:

Witchcraft and Magic.
The Role of Women in the later middle ages, ranging from the study the warrior mystic Joan of Arc to the poet and military theorist Christine de Pisan.
The early growth of the European Empires including the eruption of the Conquistadors into the Aztec and Inca civilisations.
Philip ll’s Spain and its relationship with Ottoman Turkey, France in the throes of religious civil war and the heretic powers, England and the Netherlands.
The position of Jews, mercenaries, heretics and lepers in early modern Europe.
The nature and origins of Slavery in America- we examine slave revolts and the emergence of the terrorist/liberator John Brown.
The origins and course of the American Civil War and the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln.
The American novel in the Nineteenth Century.
The Plains Indians and their struggle for survival.
The McCarthyite “witch hunts.”
Hollywood and the American Dream.

As a special subject we analyse the Crusades, including the roles of key individuals such as pope Urban ll, Peter the Hermit, Richard the Lionheart and Saladin but also underlying strategic, spiritual, political and economic forces.

Finally, all students undertake a personal investigation of any historical topic of their choice. This will promote independent learning but within a supportive environment.

History Pre-U

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