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.

Hope everyone is enjoying their time off, and doing all their history homework/revision, after all what could be more important?

As you can see we've undergone an appearance change; we now have the rather unorthodox combination of the bayeux tapestry and the colour orange. So just a heads up that your thoughts on the changes would be much appreciated.