Sixth form historians - understanding modern Russia

Amazing programme on BBC4 yesterday about the anti-Putin protestors and feminist punk rock group Pussy Riot. If you are going to try and understand modern Russia, President Putin and attitudes to democracy its a pretty good place to start. Its available until 11th December.

NB. The programme below is only suitable for Y12 and Y13.

Storyville - BBC4 Pussy Riot programme

Debating drone strikes - what do you think?

In this month's Foreign Affairs magazine is a really good debate about the use and effectiveness of Drones, unmanned aircraft that have killed a number of suspected terrorists in the last few years.
See what you think:
http://www.foreignaffairs.com - why drones work
And the case against:
http://www.foreignaffairs.com - why drones fail

The Wave - calling all Y12 Historians

For Y12 Historians that have just watched The Wave (what a great film) and want to know more, there is a fabulous website about the films origins:
http://www.thewavehome.com/
Morton Rhue, an American novelist actually called Todd Strasser, wrote a novel based on the original 1969 experiment by the History teacher Ron Jones. Buy it from Amazon here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wave-Classroom-out-Control
And for those of you into German films based on psychological experiments, try this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Das-Experiment-DVD
And the other film I recommended on Friday:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Edukators-DVD

As part of the BBC's series: life and death in a Tudor court, I would recommend you watch The last days of Anne Boleyn (now available on iPlayer) and the equivalent show regarding Thomas Cromwell (BBC Two 9pm tonight). Both are designed to provide a fantastic insight into the events of the period and the differing historical interpretation

AS/A2 British history - amazing resource

http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk/sub_approach.php?sub_approach_id=12#article_anchor
The web link above goes to a great website on the Whigs and Liberals that has a great (free) archive of resources for all things Liberal. You can search it by period, so if you want Whig reforms from the 1830s, click on the Period tab and all the relevant resources for that flash up. You should never again have an excuse for a lack of historians debate in your essay.

His 2L Stalin revision materials

Year 12- as mentioned today the revision documents are available on the VLE for His2L- under the section titled (you've guessed it) AS History His2L. Apologies for the lack of a document for the chapter on Stalin, Stalinism and the cult of personality, but I took a rather laissez-faire attitude to that section; so to paraphrase Samuel Smiles "do it yourself". Other than that have fun revising and don't forget your historical interpretation (for both sides of the course).

Middle East history - the Syrian conflict

The Middle East, and specifically Syria, is very much in the news at the moment. It can only be understood by looking at its history, and we are fortunate that some great TV and radio programmes have been on recently to help us understand it.
The first is Dan Snow's History of Syria, going all the way back before the Romans before coming all the way up to the Assad dynasty and current conflict:
Dan Snow's History of Syria
The second was on Channel 4 this week, a shocking behind the scenes portrayal of what life is like in the current conflict from both sides:
C4 - Syria: Across the lines
In both programmes are references to Shia and Sunni Muslims. If you want to know more, and understand where the differences come from listen to this BBC podcast:
BBC In Our Time - Religion, Sunni and Shia Islam
Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and you will see the programme. You can download it to play later.
I hope the above both sparks your interest in this fascinating part of the world, and helps you to understand more of the current news coverage.