world history essay titles

433 Brilliant World History Topics, Essay Prompts & Examples

Writing an essay on world history is one of the most interesting and engaging tasks a student can do. However, brainstorming these topics for your paper can prove to be a real challenge. There are so many ideas concerning the history of the whole world. Especially, when there are no limitations on the period and geography of your title.

So, what is the best solution?

Find thought-provoking and comprehensive world history topics carefully prepared for you by IvyPanda ! The article is aimed to help with discovering the best ideas for your essay. Plus, you’ll find out how to choose a perfect topic.

We divided the list into four main sections. There are sections for essay questions, term paper, thesis, and research ideas. We’ll also explain how to start your world history paper and list various essay prompts.

☀️ What Are Some Good World History Topics?

💡 Most Interesting World History Topics to Write about

👍 good essay topics on world history, 🏆 best world history topic ideas & essay examples, ✅ simple & easy world history essay titles, 📑 good research topics about world history, 📌 interesting topics to write about world history, 😎 how to start a world history paper.

✍️ Essay Questions
🧐 Research Paper Topics
✒️ Term Paper Topics
📖 Thesis Topics

⭐ World History Essay Prompts

❓ world history essay questions, 🌞 what are some good world history topics.

Choosing your perfect world history topic is a fascinating process. When choosing the best topic you must take into account several pieces of advice:

1. The topic must correspond with the goal of your work.

The title is dependent on the required format. Basically, your assignment determines how you’re going to write and how your topic should look like.

Essay formats demonstrate it best:

The argumentative essay differs from an opinion essay by the number of necessary viewpoints. In an opinion essay, the author gives their own opinion about a historical event or persona. In an argumentative one, it is vital to list several opinions on the subject.

Cause and effect essays contain an explanation of the event itself and its historical consequences. Persuasive essays should create an impression on the reader. Compare and contrast works should analyze and contrast historical events, figures, eras, etc.

Tip for essay writing regardless of the essay type.

Topics for your research paper must be specific to research one subject. Also, it should be possible to divide your paper into logical sections. Titles for term papers and theses must contain themes and periods familiar, engaging to a student. Plus, they should correlate with the format of your educational facility.

2. Topics must be logical and coherent.

When discussing history, there should be no inconsistencies. Always re-read and proofread your works before submitting them.

3. Your topic can be unusual if it’s justified.

If your idea isn’t standard, this can be an advantage to your paper. You may look at a historical event from a different point of view or find something unexplored before.

Advantages & Disadvatages of Biography or Memoir as a Source Memoirs have subsequently been used in recording of past accounts as Fowale points out.[1] Memoirs express the truth in history due to the fact that they are primary sources of evidence and as such the […]
The History of Cars The next natural thing that the inventors of the wheel did was to design the axle so that it could fit into the hole made in the centre of the wooden wheel.
Compare and Contrast the Totalitarian Regimes of Germany and the Soviet Union The two regimes had one political party that normally suppressed all the others claiming to represent the interest of the vast majority of their population.
Technology and Innovation: Western Civilization History The people living in the Western world were stuck in the innovation and technology that was available in the Medieval Age.
Criteria of Significance in History Studies In order to appreciate and contextualize the importance of the past, it is crucial to consider how deeply people were affected by an event.
World History: Is Competition Good? Proponents of competition assert that throughout history, the growth and development of human societies has always been a factor of competition.
Overview of the Scientific Revolution Periods The supporters of humanistic theory agree with the ideas of great influence of people on the development of science. The emergence of the Western culture has given rise to the development of new directions of […]
A History of Romantic Love The paper examines the history of love starting from the ancient times then to the medieval chivalry and finally the contemporary period.
The Comparison of the Roman and the U.S. Senate First of all, one should mention that the institutions have to be responsible for limiting the power of political leaders. This is one of the tasks that the Roman Senate had to cope with.
Marriage and Adultery Laws of Emperor Augustus The laws were enacted to deal with marriage avoidance, the preference for childless unions, marriage of lower class women by the Roman elite, and adultery, all of which threatened the continuity of the Roman aristocracy.
Imperialism in India By 1858, the British regained control and immediately passed the Government of India Act, which allowed the British Crown administrators to run the country instead of the British East India Company.
History: Cultural Exchanges in the Medieval Period Based on an appreciation of the contribution of international trade to the growth and development of the medieval world, this paper explores the role of spice, salt, sugar, and silk as important trade commodities of […]
Historical Methodologies This approach sets to highlight the economic history of the society by examining the modes of production used in the society through time.
Nationalism in the Ottoman Empire The battle of Nicopolis also saw the empire expand into other regions of the European continent but later, other conquests such as the battle of Ankara, the conquest of Constantinople and the invasion of Otranto […]
Technological Change in the Industrial Revolution Just to sample the impact technological changes had on the general demographical patterns of England and Wales, a technological invention to improve the smelting of Coke saw the shift in population growth from the South […]
The Process of Production The hit of the industrial revolution in Europe and America in the 18th century led to a lot of changes and advancement in the production industry.
The Survival of the Sotho Under Moshoeshoe The survival of this group of people is attributed to the strong leadership of their king Moshoeshoe the Great that was necessitated by frequent cattle raids.
History: Role of Knowing the Past The present is a myriad of events in the past. As a historian, the study of these preserved artifacts is important in knowing about the past.
Money and Its Value Throughout the World History What is important is the value that people place on whatever unit they refer to as amoney.’ Money acts as a medium of exchange and an element of measurement of the value of goods and […]
Historical Facts of Australia Among those events that Australia considers most important politically, economically as well as socially are the establishment of the colony of New South Wales, the Victorian Gold Rushes, the Federation in 1901 and the Second […]
Reflecting the Horrors of War People learn more about the horrors of war through literature but do not infer from experience they gain; the only way they apply the knowledge about the war is the development of more sophisticated weapon […]
The Industrialization Era Aspects such as gender and race were rarely used to group people because a large proportion of the population was focused on taking advantage of industrialization.
Communism and Capitalism Through the History In this system, the means of product and service production is mainly carried out and owned by the individuals instead of the government while communism also known as fascism is contrary to this where production […]
Has Nationalism Been a Unifying or Divisive Force During the 19th and 20th Centuries? It can therefore be said that colonial rule gave rise to the two forces of unifying nationalism and divisive tribalism and that the appropriate and legitimate framework for decolonization was nationalism, which emanated from the […]
Concept of Studying History The use of calendars, dating events, and dividing history into different periods are the major tools used in the study of the past occurrences which help explain the present and foresee the future. A good […]
East Versus West The East usually refers to Asia and the Middle East while the West usually refers to Europe and the American continents. The East views the West with contempt in terms of how the Orient values […]
Modernism, Modernization and Modernity in Australia, 1919-1939 The figure of the ‘flapper’ and her mode of dressing initiated Australians quest for pleasure and changes in moral and social values and attitudes.
Historical Primary Sources: Discussing and Comparing The charters and fueros, as well as the Digger Pamphlet, proves that the relations between poor and rich people had their own peculiarities and principles in different centuries and defined the quality of life according […]
How Did the Cold War Order of the Asia-Pacific Differ From That of Europe? The primary difference in the cold war order of the Asia-Pacific and that of Europe was instigated by the reason for security arrangements between the two regions.
The History of Catapults Technology Before 1850 Most of the other literatures detailing the use of the catapult claim that the inspiration came from the bow and sling, which is well known to be a popular weapon in the ancient times.
Great Women Artists in the World History The first overreaching cause of the absence of great female artist throughout history was the subjugated position of women as a gender in the majority of societies.
The History of the Silk Road Islamization Muslims used the word ‘Islam’ to mean the submission of a community to the authority of another community; it did not mean the spread of their beliefs.
World History: The Roman Empire Understanding the document first requires one to understand the historical background of the Roman Empire: the formation of the Republic and its collapse.
Role of Cricket in Australia During the 1930s In spite of the evolution of a uniquely Australian cricket in the country, the mark of imperialism and Anglo dominance remained.
Purposes of Historical Reenacting One must be very enthusiastic about this course and must reflect on the past and be seen to be happy since a re-enactor gets to immerse himself in the deep world of the past, learn […]
Narragansett Indians Act of Submission 1644 The details of the act submission entail declaration of their loyalty to the King and offer their lives to the majesty.
The Cuban Missile Crisis: The Causes and Effects The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 in which the Soviet Union, Cuba, and the United States were involved was the turning point of the states’ confrontation in the Cold War because of risks to develop […]
Impacts of Slavery and Slave Trade in Africa Slavery existed in the African continent in form of indentured servitude in the previous years, but Atlantic slave trade changed the system, as people were captured by force through raids before being sold to other […]
World History: “Empire: A Very Short Introduction” by Stephen Howe It is irrefutable that the first chapter of the book is a vivid discussion of ancient territories and their influence in the development of modern empires.
Seven Weeks’ War Through the Lens of Clausewitz’s Paradoxical Trinity Concept Bismarck considered Austria as a potential ally and there were no need to waste combat power when the object was to neutralize the force of Austria, which followed the principles of Clausewitz’s paradoxical trinity exactly, […]
Short-Term and Long-Term Consequences of Removals for the Indigenous Children The authors make accents on the formal aspects of women’s socio-political organizations in Australia and connect their development with the progress of social movements associated with the problem of human rights in Australia from the […]
The Early Modern Age and Today’s World The activities of this era resulted in the interaction of people from different backgrounds and linked most parts of the world together.
Australian Law and Native Title In particular, the Native Title became a custom will and at the same time, traditional law in order to bring equality and justice before the law.
History of the European Union The signing of the Lisbon Treaty on December 13, 2009, transformed the structure of the European Community, which was subsequently renamed the European Union.
Meaning of History The main idea of the paper is to consider different points of view and various attitudes to the history meaning. Greek approach is one of the perspectives of the history.
The Second Industrial Revolution and Its Social Consequence In as much as there was a lot of changes in terms of the institutions that were present; together with the environmental conditions surrounding the changes, the economic play was so relevant and of great […]
Industrial Revolution Significance The Industrial Revolution started in 1760, while the French revolution started in 1789 and ended in 1799. The Industrial Revolution was established in England in 1760 and lasted until the late 1840s.
Moral Treatment of the Mental Illness Before the 19th Century confinement and use of mechanical restraints was prevalent mode of treatment for the patients who were mentally ill in many parts of the world.
Schelling and Kahn on the Deterrence Power Schelling proposed that the power of deterrence in the nuclear age is pegged not only on the equality or balance of the nuclear-possessing countries, but on the “stability of the balance”.
Plantation and Settler Colonies The British pressed the resident Americans out of their way to establish the settler and plantation colonies. In settler colonies, the safety and productiveness of women was crucial to the colonial practice.
World History: Globalization in the 1970s-2000s The period of the 1970s 2000s is the most vivid for understanding the impact of the process of globalization and changes in the world order.
Postcolonialism and Diaspora in the World History Colonialism is the political ideology that legalizes the invasion, occupation, and exploitation of a given land by stronger states which use their military powers thus displacing the powers of the original inhabitants of the land.
Protestant Reformation and Enlightenment Certain ceremonies that demonstrated customary practices such as baptism and sacraments were abolished by the reformed churches, and this affected the lives of the people because the initial rituals used to shape the social lives […]
History of Modern South Africa Began With the Discovery of Diamonds and Gold Evidently the perception of South Africa as an overseas investment saw the exclusion of the locals in the participation of the mining business.
Influence of Japanese Culture in Hawaii From the census, it is clear that the culture and the cuisine Hawaii, which are known today, were created by the history of the migration of Japanese to Hawaii when they settled there to work […]
The Industrial Revolution and Beyond: Culture, Work, and Social Change The Industrial Revolution is the era of massive enormous technological advancements and social changes, which affected people to the extent which is often contrasted to the change from hunter and gathering to agriculture.
Revolution in Physics and Chemistry The urge to carry out a series of experiments and research led to the initiation and the ultimate breakthrough of chemical and physical revolution by ancient scientists.
Post-Cold War Challenges At the time when strained relations between the US and the Soviet Union ended, the financial systems of several countries, particularly those in Eastern Europe, were in the process of collapsing.
The Beginning of Modern World Based on Science and Technology The utilities enjoyed in the modern world such as cell phones, computers and the internet can be credited to the work of scholars such as Charles Babbage, who was the first to conceive the idea […]
Enlightenment and Revolution: Europe, America, and India The main goals of enlightenment period were to gain freedom in all aspects of life like religion and government. They were based on the liberty and equality principles or else the rule of the people.
Patrick Manning’s Navigating World History Book In his book Navigating World History, Patrick Manning defines world history as a field of study that seeks to understand the connections and interactions between different regions and societies throughout human history.
Science and Technology in World History It was the beginning of a new way of thinking about the world and the universe and provided a framework for further advances in science and technology.
November 25th as a Day in the World History In addition to that, November 25, 1963, was the day of the state funeral of John F. It was the day of an attempt to set New York on fire, the day of the world […]
The Great Wall Street Crash in the World History The 1929 stock market crash was a breakdown of stock prices that led to the worst economic declines in the United States. One of the causes of the event was the speculation on the stock […]
Chapters 9-10 of Women in World History by Hughes Women were in charge of domestic chores and the planning and coordination of family gatherings. Dalit women were among the poorest in India, with a high percentage of illiteracy.
Chapters 3-4 of Women in World History by Hughes In this chapter of the book Women in World History, the Mughal rule and its consequences for women in conquered lands are discussed.
Chapter 1-2 of Women in World History by Hughes In addition, the Chinese government restricted the position of widows since they were forced either to live in the household of their late husband and take care of the family or to remarry, leaving all […]
England’s Colonies. World History Issues The English government established the so-called Virginia Company that was invested by the king and investors, but the company failed, and the colonies found themselves under the rule of the English government.
Importance of the Economic System to the World History The economic system is the essential structure in which the world functions. Economic socialism is where limited ownership of the means of production and a system of prices, losses, and profits are not used as […]
Themes in U.S. & World History The need for the African Americans to be treated like lawful United States citizens has been noted in the years preceding the slave trade.
World History From 1800 to Present The convergence of people from different parts of the world at the Atlantic basin, which acted as a global cultural and intellectual exchange centre, led to a wealth of knowledge1. The main causative factor for […]
World History: Gunpowder Technology Its adoption in Europe marked a significant milestone in terms of state development, as the use of gunpowder technology catalyzed the emergence of centralized states and the abolition of feudalism.
Empires in World History: How Empires Kept Their Ethnically Disparate and Geographically Distant Populations Under Control The article’s relevance is in its descriptions of the various rebellions in the empire and the methods used to suppress and prevent them.
Industrial Revolution World History: Factors That Helped to Develop the Industrial Revolution Currently, in the 21st century, the vast majority of the world population no longer needs to think of how to produce enough rice to survive the winter.
World History in The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx Communism is the political and economic teaching which goal is to abolish private property and a profit-based economy and introduce public ownership and communal control of the resources instead.
World History of 1890-1990 in Artifacts In the author’s eyes, every addition that man makes to the regulation of his environment to harness better productivity out of the environment brings certain implications with it that cannot be ignored and these implications […]
Islamic World History: Ottoman Empire & Qajar Iran In ancient times, leadership in some regions of the world was in the form of Empires and kingdoms that were ruled by Kings and queens.
Empires’ Success in Ancient World History They include The Roman empire, the Persian empire, Indian empire and the Parthian empire, there are also a lot of other empires that were also formed. The British empire was also able to withstand a […]
Early World History: Learning From Various Sources It is clear to everyone that the world had a long and complex way of transformation before it became similar to the world we live in now.
Events in the 1910s and Their Effect on the World History The most significant of these events was the sinking of the Lusitania after an attack by German U-boats, the Zimmerman telegraph that added insult to the injury caused to the U.S.by the sinking of the […]
Essential World History by Duiker & Spielvogel One of the greatest legacies of Greek civilization is their contribution to the development of arts and sciences. Christianity and its pacifism are also said to have killed the militantism of the Romans.
Historical Event: Hitler in the World History Taking into consideration the fact that the World War II and its appalling events are still remembered and feared of, I would really want to interfere with nature and erase from the history the day […]
Ideas of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao in World History To begin with, it is necessary to mention, that the Ideas of Lenin Stalin, and Mao have the same origin Marxism and the essence of communism stated in the communist manifesto by Marx.
French Revolution in World History The French revolution, in this part of the world at least, was the inspiration for all subsequent uprisings and revolts throughout Europe in the nineteenth century and its ideals, in part, are visible in many […]
Air Pollution and Its World History From the times of industrial revolution, smoke pollution was a concern and continues to be one with vehicles and industries replacing coal and wood.
Contributions of the Barbarians to Modern World History E, Charlemagne the Frankish King, Charles Martel of the Kingdom of Austrasia hailed for the Battle of Tours and many others.
World History to 1500: Civilizations and Monuments By the instant of the early era of the dynastic history of Egypt, individuals with adequate resources were hidden in mastabas which were in the form of bench structures.
Make-Up Throughout the World History In the Fiftiesweb website, the basis of any fifties make-up look is “peaches and cream complexion”. Make-up became more bold and daring in the 1960s.
Modern World History: Why Tsar Alexander II Great Man The reforms that Alexander II has carried out during the years of his reign allow him to be ranked as one of the great makers of modern Russia.”If the effect of Alexander’s reign is to […]
The Act of Torture in World History: Physical and Mental The concept and ethicality in terms of justifying torture are of crucial importance, especially nowadays in the light of the recent events regarding the terrorist attacks in the United States and in the United Kingdom.
Warfare and Culture in the World History For example, the impact of the war in literature is reflected through a method that authors choose to portray the events.
Power Acquisition and Balance: Modern World History In contrast to the ideas of Communism, Marxism stressed the victory of capitalism over feudalism and emphasized its role in the development of the economy.
Ecological Imperialism in World History Therefore, the impact of the conquest of America is that it led to the introduction of new diseases to different countries.
Voyages in World History Away from the impeccable works of art that characterize the palace, the palace also reveals the cultural and political aspects of the empire.
Ottoman Empire in World History The main reason for this is the fact that Britain had stakes in India, Egypt, and the Mediterranean all of which were under significant impact from the Ottoman Empire. The stability of the empire was […]
World History From the 20th to the 21st Century The ideology presupposed the elimination of the institution of the market as it had led, according to Marx, to the erosion of society and its segregation.
Western Dominance Decline in World History The Western civilization has clearly left a mark on the evolution of the humankind, spawning the changes of a tremendous scale in all domains of life, including the cultural, the political, the economic, and the […]
Money Development and Its Stages in World History Being the most powerful state in the world, the USSR did not manage to get rid of money, using labor as a currency and the authoritarian power to make people work.
Educational Material on World History The high school world history curriculum designed by Georgia Department of Education for the World History course of the state of Georgia is targeted at providing students with a comprehensive overview and study of the […]
World History in the Songs The high emphatic accent is made by the author through the description of murdering children of the miners. Through this song, the author reveals the absence of legal rights of the employees at the time […]
New Imperialism’ Role in the World History On balance, it is possible to note that the new imperialism was concerned with the desire to get access to resources and new markets.
Mi’kmaq and Saudi Arabia’s Native Communities The history of the Mi’kmaq communities explains how they were created by Glooscap. The Mi’kmaq communities were also spiritual.
Waitangi Treaty History: Intentions, Expected and Results Signed on February, 6, in 1840, it was supposed to signify the recognition of the rights of the M ori people to own the land of New Zealand, as well as the acceptance of Europe […]
Understanding the Events Participants’ Values However, despite the obvious significance of the family background and the specifics of personality, the analysis of historical background is crucial for understanding the values and moral principles of the people, who organized the event […]
Colonial Period of Australia’s History Though colonial Australia is traditionally represented as the location for the European convicts to serve their sentence, whereas little light is shed on the conflict between the local people and the colonialists, the armed resistance […]
Communism Collapse in the USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was one of the earliest communist societies to embrace the ideologies of communism. The collapse of communism in the USSR began in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin […]
New York and Bombay History From 1500 to the XX Century 4 In the case of New York, it is early settlers who initiated a range of economic activities, mostly related to trade, but for Bombay, the main economic activity of early settlers was not trade, […]
“Traditions and Encounters” by J. Bentley Migrations of tribes and nations around the region led to the spreading of knowledge in the spheres of farming and metallurgy.
Ireland History and Development 8 million people live in the Republic of Ireland while the rest inhabit Northern part of Ireland and is part of the United Kingdom.
The Christian Commonwealth of Byzantium The success of the Roman Empire’s eastern half depended on such aspects as the strategic geographical position of Constantinople as the capital city, the centralized authority based on the principle of caesaropapism, the power of […]
The Medieval and Renaissance Periods Description The medieval age lasted between the fifth and the fifteenth century in Europe and it started with the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Revolution in the Middle East In spite of the injustices experienced by the citizens in the Middle East, their leaders said that the countries were not similar to Tunisia.
History: Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site Under Authority records, you will find the document “The Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site” The Fortress of Louisbourg document like any other historical manuscript seeks to create an understanding of the events that led […]
History in “Empire: A Very Short Introduction” by Stephen Howe In the very beginning of his book, the author emphasizes that the influences and connections between the empires and the territories they colonized and owned in the past keep lasting decades and even centuries the […]
The Mayan Civilization History In the 17th century, the kingdom dubbed the Mayan society comprised of influential cities that covered both north of Honduras and south of Mexico.
History: French Operations in Algeria 1954-1962 Fig 1: Map of Algeria with Tunisia on its North East Border The intense and brutal campaign undertaken by French forces to counter the FLN network of terror contributed to the failure of France in […]
World History: Enlightenment in Society A new intellectual force was realized in the fields of literature, science, art, and music during the German enlightenment era. It is also crucial to mention that additional emphasis was laid in the study of […]
History: Evolution of the Scientific Revolution The onset of the scientific revolution is associated with Copernican technical inventions of 1543 and the discovery of motion science by Galileo.
“History and Topography of Ireland” by Gerald of Wales Gerald of Wales states that the beginning of the Irish history happened with the arrival of Cesara, the daughter of Noah, to the shores of that land.
History: The Imperial Succession Problem The establishment of the imperial family in Russia was promulgated by Emperor Paul I in the fundamental laws of the Russian Empire.
Nomadic Pastrolism History During the thirteenth century, Chinggis Khan forged the tribes of the Mongol into an alliance that builds the largest empire in the world.
Australia’s Transformation and Change Between 1850-1945 There was a great number of people who traveled to Australia in search of gold, and this led to an even greater increase in the population.
History: The French Declaration of 1789 The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen is regarded as the main document produced by the French Revolution.
History of the Indian Castes The aim of this essay is to describe the system of castes in India as well as to characterize the diversity of Indian society. In general, the caste system in India represents the stratified hierarchy […]
The Communism History: Red Scare and McCarthyism Facts The quote means that the world was afraid of a new World war to happen; this is why the most powerful states of the planet became very suspicious of each other.”The climate of fear and […]
Political Background of the Nagasaki Bombing On the other hand, Japan was ready to negotiate for peace with the Allies, but the country’s top administration was uncomfortable with the call for ‘unconditional surrender.’ This paper explores the political background of the […]
Money as an Emerging Market Phenomenon According to the principle of finance, money has a higher value in the present as opposed to the future because it can earn interest, which makes it worthwhile.
Ordinary People’s Involvement in Politics In addition, the receptive nature and openness attitude of the Mongols eased the Europeans exploration of the Asian region in the 15th century.
Muslims Increase and the Spread of Islam Also, the paper will highlight the reasons that have hampered the spread of Islam in the US and in the modern world.
The Significance of Scientific Revolution in Our History People used religion to explain the happenings of and within the universe by viewing the universe as godly beginning with nothing to do with scientific development.
Scientific Thought Through the History In France, Voltaire and colleagues struggled to enlighten the society that strongly held the culture of church and monarchy.d’Alembert, Montesquieu, and Pierre were some of the arebellious’ who supported Voltaire in the campaign for freedom […]
Concepts of the Penal Laws: The Popery Acts 1695-1756 Penal laws sought to continue the supremacy of the Church of England over Roman Catholics and nonconformist Protestants. Nevertheless, many Catholics in Ireland lost property and land at the expense of penal laws.
America and Britain Strategies The cultural, intellectual, and religious existence observed in most of the British colonies significantly changed from the fiscal 1700 to 1750.
Expeditions of Europeans Sailors to New Lands This chapter also reveals the impact of sailors and explorers and how their actions led to the exploitation of resources and the establishment of colonial administration in these territories.
Features of World Dominance in 1500 and 1800 Years During 1500-1800, religion influences the political situation, the development of social groups, the whole social situation within the country, and the culture and morality of the public.
Cortes and Machiavelli’s Type of Conquest Using Christianity as a decoy, he found his way up to the top and succeeded in overthrowing Montezuma, who had been previously doubtful of being outnumbered by Cortes’ men.
World History: the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Empires Conquest of the new territories and taking over the lands of other tribes and people has been the main strategy of spreading power and influence of the Empires.
Feedback Control: An Invisible Thread in the History of Technology The invention of the mechanical clock towards the end of the 13th century led to a remarkable accuracy and reliability in the measurement of time.
History of Abolishing Slavery The abolishment of slavery in Britain empires and the involvement of the British in preaching against slavery contributed immensely towards the end of slavery in the United States and France.
The Post World War II Nuclear Arms Race Costs The nuclear arms race led to a monumental increase in the military expenditure of the US and the Soviet Union.
Transformation and Change in Australia In the year 1870, the expansion of the suburban settlement had absorbed the bulk of a rapid and sustained growth of the colonial population.
The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia The Europeans came and took over the land of the Aboriginal people and even adopted their methods of farming. According to Tony Stephens who reviewed the book by Gammage, the author’s aim was to inform […]
Movement Against the British Rule in India Between 1920 and 1922 there was a non-cooperation movement that was organized by the Indians against the British rule. The movement also had an issue with the Indian soldiers that died during the World War […]
Ethnographic State in India He stated that their ignorance of the customs and beliefs of the Indian people had a hit against the British and that this had resulted to a distant loss of administrative power to British government.
Major Impacts of Consumerism in Contemporary World History This was spread to the rest of the world. Consumerism has necessitated the need to have advanced methods of doing business because products must be delivered to the market in mass, in time and of […]
“The Dead Hand” by David E. Hoffman After the end of the cold war and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, there were still huge amounts of nuclear weapons that left on the face of the earth.
The Case of American Involvement in the Philippines Insurrection and the French in Algeria Similarities The French military involvement in Algeria during the counterinsurgency displayed a couple of similarities and differences with the tactics that the American forces used in countering the insurgency in Philippine.
History of Empires in Past and Modern World During the 16th and 17th century, the Spanish empire was one of the strongest empires in the world. Later on, during the 19th and 20th century, the British Empire became the largest and strongest empire […]
Revolution: America and France Between 1775 and 1815, a revolution was witnessed in warfare that corresponded with the advent of American and French revolutions. Military personnel were made to take a new oath of commitment to France and unwilling […]
Constructing Boundaries: Five Famous Walls In this essay, I will discuss five walls, namely: The Hadrian wall The Great wall of China The Berlin wall which separated East Germany from west Germany Moroccan wall The Maginot line between the border […]
The Role of the Cold War in Shaping Transatlantic Relations in the Period 1945 to 1970 It was considered to give a connotation to the international structure throughout the cold war and could work as a dynamic aspect in generating the dynamics of the east-west conflict.
Contribution of Empiricism and Rationalism to the Emergence of the Scientific Perspective in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries This paper seeks to critically discuss the contribution of empiricism and rationalism to the emergence of the scientific perspective in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Michigan Newspapers’ Biased Coverage of Jewish Persecution in Germany In the period of 1933-1939, which encompasses Hitler’s rise to power that saw a sustained persecution of Jews in Germany and the pogroms, which culminated in the Night of The Broken Glass, the reception of […]
The Relationship Between the Rubber Boom and the Second Industrial Revolution The practical use of rubber was not well developed until 1800s when the first rubber factory was built in the United Kingdom, France and the United States increasing the demand of the product in the […]
Issues that Affected the History of Australia and the Aborigines As a result of the diversity of the communities of the Aborigines, there are historical differences in the cultural practices of the people.
Lessons From the Great Depression and Postwar Global Economy: A Critical Analysis The economic slump that hit industrialized economies of the world, starting in the U.S.and later spreading to Europe, began in earnest in 1929 and lasted until about 1941, making it the longest and most ruthless […]
Lessons Learned From the History of the Marshall Plan About the Importance of the USA in the Process of European Integration Suffice to say most of the countries exceeded the developments targets by the end of the plan in 1952. To make this possible the US made it known to the Europeans that the efforts to […]
Key Factors That Led To Reversal of the Accelerating Acquisition of Nuclear Weapons in the Eighties The end of the 1980 marked a new beginning in world history, with insurmountable efforts getting a boost from the talk associated with the then President of the United States, Ronald Reagan.
Misperceptions and the Cold War After the WW II, the America rose to become the most powerful nation in the world, however, the USSR perceived this negatively, which resulted into fierce rivalry between the two nations and the war hang […]
Cuban Missile Crisis Management The US administration of the time believed that Moscow’s activities in Cuba were a threat to International security, hence; the ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba enhanced a major security blow to the leadership of United […]
The Role of Sea Power in International Trade
Showdown Between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
The Problem of Slavery in Africa
French and Spanish Conquests
New Imperialism and Politics 1850 and 1914
Impacts of the First World on British Policies in India
Total War in Modern World History
History of Soviet Union and America in 20th Century
The First World War’s Aftermath
The Perfect Machine: Building the Palomar Telescope
The West: Encounters and Transformations
Aboriginal Imagery and Policy in Australia
The Colonial War in Southwest Africa
The First Industry Revolution: A Description of Impacts
The Onset of the Cold War
The Book The Age of Empire
Human Rights in History Teaching
The Social Labor Movement as an Important Political Force
Atomic Audit: Nuclear Posture Review
History: Imperialistic Inclinations of European Countries
Fischer on Historical Fallacies
Conquest and Colonization of America by Europeans Countries
Historical Political Event: The Marshall Plan
The Ottoman Military and Political Organization
Imperialism History and Legacy
Using Science and Technology as the Measure, When Did the Modern World Begin?
The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings by Olaudah, Equiano
King Leopold’s Ghost: European Power Crimes in Congo
Congo’s Brutal History of Conflict
Parallels Between the Revolutions of 1848 and Arab Revolutions
Beginnings of British Colonization of America
Conflicts in the World
Indifference Has Robbed Generations of Our History
Cold War Politics, Culture and Wars
Social Consequences of Industrial Revolution
Impact of the United States on Europe During 1945-1990
Documented Journalism: Black Death
Mexican and Russian Revolution: Comparative Analysis
The Origins of Fascism’s Brutal Ideology
The History of the 9/11 Decade
Industrial Revolution in Various Sectors of the Economy
Technological Catastrophe: Titanic in 1912
Factors That Explain Britain’s Total Domination of India During the First One Hundred Years of British Rule
Mad and Depressed Women in America
Economic Factors That Explain Britain’s Total Domination of India During the First One Hundred Years of British Rule
British Dominion in India
British Policy and the Indian Mutiny
How New Imperialism Was Shaped
Ottoman Empire: The Tanzimat Period
Why the West Rules
The Consequences of Interaction in Cultures and Civilizations
Political Organizations Through the History
British Involvement in the Atlantic Slave Trade
Major Historical Vents: Evolution or Revolution
Modernization Poised Between History and Prophecy
Would Macimilien de Robespierre Have Supported America’s War With Iraq?
How Did the Gold Rushes Change Colonial Australia?
The Impact of Racial Thought on the Aboriginal People in Relation to Australian History
World War II as the Most Devastating War in World History
The Merits and Pitfalls of Using Memoir or Biography as Evidence for Past Events
Imperialism and Modernization
The Protestant Church Reformation
Human Interactions in the Americas During the 16th and the 17th Century
Battles and Wars Through the History
Australian Aborigines Genocide
First Draft of Policeman of the World Paper
Comparing and Contrasting three Versions of Slavery
The Perils of Imperialism: Through the Lens of History
Western Industrialization Socio-Economic Impacts
History of Indigenous People in Australia
Why Were Some Countries More Successful in Responding to the Challenge of European Imperialism Than Others?
The Ottoman Empire: A Political, Social, and Economic Description and Its Relationship to Western Europe
Picasso and His Paintings in the Modern World History
Concept of Imperial Powers in History
Colonization: Why Africa Suffers
The Role of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great in Modernizing Russia
Diffusion of Water as the Important Factor in the Development Egypt and in United States
The Great Depression’ Influence on the World
Islam, Democracy and the West Summary
Colonialism in North America
The Global Economic Recession of the United States
A Comparative Perspective: African Slave Trade and Spanish Rule in Peru
Turning the Course of History Back: The Questions Which Have Been Left Unanswered
Eurasian Region: Developing Global Trade
Influence of Imperialism on World Cultures
Comparison Between Chinese and Spanish Colonialism
Global Developments that Affect State Sovereignty and Territoriality
Origins of the Cold War
The Causes of the First World War
Chapter Review: The Epic First Voyage
East Meets West: Culture Differences
NATO: From Creation to Current Status
History of the Australian Referendum During the 1967
The 1972 Munich Olympics
Calvino’s Perspective on the World History
World History: A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin
The Revolutionary Struggle in European Countries and America
Global Evolution in “Midaq Alley” by Mahfouz Naguib
The Atlantic Slave Trade: Causes, Operation, and Effects
Human Interaction and Cultural Exchange in the Sixteenth Century
Cultural Exchange Through Trade in the Sixteenth Century
Middle East Studies in Fromkin’s A Peace to End All Peace
The Cold War Between the United States and the Soviet Union
Impact of Industrialization and Colonization on Both the British and Indian People
Empire by Purchase or Lease
Influence of Nationalism and Communism on the Non-Western World
History of Indigenous Australians before the Arrival of the First Fleet
Age of Enlightenment: The Rebirth of Europe
The Major Causes of the Cold War Between the Soviet Union and the United States
Reasons of the Cold War Between the Soviet Union and the US
History of Law
The Issue of the Partitioning of India Into India and Pakistan in 1947
The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History Book
The Constant Change in Human History Since 1500
The Floating Threat: Somali Filibusters and the World Safety
Industrialism, Progress or Decline
Violence From Cultural Ideals, Politics, and Religion
How Capitalism Beat Communism/Socialism
Overview on the World’s History
History to the 18th Century
The Middle East and World History: 1850 – 2001
The Ottoman-Turks and the Third Empire: They Came, they Saw, They Conquered
The Ottoman Empire’s Policies Against Secessionist Minorities During the Period of 1820-1918
The American vs. French Revolution: Ideals Matter
A Brief History of Chili
History of NATO in 20th and 21th Centuries
Decolonization or Nationalistic Self-Determination Movements
David Birmingham’s “The Decolonization of Africa”
Ottoman and Safavid Empire
Historical Causes and Effects

📋 Ultimate World History Essay Topics List

Here you’ll find the historical topics we prepared for you. We divided the list into four sections to ease your studies.

✍ World History Essay Questions

Essay questions can help you to brainstorm ideas and write a comprehensive paper. Here you will find the best world history essay topics.

What defines a civilization?
How and why did the first civilizations appear in the Middle East? Explore geopolitical conditions that allowed these civilizations to thrive.
What led Greek and Phoenician civilizations to their initial success in the Mediterranean?
Why was the Mediterranean considered the center of the world in Antiquity?
What were the leading powers of the early Antiquity? Explore the reasons behind their success.
How did Ancient Rome rise to power on the Apennine peninsula?
Why did the Qin dynasty emerge victorious from the Warring States period in Ancient China?
How did Rome defeat Carthage? Explain how Romans eventually prevailed over the superior Carthaginian fleet.
How did the Roman military system evolve?
Why is the Han period considered the golden age in Chinese history?
What were the factors that led to the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire?
How Chinese technology advanced during the Three Kingdoms period?
What events caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire? Explore why and how the Eastern Roman Empire survived in these uneasy times.
How can you describe the Early Middle Ages?
How did Islam arise in the Arabian peninsula?
What are the events that caused a split of Islamic religion into Sunnis and Shias? Delve into other branches of Islam that were created at that time.
How did Christianity rise in the Middle East?

The Middle East is the birthplace of Christianity.

What events led to the division of the Roman Empire into the Western and Eastern?
Why were the Islamic conquests so successful?
Why was the Islamic world so prosperous in both riches and culture?
Why did Europe become obsessed with the idea of Crusades to the Holy Land?
How did the Crusades affect Christian and Muslim nations?
What were the consequences of the Black Plague?
How did Europe eventually rise from the Dark Ages into the Age of Renaissance? Analyze factors that define the Renaissance.
What events caused Europeans to begin the Age of Discovery?
What philosophical ideas led to the Age of Enlightenment?
What was the cause of the American Revolution? Explore the events that defined it.
What was the cause of the French Revolution? Explore the events that defined it.
How did Napoleonic wars shape XIXth century Europe and affected the modern world we live in?
What were the reasons behind the Cold War?
Why were there so many proxy wars in the XXth century? Dive into the details and reasons behind them.
Why did European nations increase their colonization efforts? Analyze and compare colonial nations and their impact on modern-day Africa.

Europeans explored and colonized for gold, glory, and God.

What was the general picture of the world at the dawn of the XXth century?
What ideologies emerged at the end of the XIXth century?
Why is World War I so important?
How is World War I connected to World War II?
What is a Bipolar World term? Investigate its origins and characteristics.
Why did the United States of America lose the Vietnam War? Explore the events that led to the withdrawal of the US forces from Vietnam.
Soviet-Afghan War: Soviets’ Vietnam? Explain why the Soviet Union was largely unsuccessful in the Soviet-Afghan War. Elaborate why many historians draw parallels between America’s defeat in Vietnam and the Soviets’ defeat in Afghanistan.
Why did the USSR fall apart? Explain the complications behind its political and economic system.

🧐 World History Research Paper Topics

World history is full of fascinating events. They should be analyzed and researched to discover new facts about them.

Below, you’ll find the best world history topics for research:

King Gilgamesh. His personality and deeds. Why is he still a popular character today?
The leading nations of the Bronze Age.
The personality of Julius Caesar and his effect on Rome .
Family institute in Ancient Rome. Dive into the ordinary life of Roman citizens and explore the structure of a Roman family.
Circus Maximus in Rome .
Jewish tribes and kingdoms of the Bronze Age.

Israel first appears shortly before the Bronze Age collapse.

The expansion of Indo-European languages.
Ancient Greek civilization history .
The dominance of Athens and Sparta over other Greek city-states.
Alexander the Great: Western civilization .
The kings of Ancient Egypt .
The origins of Roman imperialism . Explain how Rome conquered the world and the consequences of its dominance.
Engineering in the Roman Empire. Analyze what engineering solutions Rome used to dominate culturally, politically, and militarily.
The personality of Constantine the Great and his deeds.
The Dark ages as the golden ages of European History .
Abbasid Caliphate: The age of Muslim Enlightenment.
Women in World War II .
Denazification of Germany after World War II. Explore the means of Germany’s denazification efforts after World War II and their effectiveness.
Espionage of the Cold War. How the USSR and the USA spied on each other.
The anti-war movement and American views on the Vietnam War .
Iraq and Afghanistan wars impact on the USA’s economy .
The War of Spanish Succession. Talk about one of the crucial periods of European history and explain why Spain’s global power started to decline.
The Caribbean and the golden age of pirates in the XVIIIth century.
American Civil War and its impact on American society.
Japanese Revolution and the Meiji Restoration in Japan.
T.E. Lawrence and his efforts to create an independent Arab World. Explore the personality of Thomas Edward Lawrence and his life.
The effect of new ideologies on Europe and the Americas.

✒ World History Term Paper Topics

A term paper is a research done on a specific subject. Students are usually assigned to this task at the beginning or the middle of the semester. It should test their comprehension of a subject and their ability to analyze. However, choosing the right topics for world history can prove difficult.

Here you’ll find the best ideas for your research:

Region of Ancient Mesopotamia. Sumerian and Akkadian civilizations.
The rise of Babylonian and Assyrian empires.
Cultural and trade connections between Rome and Ancient China.
Law and Order in Rome.
Life and death of Prophet Muhammad. His influence on the minds of Arab tribes.
Psychological impacts of Christianity and Islam on the Medieval world.
The era of Holy Crusades. Analyze their goals and impact.
Means of Warfare and violence in ancient times.
Life and Death in Ancient Egypt. Explain the life of different classes in the Old Kingdom, their religious beliefs, warfare, civil life, etc.
How did the conquests of Alexander the Great affect the ancient world?

Many of the cities that Alexander founded were named Alexandria.

Medicine and spiritualism in Ancient Rome.
Women’s roles in the societies of Early Antiquity.
Art in Rome and Greece. The pinnacle of human thought.
The birth of modern sports in Ancient Rome.
King Richard I and Saladin. A rivalry between great leaders. Analyze and compare the personalities of both Richard I and Saladin, describe their relationship.
The Black Death, the Late Medieval demographic crises, and the standard of living controversies.
Weapons and warfare of the Medieval Era. Analyze weapons and means of warfare in the Medieval Era, their use, and evolution.
Reconquista of Spain and Age of Discovery. Talk about these events and explain their connection.
Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Reasons behind its spread across the Empire.
Religious customs of the Roman Empire and its successors.
The rise of the Sassanid Empire. Its political system, military, and Parthian heritage.
The religion of Islam. Geopolitical reasons behind the rise of Islam in the Arabian peninsula.
The Borgia family. Their impact on Renaissance Italy.
Great Italian painters of the Renaissance. Study and analyze their characters, works, relations with influential families and the Pope.
Qing Empire: the last dynasty of China.
Technological military advancements of the XVII-XVIII centuries. Spanish Tercio and invention of the flintlock.
Rise of the Russian Empire and Peter I. Dive into events that lead to the creation of the Russian empire and Peter I character.
Liberty! The American Revolution . Dive into the exciting period of American history that defined the nation. Explore precursors and main events of the American Revolution.
The World Wars of the XXth century and their influence on the modern world.
The post World War II nuclear arms race .

📚 World History Thesis Topics

Writing a thesis is one of the most challenging and crucial tasks a student can have. For this paper, you spend years researching, writing, and perfecting your paper. So, choosing the right topic is essential.

See intriguing and well-composed major topics of world history worthy of your time and energy below:

The samurai of Japan: why were they so effective? Explore the rich and mesmerizing military history of Japan. Remember to talk about the rise of Feudalism and samurais, their role in Sengoku Jidai, and the abolition of this warrior class in the modern era.
Trail of Tears and the tragedy of Native American people. Explain why the United States government was forcefully relocating Native American tribes and the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Talk about the hardships on that journey.
History of Earth’s Electrification. Present a detailed overview of electricity’s history and scientists who contributed to its development.
The importance of the Crusades. Analyze their influence and the Christian and Muslim worlds.

Crusades were organized by western European Christians.

The Gold Rush of the XIXth century. Analyze the roots of the Gold Rush around the world and the USA. Discuss how miners seeking their fortune contributed to San Francisco’s rapid growth and creation of the Californian Dream .
The Automobile. A case study of the automotive industry. Discuss the first car prototypes and their creators who pioneered the industry. Remember to talk about the first automotive companies and their innovations.
Oil. The Black gold of the XXth century. Talk about the discovery of oil and how it eventually became a strategic resource. Explore fiery competition between the first oil tycoons.
African American involvement in the Vietnam War. A case study. Talk about African Americans in the Vietnam War and the extent of inequality they had to deal with.
The tragedy of Afghan wars. How the Soviet’s invasion of Afghanistan led to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Dive into Afghanistan’s history to analyze their perseverance against foreign occupation. Talk about the CIA and Saudi involvement in the Soviet-Afgan war, the creation of the mujahideen and the Taliban.
Trench warfare in World War I. Provide detailed characteristics, origins, and reasons behind the trench warfare doctrine in World War I.

In World War I, trenches became a fundamental part of the strategy.

The impact of World War II on the global political landscape. Analyze the political and economic consequences of the Second World War.
The Cuban Missile Crisis. A case study of the biggest Soviet-American standoff. Analyze political motifs behind one of the darkest events in human history and use sources on nuclear warfare to speculate what would have happened, if the situation had had not deescalated.
Vietnam Anti War of the 1960s. Describe anti-war movements across the United States in the 1960s and the hippie counterculture as a way to oppose the war.

Now you’ve chosen one of the topics on world history to write about. But how do you start the actual paper? How to compose an entertaining and informative essay? How to get both a good mark and respect from your professor?

If you follow several simple and solid rules listed below, you’ll have no problem beginning a good paper. Each piece of advice is explained in detail for your convenience.

Essay structure consists of an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

To start a comprehensive paper:

Determine what ideas you want to discuss in a paper. Think about the key ideas you want to mention in your essay. They will determine the general outline of your work, making it easier for the reader to follow.
Find good evidence (use reliable sources). Reliable and comprehensive sources are crucial for a historical paper. Try to be skeptical of its neutrality and remember to cross-check everything. Search for reliable secondary and primary sources and carefully check the facts if the data is ambiguous. You’ll never find a completely unbiased source, as every historian has some personal opinion on the subject.
Make an outline. Even when you don’t struggle with the body of your paper, outline your work. You will waste less energy with a general plan.
Introduce your topic. Make your introduction concise and explicit. You should catch the reader’s attention with a hook. Avoid using vague statements and facts.
Compose a clear thesis statement. A good thesis determines whether your whole work is going to succeed or not. Make sure you answer the main question of your paper and present your perspective on a subject. After stating your thesis, elaborate on it in every paragraph.
Analyze the information. So many students tend to make the mistake of retelling instead of analyzing the event. Of course, some context is necessary to give the idea of an event but never go too far with it. Analyze the found information before writing it down.
Don’t abuse your sources and quote reasonably. If the majority of your work consists of excerpts from your sources, you are in trouble. Quotes cannot exceed 10-15% of the total word count. Use them within reason to prove your point. Remember, your analysis is the key aim of your paper.
Start beforehand. Never postpone your term/thesis/research paper. The sooner you start—the better.
Use writing prompts. Find examples or prompts to rely on, writing a history paper for the first time. You can use our prompts to start your essay.

A writing prompt provides a potential topic idea of an essay.

Alexander the Great’s conquests should be accredited to his father Philip II, as he was the original creator of the mighty Macedonian phalanx. Do you agree with that statement? What can you say about Philip’s actions to modernize his army and state? Plan and write an essay in which you compare and contrast.
The fall of the Roman Empire was inevitable. Internal complications played a bigger role in Rome’s downfall than external ones. Do you agree with that statement? What can you say about Rome’s political system in the Late Antiquity?
Tatar-Mongol Yoke of Russia was a centuries-long symbiosis of the two cultures. Russians gained more things than lost from the Yoke. Do you agree with that statement? What can you say about Russian state affairs under the Yoke?
The Fall of Constantinople sparked the Age of Discovery and Renaissance in Europe. Do you agree with that statement? Describe Europe’s reaction to the Fall of Constantinople.
If France and Britain did not cripple Germany with reparations after the end of World War I, the Second World War would not have happened. Do you agree with that statement? Talk about the aforementioned reparations and why they played a role in Germany’s ideological radicalization.

Writing prompts can help you to develop your writing style and turn into a more mature writer.

Thank you for reading our article. We sincerely hope that this ultimate list of world history topics will assist in preparing and writing your perfect paper. Share it with other people who might need some guidance for their studies.

How Versailles Treaties Shaped World History?
What Are the Six Major Time Periods of World History?
What Are the Seven Concepts of World History?
How the Middle Ages Changes in History Impacted World History?
How the Arab Spring Changed the World History?
How Did the Renaissance Influence Europe and World History?
How Can a Discipline of World History Remain Relevant?
Why Is the Year 1968 Considered as Unique Year in World History?
What Is President Truman’s Impact on World History?
Where Does the World History Begin?
What Is American Revolution’s Effects on World History?
What Are the Sources of World History?
Why Is the Black Death Pandemic Was Important for World History?
Who Is Called the Father of World History?
Why Is the French Revolution Has So Much Impact on World History?
What Were the Consequences of Roman Empire’s Fall for World History?
What Is the Difference between Global History and World History?
What Role Did Cross-Cultural Trade Play in World History?
What Is the Balance of Power in the Context of World History?
Were Gender Issues Always a Problem in World History?
What Are the Five C’s of World History?
What Do Polyethnicity and National Unity Mean in World History?
What Place Did the Turks Take in World History?
What Is the Rise of the West in World History in 1500-1850?
What Does Consumerism Mean in World History?
What Are the Axial Civilizations in World History?
What Are the Five Theories of World History?
What Was the Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh in World History?

🔗 References

World History Topics: Newspapers.com
100 Good Research Paper Topics for History Class: Jule Romans, Owlcation
Hot Topics in World History: World History Center, University of Pittsburgh
Writing a Good History Paper: Writing Resources, Hamilton College
Writing a Thesis and Making an Argument: History, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, The University of Iowa
How to Write a Research Paper: David R. Caprette, Rice University
How to Write a Research Question: The Writing Center, George Mason University
Guidelines For Term Papers: Donald Simanek’s Page
Beginning the Academic Essay: Patricia Kain, for the Writing Center at Harvard University
How To Write Academic Papers, A Comprehensive Guide: The College Puzzle.html
Before You Start Writing That Paper…: Student Learning Center, Berkeley University of California
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

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30 Most Popular World History Essay Topics in 2020-2021

Essay topics may surprise everyone. Some are assigned by professors, while some are figments of the students’ imagination. However, when it comes to World History, one doesn’t have a very broad pool for choosing something non-trite. That’s where students feel bored and aren’t interested in writing.

Students who don’t like writing about World History tend to buy essays online written from scratch to minimize the burden of studying. Yet, if you still believe in mastering the essay DIY, this article covers the 30 most popular World History essay topics of 2020-2021 as well as tips on how to choose one for your preferences.

How to Choose the Essay Topic in World History

Even though this article may hint you at the topic, you should start by researching which one goes over well with your mood.

Brainstorm the World History areas or fields that you find the most interesting ones . It means a topic that will get you hooked on the research. You won’t be bored but eager to learn something new and deliver it to the audience or your professor. Note, if you choose a topic that seems a burden to yourself, success is unlikely to happen, especially with your potential grade;
Research the chosen topic . Learn how much evidence and facts you may find to make your essay interesting. Ask a professor for advice since they may tell you about the fields not covered by other students previously;
Prepare sources . Once done with the choice, ensure to collect as many reliable sources as possible to show your dedication to writing.

By following these three steps, you are half of the way until submitting an interesting World History essay.

Note, some students may also play smart and find an essay sample online. They rewrite it and submit it as the original one. Such intentions are better to avoid since 1) you don’t practice and work out your brain but get a ready paper; 2) a professor may still find it plagiarized with designated tools. Moreover, feel free to check the standard evaluation of World History essays.

Now, the topics. Off we go!

How to Make World History Writing Interesting?

To help you discover as many inspirational moods as possible, think about turning to the following platforms:

Another method to make your essay flawless if you have enough time is to use social media. Don’t be surprised. For instance, you write about Hippie Culture in America, and you want more facts or interesting stories. Find the designated groups online where people share their love for this culture. These groups might be followed by senior representatives of the hippie movement, and you may directly ask them for some interesting stories. Such an approach to writing will be much appreciated by your professor. Beyond that, it is a non-trite way of writing that other students might not even think of.

Note, every fact that you add to your history essay should have a solid backup. If you cannot double-check the veracity of the fact, don’t add it. It concerns the dates, names, and outcomes. If you are not sure about one even specific date, round it or use the century just. However, it is always better to fill your paper with traceable facts that your professor may check anytime.

Finally, prior to submitting your essay in World History, ensure to check it with plagiarism tools. Even though you could write it on your own, some statements may look like the borrowed ones. Especially, it concerns the quotes. If so, you cannot prove after the professor that it is your creation written from scratch.

Feel free to choose any topic and master it until it is tasty to read. World History is not always a happy or interesting matter, however, you may change your audience’s opinion once and forever.

278 Interesting History Essay Topics and Events to Write about

A history class can become a jumble of years, dates, odd moments, and names of people who have been dead for centuries. Despite this, you’ll still need to find history topics to write about. You may have no choice!

Our specialists will write a custom essay specially for you!

But once in a while, your instructor may let you pick a history essay topic. Are you clueless about where to start? If you are, don’t worry. You’ve come to the right place! In this article, you’ll see 278 cool historical events to write about. You’ll also discover some sources for good research on our ideas.

Before you read further:

Review the professional writing services offered by our academic experts. They can surely help you with essay writing or any other assignments.

How to Pick the Best History Essay Topic

Most of this article is devoted to listing history topics that are ideal for essays, but first, it’s important to have a simple process for using a list of possible essay topics like this.

Before you start writing, brainstorm. Read this list. Scan lists of history essay prompts. Maybe even skim a history essay example or 2 (or 10, or 25). When you find a topic you like even a bit, write it down in your personal list. Add any other topics that come to your mind.
Pick a topic that will satisfy your instructor and you can write well about. After you have a long list, review the assignment instructions. Then, eliminate the most inappropriate topics from your list. Lastly, reread the remaining topics. At this point, decide the topics you know enough about to write about wisely.

This 2-step process will make sure you get started on the right foot, but don’t forget the basics of sound writing. Remember these two rules. First, always plan your essay by using an outline. Second, stick to a well-structured essay with an introduction, body, and conclusion (use a 5-paragraph essay if it’s suitable).

Just in 1 hour! We will write you a plagiarism-free paper in hardly more than 1 hour

Here’s one further tip that is notably helpful for history essays. Use Wikipedia to explore historical events that you don’t understand well. (But of course use primary sources if you are writing a true research paper.) Alternatively, if you have some keywords in mind, you can find a random topic generator for writing and see what it can offer you.

Here’s the list of history essay prompts that you’ve been waiting for.

The Ultimate List of Historical Events to Write about

An Industrial Revolution in England essay is an excellent Industrial Revolution essay. Use this essay to explain some Industrial Revolution effects. Or perhaps give a brief but analytical overview of the Industrial Revolution timeline.
Alternatively, you could write an Industrial Revolution in Europe essay . England was the first nation to industrialize. But it wasn’t the last. In this Industrial Revolution essay, perhaps discuss differences among European nations in industrialization. (This kind of comparative approach yields an especially fine Industrial Revolution research paper as well.)
Or use a markedly different topic by writing a Martin Luther King essay . This key historical figure still shapes how we think about race, social justice, and the power of nonviolent protest. His death was tragic.
One way to avoid making your essay a Martin Luther King biography is to focus on a specific event or impact of this man’s life. For example, your Martin Luther King essay could be about a specific Martin Luther King speech or quote . (But if you’re going to write about King’s famous “ I Have a Dream ” speech, make sure you have something unique to say!)
Instead, you could write a broader Civil Rights Movement essay . In this, you must go beyond a basic Civil Rights Movement summary and focus on the meaning of this period over time or some specific change caused by it. (Again, don’t let your Civil Rights Movement essay become a Civil Rights Movement research paper.)
You could write about another period of dramatic change in a French Revolution essay . This violent revolution filled with imprisonments, trials, and beheadings was caused by immense suffering by the poorest people in France. As such, when writing this essay, provide only a brief French Revolution summary, and focus on the impact and triggers of specific events.

Fact for History essay: Last 3500 years the civilizated world has lived in peace for only 230 years.

Similarly, you could write an American Revolution essay . Both events involved overthrowing a monarch, but unlike a French Revolution essay, an American Revolution essay is effectively about a war, the build up to war, and the recovery from a war.
Perhaps your historical essay could focus on a person who was instrumental to the American Revolution . For example, consider Ben Franklin , a famous early American statesman, diplomat, scientist, and inventor.
The War of 1812 was the conflict between America and Britain directly following the American Revolutionary War . It’s a fine essay topic for those seeking to understand early American history.
Wars make notable topics for historical essay, but the aftermath can be even more interesting. The Weimar Republic was the terribly failed German government created after World War I . A critique of this government could be a superb essay subject.
In contrast, post-war Vietnam has been a relative success story. The nation reunified following the defeat of South Vietnam. The modern Vietnamese people possess a higher quality of life than citizens of many nearby nations.
You could also write about the Post-World War II 1950s . During this time, America exhibited surprising growth and prosperity. However, the United States began to wage a deadly Cold War with the USSR.
Another quite related topic is the messy late 21 st century American foreign policy . You could focus on the rise of terrorism after America’s invasion of Iraq , the worldwide US military bases, or any number of military dictators that the US has supported. These are all very provocative topics.
Or you could focus on a more specific military event, such as the Battle of Hastings . This battle shaped the whole history of England, as kings from continental Europe invaded English.

The time of the Battle of Hastings was also characterized by the heavy influence of knights and feudal law in daily life. Knights were more than heavily armed warriors. They were also lords that controlled the land and subjugated peasants. This was a major cause of uprisings such as the French Revolution.
Many medieval knights were also involved in the Crusades . This invasion of the Holy Land by European kingdoms represented a violent period. During these conquests, European nobility pillaged sacred sites and artifacts; with the goal of controlling the birthplace of their Christian faith.
Following this time, Europe entered a period of Renaissance Humanism . Humans began to think about their humanity a bit more deeply. In doing so, many works of fine art, such as the first realistic paintings and sculptures, were produced.
Your essay could focus on slightly later events, such as the fall of great empires . At various times in the past, nations such as Rome, China, Portugal, England, and the Holy Roman Empire controlled huge areas of our globe. Your essay could survey the implosion of these once great powers.
The abolition of slavery is a fascinating and important historical essay topic. You may focus on this process within a single country, or you can write a comparative essay in which you compare and contrast the process of abolition across the globe or between two societies.
Another highly relevant topic is the impact of Karl Marx . Few historical figures have had as huge an impact on society as Marx. Accordingly, you can consider how his writings were used (or abused) in a variety of nominally communist parties, movements, uprisings, and nations.
Of course, you should always consider writing an integrative history essay . You can’t pick just one topic? Why not pick two or more! This is a nice approach for selecting compare and contrast essay topics . In this type of essay, you compare or contrast, people, events, or countries. In choosing this path, you make it possible to write a totally unique essay. The sky is the limit!
A more human-focused approach could be an interesting hook for the paper. A paper based on the writing of the soldiers in World War I could outline what war was like at the beginning of the 20th century.

A personal look at World War II could be just as interesting and with more available documents.
One of the possible hooks for such papers may be the plight of the African American soldiers who fought in World War I and II .
Another topic may be dedicated to soldiers from India who fought for the British in World War I .
The economics of Europe after World War I may show the causes and effects that led to further conflict.
You may dedicate your project may to the changes in fashion in the 20th century .
More obscure topics like the Canadian history of film can make for an interesting thesis.
American art of the 20th century is a big topic that has many interesting examples.
History of math can show the timeline of math’s evolution.
The conclusion of the British rule in India caused many positive and negative effects on the country which can make for an interesting project.
The history of Roman sport provides fascinating examples of contests through the ages.
History of architecture during renaissance can show the differences between the eras.
Life before the invention of photography could be a topic that outlines how people preserved images back in the day.
You can compare and contrast the history of Roman and British empires .
Examples of music created for political causes could be an interesting hook for a music history essay.
T he history of medicine can provide some striking facts about the bizarre antique cures.
“What are the events that led to the fall of Roman Empire ?” is one of the more common history essay questions.
Summary of the achievements of the American civil rights movement can provide an impression of what a dream of one man could do.
An argumentative essay topic about the value of public communication can be chosen and created by using examples from the world history.
A paper on the music of ancient civilizations can shine a light on prehistoric cultures.
Your project can be about the anti-fascist activists in the US before WW II .
It is possible for high school students to write about the events of the year when they were born .
A thematic paper answering the question “ what started the worst wars in world history? ” could compare and contrast different wars to find similar causes and effects.
The hippie culture of the 1960s can be presented as a response to the events of the era.
Also, the fashion of hippies can be explored in your project with examples of real clothing.
The New Wave movement in cinema was revolutionary for its time and can be an interesting essay topic.
The same could be said about the New Wave genre of music that became popular in the 1980s.

Another music genre that captured the imagination of the public can be explored in an essay on the history of rock music .
History of propaganda in films can help explore some pivotal moments in world history.
Canadian history of sport is an interesting topic to explain why hockey is so popular in the Great White North.
Economics of sport throughout history may also interest the reader due to the massive commercial expansion of sport in recent decades.
Education during the renaissance was booming and could serve as a great topic for an essay.
Education during the middle ages was rare and could contrast the previous topic.
The justifications that the US used for the drop of the nuclear bombs during World War II is a controversial topic but an interesting one.
American involvement in the Korean War is an often overlooked topic, but it deserves attention.
To show how turbulent history of a single country may be, the causes and effects of the military coups in Nigeria could be fascinating.
The war between Iran and Iraq could be seen as one of the most critical proxy wars of the modern history.
The space race was an iconic element of the Cold War, and it is related to many history essay topics.
Events that led to the rise of the Saudi Arabia can show how fast a country can develop when money is not an issue.
The British music invasion into the US market has had a significant effect on American music and can be an interesting topic.
History of American worker unions could serve as a topical essay in today’s political climate.
The process of reparations for the Maori people in New Zealand in a rare success story of an ex-British colonial country making up for the discrimination its natives endured.
Roman graffiti is a lighthearted topic that describes a less discussed aspect of Roman culture.
The gender roles of Roman society can be compared and contrasted with the gender roles of the people of Gaul that often fought each other.
The prominent figures of the American Revolution include a great variety of people who would later compose the most important documents of the US.
A compare and contrast essay about the similarities of American and Bolshevik revolutions can show how the most prominent opponents of the Cold War had similar beginnings.
The history of Japanese isolationism could be interesting to explore as a unique moment in world history.
The Millerites believed that the world would end on a specific date, but it only led to the events known as “The Great Disappointment” which could make for a great history topic.
The Carnation Revolution of 1974 was an almost bloodless coup and represents one of the few examples of peaceful transitions to democracy.
The golden age of piracy is an interesting topic about an era that is often glamorized in fiction.
The Copper Country Strike was one of the most tragic cases of death due to anti-strike action, and its events are still discussed today.
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was a gruesome murder committed in broad daylight and emblematic of the gangster activity of the era.
The Yalta Conference was one of the most important events of World War II with British, Soviet, and American leaders discussing post-war plans.
British colonization of Africa was one of the most tragic; the causes and effects of it could be interesting to examine.

A paper on the evolution of flight could provide a timeline of marvelous engineering throughout history.
Operation Paperclip was a secret plan to integrate scientists of Nazi Germany after the end of World War II which events lead to the beginning of the space race.
Historical events that were predicted in fiction can be one of the more exciting history essay topics.
African-American music history can be explored to show how oppression influenced culture.
Biography of Julius Caesar is filled with dramatic events and is one of the most exciting history essay topics.
Aztec life before the arrival of the colonists was filled with horrible sacrifices and deserves examination.
The causes and effects of Manifest Destiny are bizarre and tragic by modern standards but were considered righteous in their day.
You could compare and contrast the life of the Roman leader Julius Caesar and Nicholas II of Russia because they were almost mirrored images of each other.
The actions of Churchill led to some of the worst defeats for the British forces during World War I , but are overshadowed by his later leadership.
The transition from the 50s to 60s fashion can be explored to show the drastic change in the culture of those years.
The events that led to the emergence of teenage culture after World War II can be outlined.
The economics of international trade during the Renaissance period can be described to show the complex relationships of Europe.
American Revolution in film rarely receives accurate portrayals. A look at its depictions can be interesting.
A paper on the causes and effects of Cold War paranoia could show how quickly people can be overwhelmed by fear.
Ronald Reagan’ s policy of a winnable nuclear war launched a chain of events that could end the world.
The diversity of the Roman Empire is a rarely explored topic and could lead to an interesting paper.
Medieval medicine is a fascinating topic. It combines the ideas from Ancient Greece and Rome, pagan medicine, and many religious superstitions.
Another interesting history topic is the history of dystopian art . In turbulent times, it may be especially fascinating to trace the development of dystopian art and see what shaped the ideas of dystopian worlds in different eras. Moreover, you may find it interesting to see the predictions about the modern era in dystopian literature and cinema.
Medicine in the early XX century is an excellent topic for an essay. At the turn of the century, there was a major change in the way people treated medical technology , hygiene, and chemistry. Groundbreaking achievements, such as the discovery of X-rays and penicillin , shaped modern medicine as we know it.
The history of video games is an exciting essay topic. See how video games developed from the most primitive forms into the glorious, hyper-realistic works of art that we enjoy now.
The history of quantum mechanics is a history topic that can teach us a lot about the world around us. You can write about the groundbreaking experiments that changed the way we think about nature, and learn about great minds who were not afraid to question even the most fundamental laws of physics.
Alternatively, you can write about the development of astronomy . Another fascinating scientific field that can show us how people in different eras were discovering the beauty and complexity of the Universe .
Similarly, you can write about the history of evolutionary theory . All ancient cultures had their ideas about the origin of life. See how Darwin’s idea of natural selection revolutionized not just science, but human thought in general.
Another outstanding example of a revolution of human thought is the history of psychology. From the ancient idea of spirits and possession to the groundbreaking ideas of Freud and the discovery of conditioning – see how the cultural perception of the human psyche changed over time.
A topic closely related to the current issues, pandemics that changed history can be explored to see the effects of epidemics on nature, science, and society as a whole. It may also be interesting to write about how viral infections spread around the world.
The history of transport is a fascinating topic. Starting from the earliest of times, humans are continually developing new ways of traveling as far and safe as possible. See how technology evolved from the discovery of a wheel to rocket science, and how it changed history and the world around us.
The history of the punk subculture is an excellent topic for presentation. Show how punk philosophy, fashion, and music changed the culture in the U.K. and around the world.
Another interesting research topic for high school students is the Great Depression . Learn what caused the severe economic crisis, and what socio-economic effects it had on countries all around the world.
From the first settlements built by ex-convicts to the outbreaks of smallpox and aboriginal resistance – the history of Australia is full of dramatic events and stories that we can learn a lot from.
Or you can choose the exploration of Africa as the subject of your history essay. The story of two extraordinary individuals in search of a path into the heart of the continent inspired the novel Heart of Darkness .
Historical figures in Shakespeare’s plays is a great history research paper topic. You could compare the lives of real historical figures, such as Julius Caesar and Henry V , to those of their fictional counterparts.
Voyages of Christopher Columbus is one of the most critical events in history before 1500. While the discovery of the New World had an enormous influence on the colonization era, Columbus’s legacy remains controversial.
Or you can write an essay on Hernán Cortés , a pivotal figure in the colonization of South America. His actions against native civilizations are highly controversial, and his life story is full of myths and mysteries.
The Civil War was the defining event in the U.S. history before 1877. It had an enormous impact on American society and led to major changes in the Constitution.
One of the world history topics that everyone needs to know about is the culture and society of ancient Greece . Incredible art, philosophy, politics, and scientific ideas of the ancient Greeks continue to inspire us today.
Similarly, an essay on the Greek Dark Ages can shine a light on the fall of the great civilization. It is also the period during which Homer’s famous poems Odyssey and Iliad were composed.
Chivalry in the Middle Ages is an interesting history topic, and it is often romanticized. Learn about the chivalric code, tournaments, and epic legends about famous Medieval knights.
Also, it may be interesting to write a world history essay on King Arthur . Explore the real events that inspired stories about the legendary British leader and the Knights of the Round Table.
The history of Easter Island is a very intriguing history topic. You can talk about the mysteries surrounding the culture, language, and the eventual demise of the inhabitants of one of the world’s most isolated islands.
The history of nuclear weapons is an excellent controversial topic for an essay and a discussion. The stories of research, development, and the use of atomic bombs can be used as cautionary tales for people today.
From cave paintings and letters to telephone and the Internet – the history of communication is one of the best topics for a research paper. See how the means of communication evolved throughout human history.
Also, the history of the Internet can be explored in your research paper. What was initially created for research and military use became one of the defining elements of modern life.
The history of animation is an interesting topic for high school students. Learn about the evolution of animation – from the ancient Egyptian murals depicting motion to the first CGI cartoons and everything in-between.
The history of museums has many exciting twists and turns. Discover how people of different eras were preserving art and other extraordinary objects. Also, it may be interesting to learn about the most significant art thefts in history.
The history of cosmetics is an excellent topic for a research paper with a presentation. See how makeup was used in different eras, what it was made of, and how historical figures influenced makeup trends of the past epochs.
Amelia Earhart is a wonderful role model whose life you can research in your history essay. She was an aviator pioneer and a best-selling author. Her disappearance in 1937 remains a mystery.
History of Eurovision song contest is a lighthearted topic with serious political undertones. It was originally intended to unite all countries of post-war Europe in one song contest, broadcast live on television.
The history of theater is a fascinating subject for a research paper. Theater first appeared in Ancient Greece, went through significant changes during the Renaissance, and it remains a popular art form that covers many genres.
The history of the death penalty is an interesting topic for an essay that you can have a discussion about. The death penalty has a fascinating and gruesome history and remains a controversial subject even today.
You can write an outstanding research paper on the history of whaling . People have been hunting whales since prehistoric times for various reasons, including perfume and candle manufacturing.
Another exciting world history topic is Gold Rush . While the California Gold Rush is by far the most famous, there were many other cases throughout history, dating as far back as ancient Egypt.
One of the more mysterious history topics that you can write about is Stonehenge . This majestic stone structure has been for a long time associated with druids. The latest discoveries suggest that it was used as an observatory.
Maybe an even more mysterious history research paper topic is the Pyramids of Egypt . The only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World, they are some of the largest structures ever built, and their history remains intriguing.
Or you can choose to write about all the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World ! They are remarkable buildings and constructions, all but one of which are entirely destroyed, and some are speculated to have never existed.
Similarly, you can write a paper on other beautiful buildings, such as the picturesque Machu Picchu. An iconic citadel of the Inca civilization, it is now considered one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.
A paper on Joan of Arc can show how one extraordinary individual is capable of changing the course of history. Her life is surrounded by many legends, and she remains a popular subject in art.
Similarly, you can write about Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and what impact it had on the entire American nation. Delivered during the Civil War, it is considered to be the greatest speech ever.
A history research paper on feminism could provide a timeline of the fight for equality. Closely connected to the current issues, this topic covers everything from the women’s suffrage movement to the modern Women’s Marches .
One of the most exciting history topics that everyone needs to know about is the Minoan Civilization – the first highly advanced society in Europe. You can talk about its discovery in the late XIX, the incredible art of Knossos, and its numerous legends, including the famous Labyrinth.
You can choose to write an essay on history of Indigenous Australians . The timeline of first humans populating Australia is full of mysteries, and their culture remains fascinating.
An interesting essay can be written on the earliest universities . They were founded long before 1500 in Asia and Africa for educating government officials, and are a fascinating subject to explore.
You can write an exciting research paper on Alexandria – a city in Egypt founded by Alexander the Great. In ancient times, it was a city like no other, and had an enormous influence on the Mediterranean culture.
Middle Ages are full of interesting history topics – for example, you can choose to write about medieval magic. From alchemy and astrology to inquisition and witch trials, it’s an existing subject to explore.
One of the best topics on the history of explorations is the North Pole expeditions . It is full of dramatic events, and it took numerous failed attempts until the North Pole was finally reached in the XX century.
The first English settlements in America are among the essential parts of the U.S. history before 1877. It includes stories of hardships of the first settlers, bad weather, hunger, and conflicts with native inhabitants.
Napoleon is an incredibly interesting historical figure. You can write a stunning paper on the rise and fall of his empire.

You can focus on a specific era in your essay – for example, Victorian England. This period of history, both fascinating and terrifying, still inspires countless novels, movies, and T.V. series.
Titanic is an excellent topic for an essay and a discussion. A cautionary tale about a luxurious ship that sank due to criminal negligence.
Death of the Romanovs is an interesting history topic that is still being investigated. This gruesome story inspired many myths, including that of the survival of Anastasia.
Similarly, you can choose an essay on the assassination of J.F. Kennedy . Learn about what caused it and what long-term effects it had on the American nation.
Similarly, the assassination of Martin Luther King was an enormous tragedy for the whole country. The circumstances of this event are still not entirely clear, and there are several different theories as to what happened.
Chernobyl disaster is a fascinating topic that is very popular today. See what led to the tragedy, and what long-term consequences it had on nature and society.
The fall of the Berlin Wall is a crucial event in modern history. You can write about life in GDR and FRG prior to the fall of the Wall and compare it to what happened afterward.
Another history topic that you can choose for your essay is the history of berserkers. These Old Norse warriors were fighting in what’s often described as a trans-like state, and their name became synonymous with uncontrolled rage.
Education in the modern world. The new opportunities of the globalized world influence quality and expectations towards studying. A historical essay can analyze the significant inventions that impacted education. For example, you may focus on the Internet .
South African Apartheid . The racial segregation regime threw South Africa into poverty and conflicts. Your essay might discuss the historical events that led it. Or you can trace the Apartheid’s timeline from setting to abolishment.
The founding of the United Nations . The organization’s support of equal human rights is crucial for modern society. The history of the UN is a broad topic with many key events. You may also study the influence of countries such as the USSR on its establishment.
Cultural trends during World War II. Music, fashion, and art reflected humanity’s hopes and fears of the world. They also supported people when life was tough. In a research paper, you can choose and describe specific examples. Discuss the impact of entertainment during that period, or compare it to World War I.
The creation of the United States’ Constitution is an interesting US history essay topic. The road to the first national frame of government includes many events. You can analyze the contents of the original Constitution articles based on their drafts.
Changes in European economies following the discovery of America . After Columbus’ return from his journey, the most powerful empires started to occupy new lands. Later, economic progress led the world to its current conditions. An essay that highlights these milestones can be fascinating!
Fight against terrorism . After September 11, 2001, the world enforced its war on terrorism. Governments applied measures such as peacemaking interventions to unstable areas. A historical assignment might include the most significant attacks. You can also discuss the UN’s campaigns against terrorism under this topic.
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The attacks were crucial events that finished World War II . Your essay might address the events that led to the attacks. Discuss if there could have been other ways of stopping Japan’s aggression.
Urbanization in the US is an interesting essay topic. The most significant change took place in the 19th century. The railroads connected the whole country, and trading opportunities grew. Discuss why people moved from rural areas to cities and the consequences of it.
History of railroads in the United States. Broad territories were the major obstacles to American economic development. In 1827, the first railway journey took place in the US. The roads were rapidly built during the following century. A discussion these events is a fun historical assignment topic.
Immigration and scientific progress in the 20th century. Back then, thousands of Europeans were forced to migrate to the US. Many of them were responsible for important discoveries and inventions. Discuss its effect of immigration on science and technology in a historical essay.
The three most important inventions of the 19th century. The 1800s are full of creations that changed humanity’s history. Typewriters, bicycles, and telephones were first made in that period. For an essay, you can pick the inventions based on their historical value.
The stock market crash in 1929 was the worst experience for the industrialized world at the time. Entertainment during the Great Depression played an essential role in supporting America. It is also an interesting historical topic to write about.
The history behind today’s foreign affairs . Despite prolonged peace, governments still have political disagreements. Choose two conflicting countries and identify the events that led to the current situation.
The history of the LGBTQ community in the United States. Modern American society praises equity and respects the rights of minority groups. However, it wasn’t always like this. LGBTQ is a broad discussion topic influenced by past events. It might also be interesting to compare the US community to the European one.
The global financial crisis of 2008 is a great modern history essay topic . An economy can crash for multiple reasons. If it happens worldwide, the effects are severe. An argumentative essay can be a basis for analyzing the causes of the crisis. Compare it to other economic disasters such as the Great Depression .
Cultural progress led humanity to important social developments. One of them is the legalization of same-sex marriages . Historical analysis can include a timeline of such marriages. Social activism related to the topic is an excellent basis for an essay.
The Holocaust . One of the darkest events in the 20th century’s history is the European Jews’ genocide . Analyze the chain of events leading to it in a historical essay. How did it impact human rights enforcement during the post-war period?
Space exploration in the 21st century is a historical topic that develops right now. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin was founded in 2000, and Elon Musk started SpaceX in 2002. An essay can highlight the milestones of space exploration after the Cold War.
The history of Thanksgiving . Pilgrims established the holiday based on celebrating the harvest. Discuss the tradition’s roots and the impact of English colonists on American culture . An essay can also describe similar feasts around the world.
Another good history essay topic is Antarctica. The impactful exploration of ice lands only began in the late 19th century. Today, scientists study Antarctica’s land, resources, and animals. Trace the past events and discoveries of the region in your historical essay.
The history of infections. Our lives have changed in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were similar events in the past, where plague and flu diseases killed millions of people. A comparison can help you learn about the development of today’s healthcare practices.
Women’s suffrage . In August 1920, the US Congress ratified the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote. Many campaigns and protests preceded the event. The perception of women by society started transforming since then. An essay might describe the challenges leading to these changes.
History of the Olympic Games is a fascinating topic for middle school . The legacy of ancient Greece was revived only in the 19th century. Study the events that took place throughout the Olympic Games’ history.
If you need a world history essay topic, try writing about the International Red Cross . In 1863, Swiss businessman Henry Dunant established the Red Cross. He was influenced by the terrifying experience of seeing thousands of wounded men at war. A persuasive essay can highlight the organization’s historical importance.
Weapon development during World War II . Military weapons contributed to technological progress in the 20th century. A research paper might focus on the weapons invented during the War. You can also discuss the impact of military innovations on post-war life.
An essay on Korean history can analyze how one nation can change if divided into separate regimes. North and South Korea started making peace only in 2018. Try and determine the reasons for the 1948 separation and political instability.
Ku Klux Klan as a resistance movement is an important topic. Four million citizens nationwide joined the group in the 1920s. Such popularity revealed the demand for change. Your historical essay might include crucial outcomes of Klan’s activities. A comparison to the medieval inquisition might lead to interesting conclusions.
Globalization is another excellent history essay topic for high school students. The world has never had so many cultural and economic connections as it does today. Your essay can go through historical events that caused globalization . Or, you may analyze its benefits and downsides.
History of climate change . In 2009, the UN Climate Change Conference stated that the world is in danger due to human impact on climate. A historical essay can focus on the environmental factors of the topic. Alternatively, you may trace the discoveries and studies about climate change.
Labor Day is a national holiday first celebrated in the industrial era. It originated in the 19th century when workers spent 12 hours daily to earn the minimum wage. In your historical essay, describe the events that led to the holiday’s creation.
The history of the American presidency is a broad topic to write about. More than 40 people ruled the country and impacted all facets of America. For example, you may choose to evaluate education under different presidents . You can also compare democrats and republicans as presidents.
Gutenberg’s printing press invention changed the world. It was as significant in the 15th century as the Internet was for modern history. An essay can reconstruct the events before and after the invention of printing. Its impact on education and the economy are interesting points for discussion.
The European Union has deep historical roots since the Empire period. An essay about it might cover the timeline of democracy established in Europe. You can highlight the changes that took place in the countries that joined the Union. Alternatively, compare the organization and its aims to other historical alliances.
Modern religions are an intriguing subject for an essay. Historical events often shape peoples’ beliefs. Discuss why people started updating the main religions in recent decades.
Population resettlement took place multiple times in human history. For example, thousands of Serbian Albanians were forced to flee Kosovo during the 1999 conflict. An essay that describes a migration can include the reasons for it. Compare it to similar occurrences, and discuss its outcomes.
Ancient architecture is the most incredible legacy cherished by generations. Design patterns and colors of creations reflect the periods they were built in. For your essay, choose specific examples and mention the events associated with them. Research can include ancient European, Asian, or American architecture.
Socialism as a political regime significantly impacted world history. Socialist movements took place in Europe and the United States. The Soviet Union was established under its conditions. Choose this interesting 20th-century essay topic and describe a country affected by socialism. For example, China is still ruled by that regime.
History of democracy in Africa . African history includes centuries of foreign occupation. Yet, its countries have recently started getting deserved independence. Algeria, Morocco, Namibia, and Zimbabwe only got their democratic government in the last 60 years. Historical research can analyze the influence of ex-colonizers on Africa. Or, you may choose a country to describe its journey from a colony to a democracy.
History of South American countries. Colonizers occupied the regions in South America after Columbus’ journey. You can discuss the conflicts between the land’s native inhabitants and migrants. A research paper may also reveal how the nations were formed by combing two different populations.
The history behind the petroleum industry is an interesting basis for an essay. Oil defines the UAE and Russia’s economies and has significant influence in politics. Study the formation of the world’s oil industry, or choose one country to explore.
History of Native American tribes . More than 500 groups of Indigenous Americans lived in the US territories. Each had its own culture and policies. For your essay, gather information about conflicts between the natives and migrants.
History of vaccination . The development of this practice is an interesting essay topic. You can review the timeline, starting from the 1798 smallpox vaccine .
History of China . Write an essay that explores the most significant events of the country’s history. An interesting idea is to compare it to other major countries. Moreover, you can discuss the Chinese presence in the World Wars by analyzing its strategies.
Events that affected the environment. There are many examples of history playing against nature. Think of nuclear bomb explosions, rapid industrialization of the 19th century , and deforestation. Your essay might analyze several such events and provide lessons for the future.
The history behind popular foods . Migration and global trading helped humanity discover chocolate , potatoes, and coffee . A historical essay can focus on one product and describe what made it famous.
The Vikings played a significant role in European history. Scandinavians still cherish their traditions and unique culture. Your research might be about their settlements in Scotland, France, and Ireland. Also, you can describe the unique worldview of the Vikings.
Ancient piracy covers many themes that you can mention in an essay. The first pirates were the Sea Peoples in the 14th century BC. Today, the pirates still exist in politically unstable regions such as Somalia . Your historical paper can include the most significant acts of piracy in ancient times.
History of money . People have been exchanging goods throughout history. Yet in 770s BC, the Chinese invented the ultimate trading product— money . The historical timeline of the financial systems is an excellent topic for an essay.

Historical Essay FAQ

Students are often asked to write on historical topics. Such an essay can be:

1. A description of a persona; 2. An analysis of historical events; 3. An overview of the context of the whole epoch, etc.

In any case, a historical essay deals with a retrospective and requires looking into history.

There are countless interesting topics for essays and research projects. You can look into any epoch from the ancient times up to the present days. Choose something that genuinely fascinates you. You might prefer a controversial issue as it is more exciting to study.

For any research paper, it is essential to create an outline first. Once you’ve identified some key aspects that you want to focus on, write them as bullet points. They will become the Body of your research paper. Don’t forget to add an introduction and a conclusion.

Whether you write about the World, the civil, the cold, the Vietnam, or any other war, be sure to stay as objective as possible. It is a very emotionally charged topic, but you need to refrain from opinionated judgments. Do not resort to direct accusations.

Prewriting: Techniques to Get Started – Outlining: University of Maryland Global Campus
Understanding the Subjective Nature of History
Writing Cause and Effect Papers
One Hundred Good Research Paper Topics for History Class
History Topics
Modern History Resources
Research Paper Topics About United States History
The Importance of History Essay
The Foundation of History
What is History Essay Examples
Index: American History
World History: Encyclopedia Britannica
Historical Topics: Library of Congress
American History: Smithsonian Institution
Political History: Historians.org
Primary Sources on History: Gale
History of the UN: United Nations
Ancient History Encyclopedia: Index
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World Historian Student Essay Competition

Congratulations to Joshua Hangartner of La Jolla Country Day School, the winner of the 2023 World Historian Student Essay Competition for his essay, "World History: A Vehicle for Understanding Ourselves."

2023 World Historian Student Essay Competition Winner: Joshua Hangartner (La Jolla Country Day School)

The WHA is pleased to announce that Joshua Hangartner of La Jolla Country Day School (La Jolla, CA) is the winner of the 2023 World Historian Essay Competition for his outstanding essay, "World History: A Vehicle for Understanding Ourselves." Focusing on its broad and deep complexities, Mr. Hangartner ably demonstrates how World History's vast and complex scope connects us personally to the sweeping historical themes that shaped the present day and serves as a "uniquely powerful tool" that allows us to discover ourselves in an incredibly complicated world. Congratulations, Joshua!

The World Historian Student Essay Competition is an international competition open to students enrolled in grades K–12 in public, private, and parochial schools, and those in home-study programs. Membership in the World History Association is not a requirement for submission. Past winners may not compete in the same category again. Finalist essays will be checked against AI internet components and will be automatically disqualified should stock answers be detected.

The World History Association established this $500 prize to recognize young scholars. A one-year membership in the WHA will also be included with each prize.

Each competitor will submit an essay that addresses one of the following topics and discuss how it relates to you personally and to World History: Your view of a family story related to a historical event or your personal family cultural background, or an issue of personal relevance or specific regional history/knowledge, such as "My ancestor walked with Abraham Lincoln from Illinois to fight in the Black Hawk War of 1832."

The committee will judge papers according to the following criteria:

clear thesis;
elaboration on the thesis with specific, concrete, personal example(s);
evidence of critical-thinking, such as synthesis and evaluation, when reflecting on the essay question;
organization and fluency; and
overall effectiveness of the student’s ability to communicate his or her personal connection with the study of world history—in other words, how well has the student described the experience of being changed by a better understanding of world history?

To view some of our past winning essays, please click on the links below.

2023 Paper Prize Winner

2019 Paper Prize Winner

2018 Paper Prize Winner

2017 Paper Prize Winner

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Length & format.

Length: Submissions for the K–12 World Historian Award should be approximately 1,000 words.

Formatting: Number all pages except for the title page. All pages are to be double-spaced. Use 12-point Times New Roman Font. Margins are to be 1 inch left and right, and top and bottom.

Submissions must be composed in Microsoft Word.

The author’s identity is to appear nowhere on the paper.

A separate, unattached page should accompany the paper, identifying the author, title of paper, home address, telephone number, e-mail address, and name of school.

Papers that do not adhere to these guidelines will be disqualified.

Entries must be emailed or postmarked by the annual deadline of 1 May.

Winning papers will be announced during the summer.

The WHA reserves the right to publish in the World History Bulletin any essay (or portion thereof) submitted to the competition. It will do so solely at its discretion, but full acknowledgment of authorship will be given. If someone’s essay is published in whole or in part, the author will receive three (3) copies of the Bulletin.

E-mail submission

Send the following materials as separate attachments (formatted in MS Word) in the same e-mail, with the subject line World Historian Student Essay :

the paper, and
a page with identifying information (author, title of paper, home address, telephone number, e-mail address, and name of school).

E-mail to: Susan Smith <[email protected]> .

Postal submission

Send five copies of the paper and five copies of the page with identifying information. In the lower left hand corner on the front of the envelope write: World Historian Student Essay.

Susan Smith Maple Grove Senior High 9800 Fernbrook Lane N. Maple Grove, MN 55369-9747

WORLD HISTORIAN STUDENT ESSAY COMPETITION COMMITTEE:

Susan Smith, chair
Paul Richgruber

PAST WINNERS

Joshua Hangartner, La Jolla Country Day School (La Jolla, CA) "World History: A Vehicle for Understanding Ourselves"
Amanda Zhao, Pacific Ridge School (Carlsbad, CA) “History: An Ode to the Bricks of Progress”
Akram Elkouraichi, Yonkers Middle High School (Yonkers, NY) “The Realization of Impermanence: Ephemerality in World History as a Conceptual Framework”
Steven Chen, Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School (Vancouver, BC, Canada) “A Human Story: World History as an Optimist”
Juliana Boerema, Cary Christian School (Cary, North Carolina) “Brilliant Painting: How the Study of World History Changes Perspective”
Ahmad Aamir, Lahore Grammar School (Lahore, Pakistan) “Learning from History: Cooperation, Belief, Scholarship, & Words”
Vivian Liu, International School of Beijing (Beijing, China) “History: Bread of the World”
Vanessa Yan, Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School (Bradenton, Florida) “World History: The Great Macroscope”
Rachel Hughes, Webber Academy (Calgary, Canada), “Fostering a Universal Understanding of World History is the Key to a Brighter Tomorrow”
Campbell Munson, The Episcopal School of Dallas, “How History Has Affected My Worldview: Economies, Migration, Causality and Disease”
Jacob Cooper, North Oconee High School (Bogart, Georgia), “World History: The Basis for Self-Determination, Democracy, and Religion“
Luke J. Hamilton, Sword Academy (Bridgeport, Nebraska), “The Present: Living History”
David Kim, Wydown Middle School ( St. Louis), “History: The Shadow of the World”
Elizabeth Mello, Dartmouth High School (Dartmouth, Massachusetts), “Out of Many Threads, One Cloth”

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Home — Essay Samples — History — World History

Essays on World History

When it comes to choosing a topic for your World History essay, the possibilities are endless. World History is a vast and diverse field, spanning thousands of years and encompassing countless events, cultures, and individuals. With such a wealth of material to choose from, it can be overwhelming to decide on a topic that is both interesting and manageable. However, with a little thought and consideration, you can find a topic that will allow you to explore a fascinating aspect of World History while also meeting the requirements of your assignment.

Consider Time Period

One of the first considerations when choosing a World History essay topic is the time period you want to focus on. World History encompasses a vast expanse of time, from the earliest civilizations to the present day. You may want to narrow your focus to a specific era, such as ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, or the modern era. By selecting a specific time period, you can delve deeply into the events, people, and cultures of that era, providing a rich and detailed analysis in your essay.

Focus on Geographic Region

Another option is to choose a topic that focuses on a particular geographic region. World History encompasses the entire globe, and each region has its own unique history and culture. You may want to explore the history of a specific country or region, such as China, India, Africa, Europe, or the Americas. By focusing on a particular region, you can examine the events and developments that shaped its history, as well as the interactions and exchanges that occurred between different regions.

Consider Thematic Topics

In addition to time period and geographic region, you may also want to consider thematic topics for your World History essay. Thematic topics allow you to explore broader trends and patterns in World History, such as the rise and fall of empires, the spread of religions, the development of trade and commerce, or the impact of technology on society. By selecting a thematic topic, you can analyze the underlying forces and dynamics that have shaped the course of World History, providing a comprehensive and insightful analysis in your essay.

Refine Your Focus

Once you have identified the general parameters of your World History essay topic, it's important to refine your focus even further. Consider the specific aspects of your chosen time period, region, or theme that interest you the most. For example, if you have chosen to focus on ancient Rome, you may want to explore a specific aspect of Roman society, such as politics, religion, art, or daily life. If you have chosen to explore the history of China, you may want to focus on a particular dynasty, such as the Qin, Han, Tang, or Ming. By narrowing your focus to a specific aspect of your chosen topic, you can delve deeply into the details and nuances of that subject, providing a focused and nuanced analysis in your essay.

Consider Availability of Sources

In addition to considering your own interests and passions, it's also important to consider the availability of sources and research materials for your chosen topic. Before finalizing your topic, take some time to explore the existing literature and scholarship on your subject. Are there enough primary and secondary sources available to support your research? Are there any gaps or limitations in the existing scholarship that you can address in your essay? By considering the availability of sources and research materials, you can ensure that your chosen topic is both feasible and well-supported, allowing you to produce a high-quality and well-researched essay.

Consider Broader Significance

Lastly, when choosing a World History essay topic, it's important to consider the broader significance and relevance of your chosen topic. How does your topic relate to larger themes and issues in World History? What insights and perspectives does your topic offer that can contribute to our understanding of the past? By choosing a topic that has broader significance and relevance, you can ensure that your essay will be engaging and meaningful to your readers, as well as contribute to the ongoing dialogue and scholarship in the field of World History.

Choosing a World History essay topic can be a challenging and rewarding process. By considering the time period, geographic region, thematic focus, availability of sources, and broader significance of your chosen topic, you can find a subject that will allow you to explore a fascinating aspect of World History while also meeting the requirements of your assignment. With a little thought and consideration, you can find a topic that will inspire and engage you, as well as provide a valuable contribution to the field of World History.

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How to Write a History Essay?

04 August, 2020

10 minutes read

Author: Tomas White

There are so many types of essays. It can be hard to know where to start. History papers aren’t just limited to history classes. These tasks can be assigned to examine any important historical event or a person. While they’re more common in history classes, you can find this type of assignment in sociology or political science course syllabus, or just get a history essay task for your scholarship. This is Handmadewriting History Essay Guide - let's start!

Purpose of a History Essay

Wondering how to write a history essay? First of all, it helps to understand its purpose. Secondly, this essay aims to examine the influences that lead to a historical event. Thirdly, it can explore the importance of an individual’s impact on history.

However, the goal isn’t to stay in the past. Specifically, a well-written history essay should discuss the relevance of the event or person to the “now”. After finishing this essay, a reader should have a fuller understanding of the lasting impact of an event or individual.

Need basic essay guidance? Find out what is an essay with this 101 essay guide: What is an Essay?

Elements for Success

Indeed, understanding how to write a history essay is crucial in creating a successful paper. Notably, these essays should never only outline successful historic events or list an individual’s achievements. Instead, they should focus on examining questions beginning with what , how , and why . Here’s a pro tip in how to write a history essay: brainstorm questions. Once you’ve got questions, you have an excellent starting point.

Preparing to Write

Evidently, a typical history essay format requires the writer to provide background on the event or person, examine major influences, and discuss the importance of the forces both then and now. In addition, when preparing to write, it’s helpful to organize the information you need to research into questions. For example:

Who were the major contributors to this event?
Who opposed or fought against this event?
Who gained or lost from this event?
Who benefits from this event today?
What factors led up to this event?
What changes occurred because of this event?
What lasting impacts occurred locally, nationally, globally due to this event?
What lessons (if any) were learned?
Why did this event occur?
Why did certain populations support it?
Why did certain populations oppose it?

These questions exist as samples. Therefore, generate questions specific to your topic. Once you have a list of questions, it’s time to evaluate them.

Evaluating the Question

Seasoned writers approach writing history by examining the historic event or individual. Specifically, the goal is to assess the impact then and now. Accordingly, the writer needs to evaluate the importance of the main essay guiding the paper. For example, if the essay’s topic is the rise of American prohibition, a proper question may be “How did societal factors influence the rise of American prohibition during the 1920s? ”

This question is open-ended since it allows for insightful analysis, and limits the research to societal factors. Additionally, work to identify key terms in the question. In the example, key terms would be “societal factors” and “prohibition”.

Summarizing the Argument

The argument should answer the question. Use the thesis statement to clarify the argument and outline how you plan to make your case. In other words. the thesis should be sharp, clear, and multi-faceted. Consider the following tips when summarizing the case:

The thesis should be a single sentence
It should include a concise argument and a roadmap
It’s always okay to revise the thesis as the paper develops
Conduct a bit of research to ensure you have enough support for the ideas within the paper

Outlining a History Essay Plan

Once you’ve refined your argument, it’s time to outline. Notably, many skip this step to regret it then. Nonetheless, the outline is a map that shows where you need to arrive historically and when. Specifically, taking the time to plan, placing the strongest argument last, and identifying your sources of research is a good use of time. When you’re ready to outline, do the following:

Consider the necessary background the reader should know in the introduction paragraph
Define any important terms and vocabulary
Determine which ideas will need the cited support
Identify how each idea supports the main argument
Brainstorm key points to review in the conclusion

Gathering Sources

As a rule, history essays require both primary and secondary sources . Primary resources are those that were created during the historical period being analyzed. Secondary resources are those created by historians and scholars about the topic. It’s a good idea to know if the professor requires a specific number of sources, and what kind he or she prefers. Specifically, most tutors prefer primary over secondary sources.

Where to find sources? Great question! Check out bibliographies included in required class readings. In addition, ask a campus Librarian. Peruse online journal databases; In addition, most colleges provide students with free access. When in doubt, make an appointment and ask the professor for guidance.

Writing the Essay

Now that you have prepared your questions, ideas, and arguments; composed the outline ; and gathered sources – it’s time to write your first draft. In particular, each section of your history essay must serve its purpose. Here is what you should include in essay paragraphs.

Introduction Paragraph

Unsure of how to start a history essay? Well, like most essays, the introduction should include an attention-getter (or hook):

Relevant fact or statistic
Rhetorical Question
Interesting quotation
Application anecdote if appropriate

Once you’ve captured the reader’s interest, introduce the topic. Similarly, present critical historic context. Namely, it is necessary to introduce any key individuals or events that will be discussed later in the essay. At last, end with a strong thesis which acts as a transition to the first argument.

Body Paragraphs

Indeed, each body paragraph should offer a single idea to support the argument. Then, after writing a strong topic sentence, the topic should be supported with correctly cited research. Consequently, a typical body paragraph is arranged as follows:

Topic sentence linking to the thesis
Background of the topic
Research quotation or paraphrase #1
Explanation and analysis of research
Research quotation or paraphrase #2
Transition to the next paragraph

Equally, the point of body paragraphs is to build the argument. Hence, present the weakest support first and end with the strongest. Admittedly, doing so leaves the reader with the best possible evidence.

Conclusion Paragraph

You’re almost there! Eventually, conclusion paragraphs should review the most important points in the paper. In them, you should prove that you’ve supported the argument proposed in the thesis. When writing a conclusion paragraph keep these tips in mind:

Keep it simple
Avoid introducing new information
Review major points
Discuss the relevance to today

Problems with writing Your History essay ? Try our Essay Writer Service!

Proofreading Your Essay

Once the draft is ready and polished, it’s time to proceed to final editing. What does this process imply? Specifically, it’s about removing impurities and making the essay look just perfect. Here’s what you need to do to improve the quality of your paper:

Double check the content. In the first place, it’s recommended to get rid of long sentences, correct vague words. Also, make sure that all your paragrahps contain accurate sentences with transparent meaning.
Pay attention to style. To make the process of digesting your essay easier, focus on crafting a paper with readable style, the one that is known to readers. Above all, the main mission here is to facilitate the perception of your essay. So, don’t forget about style accuracy.
Practice reading the essay. Of course, the best practice before passing the paper is to read it out loud. Hence, this exercise will help you notice fragments that require rewriting or a complete removal.

History Essay Example

Did you want a history essay example? Take a look at one of our history essay papers.

Make it Shine

An A-level essay takes planning and revision, but it’s achievable. Firstly, avoid procrastination and start early. Secondly, leave yourself plenty of time to brainstorm, outline, research and write. Finally, follow these five tips to make your history essay shine:

Write a substantial introduction. Particularly, it’s the first impression the professor will have of the paper.
State a clear thesis. A strong thesis is easier to support.
Incorporate evidence critically. If while researching you find opposing arguments, include them and discuss their flaws.
Cite all the research. Whether direct quotations or paraphrases, citing evidence is crucial to avoiding plagiarism, which can have serious academic consequences.
Include primary and secondary resources. While primary resources may be harder to find, the professor will expect them—this is, after all, a history essay.

History Essay Sample

Ready to tackle the history essay format? Great! Check out this history essay sample from an upper-level history class. While the essay isn’t perfect, the professor points out its many strengths.

Remember: start early and revise, revise, revise . We can’t revise history, but you can revise your ideas until they’re perfect.

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World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500

(26 reviews)

Eugene Berger, Lawrenceville, GA

George L. Israel, Macon, GA

Charolette Miller, Macon, GA

ISBN 13: 9781940771106

Publisher: University of North Georgia Press

Language: English

Formats Available

Conditions of use.

Learn more about reviews.

Reviewed by Timothy Fitzgerald, Associate Professor of History, James Madison University on 9/18/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

The text aims to be comprehensive geographically, but such coverage is imbalanced. Following a traditional approach to world history, Western/European content is thicker and more differentiated. For example, all of Africa is examined, if thoughtfully, in one short chapter (about 30 pages in a 480-page book). Each chapter provides guide questions and key terms—often too many for this reviewer. There is no comprehensive index.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

This long, full text includes a lot of information about very many times, places, cultures, and historical subfields. Any one scholar cannot assess the accuracy of all of it. But, the material presented in the fields with which this reviewer is best acquainted is generally accurate, if not cutting-edge. There is a laudable effort to avoid bias and present different perspectives on some contested topics—e.g., the peopling of the Americas.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

One basic limitation to relevance/longevity is the text’s fundamental approach, which organizes chapters by geography and favors political history (states, empires, dynasties, etc.). More thematic pedagogic designs, and ones that emphasize “connections” and “encounters” among peoples, have moved away from texts like this one.

Clarity rating: 4

Though chapters are separately authored and each has a distinctive style and set of interests, the writing is clear. However, there is a lot of detailed information presented—too much for the typical undergraduate, in this reviewer’s opinion—making the material potentially overwhelming at times.

Consistency rating: 4

The text’s basic structure is consistent. Each chapter provides a chronology, guide questions, key terms, and information on further reading and primary sources. But, such information varies in quantity and in kind and, again, can be too much—there are over 100 key terms for the chapter on Rome!

Modularity rating: 4

The text offers many separately-titled subsections. The discussion is self-referential in some instances (referring readers to other chapters). Chapters vary in length, and topical coverage within each tends to be idiosyncratic—there are few obvious thematic through-lines. Geographic coverage is imbalanced, so even an instructor pursuing a “civilizational” approach would likely need to supplement and reorganize. On balance, the book appears more “modular” than “integrated.”

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

Again, the text is organized geographically and has a chronological drift, moving from prehistory to the 16th Century. Chapter subsections tend to follow a traditional emphasis on political history, at least for narrative framing. Treatment of some topics (e.g., trade and war) shows connections across societies, and there are a few brief attempts at global comparison. But coverage tends to be more interested in the “trees” than the “forest.”

Interface rating: 4

The interface is accessible and easy to navigate. Though reliance on maps and figures available in the public domain (mainly Wikimedia Commons) means their quality and utility varies. Some images are blurry and pixilated. Maps sometimes present an overwhelming number of place names and introduce inconsistences in spelling that could confuse students. There are broken web-links, and at least one interactive map does not function properly.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

The writing is generally clear and free of grammatical errors. Though the spelling (transliteration) of proper names and technical terms is not always accurate and consistent.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

The text offers a traditional approach to world history. It emphasizes coverage by geographic region and is heavy on information/“facts.” While this design continues to have merits—and there are welcome maneuvers in this text, such as discrete attention to Central Asia—other approaches could be considered more current and inclusive. Important topics like gender and environmental history are buried. Moreover, the text’s more detailed coverage of Western/European history makes a statement about the relative importance of the non-West, which could alienate students and cause them to miss important changes in the field of world history that have enhanced its “relevance” in recent decades.

For this reviewer, parts of this text might be used to advantage in a world history survey course. But it cannot stand alone.

Reviewed by Yongguang Hu, Associate Professor, James Madison University on 5/12/22

It does a good job of covering major events in European history, but it does not provide an equal amount of information on other parts of the world. For example, it uses four pages to discuss the transitional period from Caesar to Augustus. But... read more

Content Accuracy rating: 5

I am impressed by the quality of the content. Although it should give more attention to non-western history, it does have an accurate understanding of the world. I appreciate how it describes the major achievements of the Song dynasty in China. Many famous commercial textbooks fail to do that. It is also one of a few titles addressing the history of native peoples in the world. When it comes to European history, the sheer amount of information is noteworthy too.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

Since its publication, there have been some newly acknowledged understandings that the authors could use in the future. For example, localism or the "localist turn" is a very important notion among American historians working on late imperial China. The nature of the Mongol Empire could be further explained. China's early modern period started from the Song, not the Ming.

Its text is accessible, and I don't find any jargon in the book. On the other hand, the writing is sometimes plain. If the writing style was more compelling, it would motivate more students to further explore history.

One major issue of this text is its overemphasis on western civilization. Too many chapters are devoted to discussing the typical western line, from Greece to Rome, and from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the early modern. Other regions do have their individual chapters, but one such chapter often covers the entire history from the beginning to 1500.

Modularity rating: 2

This is the biggest drawback. No one teaches world history by spending one month on the non-west and another two months on Europe. The current framework is almost unusable. If I assign this book to my class, I have to pick out certain pages for my lectures, and students have to jump back and forth to find references. Following chronological order would be much better.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

Within each region, the content is fine. But the relations between world regions are barely covered. World history focuses on interconnectedness and the global exchange of commodities, ideas, plants and animals, and people. The book has a long way to go.

The book looks nice, and all the maps, pictures, and graphs are used clearly and efficiently.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I don't see any grammatical errors.

The text does not treat non-western peoples seriously. European history is given too much attention. The implication is that only the west matters in history. As many scholars have indicated in recent decades, the centers of the world were in the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia before 1500.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about this book. If I were to assign it to my survey class, I would make many changes and add more content on Asia, Africa, and Americas.

Reviewed by Faith Skiles, Adjunct Instructor, History Department, Virginia Tech on 4/8/22

First, I want to applaud the tremendous effort and work that undoubtedly went in to producing this open access textbook. The scope of history covered is truly comprehensive for an introductory textbook on World History and the authors cover political and military history without excluding gender, intellectual, and cultural histories. However, the coverage of individual geographical world regions is unfortunately uneven. As many other reviewers have mentioned, European history gets more coverage than other region. I see this as the hardest hurdle for me to overcome in incorporating this textbook into my classes . (A hurdle though, that I am going to endeavor to leap.) To offset this unevenness, some reviewers suggested more coverage in other regions, and I think for the chapter on the Americas, this is true. However, my suggestion would be to make Europe’s treatment more on par with other sections of the textbook since this is for an introductory course. The book does not contain an index or glossary, which of course, if included, would be helpful.

I see no problems with accuracies. Different debates on historical events continue. Authors of this textbook often reference these debates. However, if they are not mentioned, this provides a great opportunity for instructors to update students on the latest debates.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

As in any history text, information would need to be up-dated as new scholarship comes to light. The way in which the text is written would make updates extremely easy to do. I believe this textbook will remain relevant for a number of years yet,

Clarity rating: 5

The text, for me, was clear, lucid and accessible and I believe it would be for students as well. There are some mentions of scholars students might not know. However,I found little “jargony" language in the text. I think I do remember the use of teleology once…..,

A textbook created by different authors, as many textbook are, will not be completely consistent in writing styles or emphases. This is true for this textbook as well. Each chapter does, however, employ the same rough overall framework, which brings consistency to the book.

Modularity rating: 5

The modularity would seem to make it easily divisible into smaller reading sections. Subheadings are present and are easily recognizable to someone who teaches world history. Reading through the book I was taking notes on how I would use different sections in my world history course.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 2

If you like to teach World History one region at a time, you will like the organization of this book. I do not like this approach, however. It limits students from seeing cross-cultural trends like the rise of major world religions within a similar time frame. Also, cross- cultural interactions between regions is not a “modern” phenomenon but one that dates back to the earliest complex societies. I can understand why the authors would choose this organization, but it does not give students the opportunity to identify trends and concepts arising from and similar to different regions of the world.

Overall, I like the interface. I especially like the open access images used. They are great. Some links, however, do not work. This is very frustrating for students and would produce a number of emails letting me know they aren't working.

I did not notice any grammatical errors. However, I am not good at noticing them while reading a book.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

For the most part, the writing is culturally sensitive. Fellow reviewers have pointed out a few places that might be written with a bit more sensitivity. However, on a positive note, I really appreciate the discussion on the concept of civilization at the beginning of Chapter two.

Overall, I would highly recommend this textbook. I like the idea of using an open access textbook and this one covers topics well and is well-written. My plan is to adapt it to fit my thematic, roughly chronological organization. I will most likely leave some of the material on Europe on the editor's floor and add some of my own. But isn’t that part of what makes teaching unique and fun.

Reviewed by Charles Young, Associate Professor, Umpqua Community College on 7/19/21

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

The textbook has a straightforward chronological direction that provides good foundation for what comes next historically across the world stage. It is reasonably comprehensive in covering world cultures, states, and societies beyond the not uncommon over emphasis on western civilizations. The depth given to Chinese history as well as the Americas and Africa to 1500 is particularly good. For such a broad coverage of world history there are understandably some areas given short shrift, such as factors in the rapid spread of Islam and in the rise of the Mongols and the significance of their extensive empire to increased world trade and communications, but comprehensiveness is, as I said before, pretty good.

Accuracy is error free and unbiased. In a few areas more depth would have strengthened understanding, such as in the rise of the Persian Empire. That is, in my opinion, an example where brevity lost an element of clarity. These too abbreviated examples are few however.

Textbook will need further revision given the ever increasing realization in recent years of the extent of Eurocentric bias that still infuses so much of our educational system's perspective, but this text is better than most at avoiding that. More focus on lack of rights for women and the challenges they have face, and still face, is a specific area for further revision.

The text narrative is very lucid and accessible in prose. There is excellent context and explanation for jargon and technical terminology used.

Consistency rating: 5

The text is internally consistent in terminology and framework. There is an excellent balancing of text with images, maps, charts, and statistics. Key terms chapter by chapter are very helpful to understanding as are the inserted in depth focuses.

The text is outstanding in being readily divisible into smaller reading sections. There are not long blocks of reading material. Instead, there are effective use of subheadings and interspersing of appropriate maps and other visual imagery. An example of excellent, manageable text focus are the pages 80-85 on the rise of the Upanishadic Worldview and its leading to Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

Text topics are presented in a logical, clear fashion. I would have be more clear as to the Ming Dynasty merging more into the early modern period but, again, attempting to cover all of world history to 1500 is bound to leave some areas with less depth than desired. I would have had more on the significance of Sparta to the Classical Ancient Greek world, and of the creation of the trireme fleet along with the hoplite phalanxes as crucial to the rise of democracy but, again, the text does a pretty good overall comprehensive job.

Interface rating: 5

Interface is excellent in that balancing of textual narrative with images and maps.

I see no significant grammatical errors.

The text is not culturally insensitive and is inclusive of a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds.

I definitely recommend this textbook and intend to use it myself in my world history classes. I would have preferred that it went from the Paleolithic to around 1000 C.E. and then had a part two from that point to the present but I can work this "to 1500" chronology into a three term schoolyear.

Reviewed by Deanna Brandenberger, Instructor of History & Anthropology, Aiken Technical College on 3/5/21

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

This book is an incredible feat of collaborative materials designed to blanket the dearth of information that encompasses the totality of World History. In truth, I am not sure that a perfect product for this mission is ever entirely possible. With such a large compendium, it inevitably falls short in certain areas, giving time and space to discussions regarding traditionally focused cultures (as some other reviewers have commented: Eurocentric), and arguably less to less familiar civilizations such as East Asia and The Americas. The text does provide keyword indices at the beginning of the chapters, but the bolded key terms are not always situated within the text that makes them readily accessible to those who will be searching for clear definitions and a reliable format of studying. There is also no glossary at the end of the textbook to provide succinct definitions or page numbers for reference which are crucial to cross-referencing study tactics.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

While many of us are considered subject matter experts in the overall information that is "World History," we are more specifically suited to our field niches. For me, this would be the Americas chapter. Unfortunately, I found some of the information too brief, confusing, and not exactly comprehensive. Futhermore, what concerned me is the sources that were referenced. How can you examine the Nahuas (Aztecs) without looking at Charles Gibson, the Maya without looking at James Lockhart, or the Inka without looking at Gary Urton? They have produced the leading historiographical monographs of these civilizations and yet they are not mentioned. Certain tidbits of information seem to be jammed together, such as the progress of the Olmec, Toltec, Zapotec, and Mixtec, Huastec, etc.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 2

While I think it is admirable that the author tried to include civilizations that are not always included within the scope of Western Civilization courses, I think these chapters are not as comprehensive or given the same attention as the traditional European civilizations. It is important that the author took this step, but it will certainly need updating and a collaborative effort might be the best way to do this.

Clarity rating: 3

One of the most important things with scholastic resources, is that they have to meet the reader where they are at. Students taking this class may see this resource as offputting due to the lofty diction that is utilized at times. This author can write very well, but it seems that the audience being written for is not necessarily suited to an introductory class. It felt a bit like reading a dissertation in places with extraneous information and verbiage. As I have previously noted, a textbook should have clear outlines of information and bolding key terms and providing succinct definitions can help the student to focus on specific sections, rather than having to go back and forth through the expansive- even though elegant- prose.

Consistency rating: 3

First, let me say again that I appreciate that the author acknowledged a need for more diversity in the literature available and I appreciate the the attempt to become more inclusive of the subaltern. However, like other reviewers, one of the biggest issues is the inconsistency of length of chapters and breadth dedicated to specific civilizations and cultures. While the author incorporates the Indus and Chinese civilizations into the timeline of traditional Western Civilization, the chapters on The Americas is woefully cut short and anachronistic in the chronology of chapter dedication. For example, when the Olmec and Toltec civilizations were constructing massive architecture such as Teotihuacan, you had the philosophers of Greece coming into prominence. Yet, the Americas jams two continents and countless civilizations together in a short chapter at the end of the book, presumably to align with the Conquest of the New World beginning in 1492. This in itself is quite problematic and should be addressed.

Modularity rating: 3

As I previously mentioned, the prose is quite profuse at times and reads much like an extensive essay. This could be problematic when trying to break up the chapters into reasonable subject focused readings.

The organization for the most part is good, taking the traditional chronological approach. My objection to this are the chapters on Africa and the Americas primarily, which do not fall into the same formula. Rather, they seem to have been added on principle of inclusion rather than being properly incorporated into the other chapters. Speaking plainly: the author at times alternates between a chronological and geographical model which can prove inconsistent in places.

I love the use of photographs of sites, artifacts, diagrams, maps, etc. and that they are in color and ready for public use. These help illustrate and enhance the information we are asking students to memorize and the visual cue gives elaboration to the information and concepts being described. The author has picked out some very beautiful images. My only complaint here is that some of the digital links are corrupted. For example, the very first link of the book is redirected to an Error 504 page. I am not sure if there is a way to permanently connect these, but if they are going to be listed, then they will need to ensure they are reliable; otherwise, this resource will need to be continually monitored and updated.

There were some minor grammatical errors that I noticed. For example, in Chapter 10 (the Americas), the author calls the Tlaxcalans incorrectly "Tlazcalan." This could have been a simple mispelling. While not necessarily an error, in Chapter 2 (Egypt): the author uses the description of Afterworld rather than Underworld to describe a deity. This seems like a portmanteau concept of Afterlife and Underworld. It is not common and might be confusing to the students. I believe a more clear description of the Underworld transcending into the Afterlife (according to the Book of the Dead/ Papyrus of Ani) would be appropriate there.

If anything, I think that it is very clear this author was dedicated to diversity and inclusivity. While all chapters may not have been equal in these measures, the attempt is there and it is clear that this is a mammoth task! One of the most important things is that these items be revisited and elaborated upon in future editions. Particularly, as we navigate the historiography of subaltern cultures, some information will change, new information will be added, and outdated paradigms need to be discarded.

I would have liked to see a little more cohesive discussion and imagery with the evolution of bipedal hominids. Photographs and flowcharts would be especially helpful here. I would also recommend looking at the oldest mummy Otzi, to discuss the transition from foraging to agricultural models.

Reviewed by Kelli Nakamura, Associate Professor, Kapiolani Community College on 3/3/21

The textbook is well organized along chronological as well as geographic lines. I appreciate its efforts to comprehensively address issues such as geography, economics, culture, and politics. I like the fact that the chapters begin with a chronology, key terms, and questions to consider which might help direct a student's reading. I also commend the author for including "works consulted and further reading" at the end as well as links to primary sources. One area that I saw that was missing was the Pacific as Austronesians (Lapita people) were notable for engaging in the most extensive overseas migration. Additionally, some discussion of South East Asia (e.g. Vietnam) might be helpful to readers (beyond simply being tributaries of China).

I appreciate the fact that this book provides wide coverage of World History and addresses multiple societies. Too often "world history" textbooks are just focused on European history.

The best part about history (especially in a discussion about ancient history) is that changes in historical interpretations don't often occur. For a textbook about World History, this information will not be irrelevant in the near future.

I appreciate the fact that the terminology in the book is relatively straightforward and key terms are clearly explained (e.g. Polytheistic: belief in many gods). College students should not find this book difficult to read.

A consistent framework organizes the book's chapters: Chronology, Introduction; Questions to Guide Your Reading; Key Terms; Works Consulted and Further Reading; and Links to Primary Sources.

The book is easily readable and the sections are clearly organized. I wish the bolded terms were potentially highlighted in a different color just to set it off from the body of the text.

The book is well organized chronologically and geographically. I wish there was more cross-cultural analysis/comparison as this just reads like a standard history textbook (lots of dates/facts/people). It might be relevant to include the current relevance of this information for students today.

Interface rating: 3

I did have some issues when I clicked on links in the primary sources section or the "works consulted and further reading" section as either the links were broken or I had to adjust my settings. Many of these settings linked to other textual-based sources and I was hoping for a more dynamic interface. Also, I wish that there were instructions on how to cite or quote from these selections as that would be an issue for my students.

The book is well written with no grammatical issues.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

I appreciate the book's wide coverage of peoples and cultures and its impartial historical contextualization/explanation of potentially sensitive topics like religion. I wish there was more coverage on the experiences of women, even to highlight their exceptionalism (like Empress Wu/Wu Zhao) in the text itself. Additionally, it would be useful to analyze cross-cultural interactions such as Zheng He and Marco Polo (expand the latter beside a link to primary sources).

At 487 pages, this book may be challenging/intimidating for students to read. I currently assign a "brief" version of the textbook to encourage students to read (it is about half of this) and having them read is still a challenge. An explanation of how to use/understand primary sources might help both readers, as well as professors as simply linking to Marco Polo in primary sources, does not explain his connection to the content under discussion. Also, I was hoping for questions to guide an understanding of the primary source besides just listing it for the reader.

Reviewed by Jessica Hammerman, Associate Professor, Central Oregon Community College on 1/6/21

I think it is definitely comprehensive in terms of narrative. A few problems; too much detail; not enough focus (beyond geography). Other World History books have sections to take us through different segments of the population I like the citing of primary sources, but they should be accessible apart from the text. Key terms lists are great for each chapter, but it seems confusing or overwhelming for a student to read on their own.

Good citing; good maps; good representations of the known past. nice balance on regions of the world and genders.

World history is hard to make irrelevant. The areas of Mesoamerican and African strengthen this book and the inclusion of women's lives is solid.

It is clear and the vocabulary lists are great. But students need themes and breakdowns. Not just a comprehensive outline of every single thing that happened. Great bibliography. The linking system to primary sources is good for instructors but not students.

Each chapter is around 40 pages give or take. the vocabulary lists (key terms) for each chapter are lengthy as well. There are links to primary sources at the end of each chapter. The only curious thing is merging Byzantium with Western Europe. I would place them seperately.

This is the weakness of the book. The pages are dense and the information is not easily divvied up. Should be columns.

This is divided geographically instead of thematically and chronologically. I think this is an okay way to do it, although my personal preference is to divide a book by theme, then you get a sense of the awesomeness of a particular period, such as the "Axial Age" which includes Confucius, Socrates, Jeremiah, Buddha, and others were all thinking of new ideas and solutions around the world at the same time. I also don't like the huge, 500-year chapters.

i like the linkable TOC -- keep an eye on the primary sources links to make sure they are up to date.

I couldn't see any.

It may have some more "traditional" history perspectives, but to be fair it's hard to do ancient and medieval history super sensitively. To say Columbus "discovered" the New World is a bit insensitive-- i prefer encountered. Things like that...

Reviewed by Jeannie Harding, Adjunct Professor, James Madison University on 11/21/20

This text covers most of the major civilizations that are emphasized in an ancient world history course, but it omits smaller civilizations like those in ancient Japan, Southeast Asia, and Polynesia. I also felt that it drastically shortchanged Africa and the Americas, both of which received fairly cursory treatment. For example, in the chapter on the Americas--and there is only one chapter devoted to that region--the Aztec only get two pages, and a good portion of that consists of images.

There is no index, only a very simple "find" tool to locate a specific term, and there is no glossary.

In general, I found the text to be broad but not very deep and similar to the coverage found in a standard “brief edition” textbook published by many companies.

I did not detect any glaring inaccuracies. The individual sections appear to be edited well.

I think it’s time for this source to be updated to reflect the shift away from Eurocentrism. Europe receives a deeper treatment than most other continents here, and that can and should be rectified quickly. Otherwise, this is a great starting place for instructors, and they can supplement content as needed.

I found this to be a fairly dense, dry read. Each chapter has an exhaustive list of key terms, too numerous to be of any real help in guiding students’ reading. When I used this text during the sudden move online in Spring 2020, I provided a short background for my students before they tackled each section, and I gave them my own list of key terms to help them focus their reading. I feel some chapters delve too far into minutia and side plots that distract from the most important concepts. My survey course students require some guidance in navigating the reading and discerning which information is important.

The overall framework of the text is consistent, with chronology, guided reading questions, and key terms attached to each chapter. Each chapter begins with a discussion of geography and a map; this is a format I use in lectures, and I like that the source mirrors that. I found that the depth of coverage on topics is somewhat inconsistent throughout the text, with some societies receiving more attention than others.

The modularity of the text was one of its strongest points. The text is structured in the same way I organize my class, largely chronological. I liked that the Table of Contents could be turned on to show continually in the margin so that the reader can move easily between chapters. The sections within each chapter are clearly labeled, and the only issue I see is that the search function operates like the “Find” tool in a Word document, which is cumbersome.

The organizational structure makes sense. Each chapter is devoted to a region of the world chronologically, but it lacks continuity between chapters. As a textbook, each chapter functions independently.

Each chapter provides a nice list of primary sources with links, but if students download the Adobe version (which I recommend), the links sometimes do not work. I found several bad links, including a good number to the sources from Fordham, which I apparently do not have permission to view. This and the rudimentary search function detailed above are major drawbacks.

There were no obvious grammatical errors that I noticed.

As noted above, Europe receives more attention and more detailed coverage than other areas, so most instructors in a “World History” course may want to supplement what is provided here. As an example, China gets only one chapter to discuss its history from the Shang to the Ming! I would like to see the non-European sections expanded.

For instructors who typically utilize "brief editions" of textbooks or who have time to modify or add to this text, I think this could be a good choice. If you prefer a text that provides more detail for your students and is easier to read--perhaps something you can assign without having to supplement very much--I suggest you look elsewhere. In the spring semester of 2020 when I had to find an OER for my class that suddenly moved online, this worked, but I switched back to my favorite standard textbook for the next semester.

Reviewed by Jennifer Welsh, Term Assistant Professor of History, University of Alaska, Southeast on 11/2/20, updated 12/16/20

This text balances a mix of broadening coverage to include geographical areas which are frequently ignored or discussed only briefly in World History texts (the Byzantine Empire and Central Asia, for example) with a problematic tendency to stuff all of the history of non-Western areas into a single chapter. There is only one chapter for the entire history of Africa until around 1500, for example, and all of Chinese history up until the Ming Dynasty is likewise crammed into a single chapter. Given that Greece and Rome each get their own chapters and Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire gets one chapter on history from 500 until roughly 1000 and another covering history from 1000 until 1500, this means that Western history is getting much more space than the rest of the world. While this means that Eastern Europe and the Byzantine Empire are given much stronger coverage than found in many World History textbooks, it also means that non-Western areas are shortchanged. The first chapter, covering human origins and prehistory, is only half as long as the others, and is thus providing only a very brief summary of a very long period of time. Each chapter includes a list of key terms, but there is no overall index or glossary. The lack of an index is somewhat mitigated by the use of subheadings and divisions within the chapter, and the list of key terms. That does not mean that it wouldn’t be better to have a full index that students could use to look up concepts or names that they can’t place geographically or chronologically.

The content of this textbook is generally error-free and unbiased. There are areas where students could engage in discussion about differing points of view, or instructors could supplement the content of the book with additional information to fill in gaps or provide different theories. The authors also acknowledge potential areas of difficulty. For example, when discussing the history of the ancient Israelites and the kingdom of Israel, the problems with relying on Scripture as a source are clearly explained, and the inclusion of archaeological and other sources when possible is highlighted. In spite of the generally high level of accuracy, there are some areas that could be improved. The chapter on India begins with a strong discussion of the cultural and religious variety that has defined the subcontinent, and notes that the historical boundaries of “India” are much wider than the present-day nation of India. However, at the end of the chapter, when giving demographic information about religion in modern India, the authors say that India is approximately 80% Hindu and 15% Muslim, and do not mention the existence of Pakistan and Bangladesh (p 106). Cleopatra VII, the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt, is contextualized via a reference to her fame largely revolving around her love affairs with Caesar and Marcus Antonius- while it is true that that’s how she is remembered, framing her that way is dismissive and a missed opportunity on the part of the authors to talk about gender, power, and history (p 211).

This textbook was clearly written using recent research and relevant concerns. For example, the chapter on Africa provides valuable, thought-provoking material about the history of colonialism and the ways in which the legacies of slavery and Imperialism have shaped our perceptions of the continent and its diverse cultures. The fact that Central Asia (including the Mongol Empire) gets its own chapter is another good sign of relevance and inclusion.

The structure of the book means that making changes and additions will be fairly easy, either by splitting and expanding existing chapters, adding or replacing individual sections, or making edits within a section.

The level of the prose in this textbook is appropriate for a college survey class. The inclusion of a key word section at the start of each chapter is also helpful, as it gives students information about what they should be paying particular attention to. Terms are also briefly explained within the text as needed.

This textbook demonstrates a solidly consistent structure from chapter to chapter, including starting each chapter with a chronology, providing a list of key terms, drawing the reader in with an anecdote or primary source to start the chapter, a list of questions to guide the reading, and a concluding section with bibliographies of primary and secondary sources, both printed and online. Within the chapters, there is a good mix of maps and images, drawn almost entirely from Wikimedia Commons. That does lead to variations in the map style and some inconsistencies about attribution (is the “author” the creator of the work or the person who took the picture that was on Wikimedia Commons?)

The structure of this textbook is easily dividable, with each chapter containing subheadings and sections that could easily be assigned piecemeal. It would be easy to shift the order of the non-Western chapters around (although that also indicates that there is too much of a focus on Western civilizations)- for example, discussing Central Asia and China in closer proximity than their respective chapters are. It would also, in theory, be possible to assign one section of one chapter and then follow it with a section from another chapter- for example, if the instructor wanted to interrupt the discussion of India with a discussion of Islam before returning to talk about Islam’s impact on Indian civilization.

The organization of this textbook is generally good; the chapters on Western Europe and Byzantium progress in chronological order (following a chapter on Greece and a chapter on Rome), while the chapters covering larger geographical areas have good internal organization. When there is a reference to another content area, the specific reference is provided.

The chapters themselves generally follow the same thematic structure, which is helpful.

Navigating this textbook was quite straightforward, and the text itself was very readable. There were some maps (taken from Wikipedia) that suffered from small font size from the original source, usually an older geography book. The attribution of the images and maps could use some editing; pulling material from Wikimedia Commons means that the source attributions given can vary widely, and the difference between something that is treated as a personal name and something that is defined as “user” can be awkward- just because “Locutus Borg” looks like a personal name does not mean it is (p 345).

The text is well-edited and contains almost no grammatical or typesetting errors. Any minor errors do not detract from the readability of the text.

The authors of this text are clearly working hard to be inclusive and present a wide range of examples. However, because the chapters themselves are skewed towards European history, there are fewer non-European examples presented in the text. There are also some chapters that start out with anecdotes drawn from European sources even though the chapter is focused on other parts of the world. Why does the chapter about Africa need to start with the boasts of a Portuguese raider? Why is Cortes the best choice to start the chapter on the Americas?

Overall, this is a very solid textbook for a World History survey course, with plenty of material for discussion and analysis. The length of the textbook (12 chapters) means that instructors could supplement this textbook with additional materials, possibly dividing one of the chapters that covers an immense chronological scope and adding readings to deepen coverage.

Reviewed by Chris Brooks, Instructor in History, Portland Community College on 6/21/20

Most of the chapters are dense with information and do not skip over important events, individuals, or phenomena. There are some peculiar lacunae, however. For example, there are a few offhand references to the Bronze Age, but no detailed discussion of it or the Iron Age. The Persian Empire is treated like a historical afterthought, which is a real problem since Persia represents one of the most venerable and influential cultures in world history. As other reviewers have noted, the book is strangely Eurocentric in the sense that it simply devotes more attention to European history than it does to the histories of other regions, which is an imbalance that would be obvious to savvy students.

One noteworthy omission is the lack of a general introduction at the start of the book. Given how detailed and robust the book is in general, that absence is puzzling.

There are places in which phrasing implies something that isn’t quite true - for instance, Mesopotamian empires did not directly transition from the Akkadian Empire of Sargon the Great to the Babylonian Empire of Hammurabi centuries later (to name a single intervening empire, there was the “Ur III” dynasty). Likewise, “Pharaoh” was the term for the king of Egypt only during the New Kingdom. That noted, I did not detect any significant errors, with the exception of a single typo: Edward Gibbon was an historian alive during the Eighteenth Century CE, not the Nineteenth (page 224).

One issue that might ruffle some feathers for students but still deserves attention is that there is, in fact, no textual or architectural corroboration from Egyptian sources of the Hebrew Exodus. The book discusses some of the problems of using the Hebrew Bible as a historical source, but it still describes the Exodus as if it definitely happened, which simply cannot be confirmed.

The topics are relevant and well-chosen. The authors deserve full credit for including robust discussions of all of the major subfields of history (i.e. intellectual, political, gender, etc.) in most chapters. If anything, an issue for students might be that the book is too dense in many places. The long digression on the problem of source analysis in the context of the ancient Greeks, for example, might lull 100-level history students to sleep. Likewise, there are occasional references to terms, people, and concepts that many students simply do not know about: e.g., “She and hundreds of other scholars from Hobbes to Marx” (page 12). I would anticipate many history instructors opting to copy and paste sections of the book to keep it more manageable for students rather than assigning the whole thing, which of course is precisely a benefit of using an OER.

One issue with the book’s clarity is its density, as noted above. Another is simply a byproduct of the choice to focus on a given geographical region in each chapter: sometimes the narrative must refer to a culture, state, religion, etc., from outside of a given chapter’s region without being able to explain it adequately. That is especially noticeable in those chapters that cover a vast time frame in a single chapter (e.g. India, East Asia, the Americas, Africa). For instance, the chapter on India refers to Islam but does not explain its context, simply because the chapter on Islam is later in the book.

The authorial approach is consistent throughout, with each chapter including a background discussion, issues with sources, geography, a chronological narrative, and then a summary to wrap up.

The book is very well-structured, with clear headings, subheadings, and sections. It would be very easy to adapt to an online class, and it would be equally easy to select specific sections to assign to students.

As noted under clarity, above, several of the chapters cover a given world region’s entire history to 1500 CE. The intersections between chapters can suffer as a result, since it is impossible to explain a reference to an “outside” influence adequately while remaining focused on a given chapter’s primary subject. That is rarely a major issue, however, although it might throw some students off a bit.

The only possible issue with the interface is that the book is only available as a single PDF. There are no captions for the images as a result, which is an accessibility issue. It would also be fairly labor-intensive to copy sections of the book into a different document, although that might be easier using a full-featured PDF editor.

I did not detect a single grammatical error, and the prose is clear and readable throughout.

Given that the world history paradigm was largely inspired by a desire to break from Eurocentric narratives, the strangest aspect of the book is the fact that it is “Europe heavy” in its coverage. Persia is an afterthought, but Greece gets an entire chapter, for instance. In fact, four out of the twelve chapters are on European subjects, while even China only gets a single chapter! As a reader, it is a bit odd to encounter so much on the nuances of life and politics in a few Greek poleis while both American continents get only a single chapter overview. One specific issue unrelated to the book’s coverage of Europe: the term “Aryan” begs for further discussion in the chapter on India. Aryan was indeed the self-designation used by the Indo-Iranian peoples who migrated into India and Persia during the Bronze Age. Because of the grotesque abuse of the term by racist pseudo-scholars starting in the nineteenth century, however, many (most?) contemporary Americans connote the word with white supremacists, not least because “Aryan” identity was so central to the Nazis during the Third Reich. The book really should explain that “Aryan” was never a racial identity; at most it could be considered a linguistic-ethnic designation for peoples who migrated to India and Persia at a certain point in ancient history. Those issues aside, it should be clear that the authors do go out of their way to dismantle problematic assumptions and ideas related to the history covered in the book. For example, while it’s on the lengthy side, the introduction to African history does a great job of explaining to American readers some of the key issues and false assumptions that have distorted the Western understanding of African history and identity for far too long.

This is an excellent book. It is based on recent scholarship, it is well written, it manages to cover a vast range of subjects with relative clarity, and it would be extremely useful in any lower-division world history survey. From my perspective it would be best used as a source of material to be copied and pasted into separate documents for students, which in turn would render some of the minor issues noted above (e.g. the book’s density, the under-explained outside references) irrelevant.

It should also be noted that the book includes both helpful bibliographies of secondary sources and lists of primary sources at the end of each chapter.

Overall, the book is easily the equal of many commercial world history textbooks, and the authors deserve a great deal of credit for their effort.

Reviewed by Corinne Kannenberg, Affiliate Faculty, Metropolitan State University of Denver on 5/1/20

I would have liked to see more in-depth discussion of East Asia, Africa, and the Americas. read more

I would have liked to see more in-depth discussion of East Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

It seems to be accurate and error-free.

It seems relevant and/or easy to update.

My students complain about this text often. It is written in a very dry prose that my college students don't find engaging or easy to read.

The text is consistent.

I often assign multiple sections from various chapters and this is made easier by the multiple headings and subheadings within each chapter.

Sometimes I am confused by the organizations of some of the chapters, which seem to be organized by both geography and chronology (for example, the chapters on Europe and Byzantium jump between the two in a way that is not intuitive).

The PDF format makes the interface quite easy to navigate.

There are no grammatical errors that I've noticed.

Aside from being more Eurocentric than I expected, I do not find it otherwise insensitive or offensive.

I use this text in a course on the global Middle Ages since no such stand-alone textbook exists (yet). I love being able to offer my students an OER that is free for them to use. While this textbook is functional, it is not perfect, and I find that it works best as a supplementary text when used along side multiple primary source readings, scholarly articles, etc. Simply put, I find that its coverage of world cultures, particularly those of East Asia, Africa, and the Americas are surprisingly lacking, and these are the areas that I hoped to find covered more extensively. Overall, I find that it is certainly worth using this text so that my students can save money on books, but I wish that it had more extensive coverage of ancient and medieval WORLD civilizations and cultures to the extent that would be expected in an introductory-level college history course.

Reviewed by Rick Warner, Associate Professor, Wabash College on 8/14/19

The book approaches the subject of world history along the "regional tour" model, which is quite old fashioned for our day. Recent texts are more thematic and comparative in nature. The strong suit is that the more frequently mentioned topics in the first part of the world survey are covered well in terms of content (early humans, world religions, agriculture, etc.). Using this book in place of no book at all would be appropriate, but it would be a true shame not to expose students to better textbooks by Bentley, Strayer, Smith, Tignor, and others. I don't want to be snooty but I have evaluated many textbooks on the market due to my role in the World History Association and other organizations. This is better than nothing but not nearly as good as alternatives that can be purchased.

Despite missing information on places such as SE Asia and Oceania, the basic information is generally correct.

The book is not up to date in terms of current world history scholarship, as noted above.

It is relatively easy to read, though perhaps not as much as the Strayer text.

Seems straight forward, if not overly imaginative.

The book would teach well but the instructor should supplement with missing content areas and theoretical/historiographical questions.

As noted the book follows a "regional tour" model that has generally been discarded in world historiography, but from within that framework it is logical. In other words, it would be appropriate maybe 20 years ago.

Graphics are basic but accurate and clear.

No issues here.

I would not say that it is insensitive, though there is a slight tendency toward western civilization in many places.

If students cannot afford a textbook, a good teacher can make this work. If moving to this platform means leaving behind good scholarship, I find that very depressing. I apologize if I appear offensive in my remarks, but I have been very involved in world history for over 20 years, both in teaching and at a national level. I felt like I should speak my mind.

Reviewed by Justin Vance, Adjunct Faculty, Boise State University on 1/11/19

Leaves out Southeast Asia which is unusual for a World History textbook. Also leaves out Oceania/Pacific Islands which unfortunately is common of World History texts. read more

Leaves out Southeast Asia which is unusual for a World History textbook. Also leaves out Oceania/Pacific Islands which unfortunately is common of World History texts.

I found no errors even in the areas that I know the content well from my own research.

The book is extremely well written.

The book author's seem to have worked together as one.

The chapters could be used independently to supplement other material.

The books organization works fine which is always a challenge when writing a World History text.

Only available as PDF which is the best way if can only be available one way in my opinion.

The book is very well edited I noticed no errors.

The authors seem to have done well in this area.

This book is extremely well written for an OER and seems based on the latest scholarship. The maps, images, and charts included are VERY effective. The organization is fine and unlike some of the other reviews I did not find the problem with the book to be Eurocentric. The chapters on India and China are robust. However, it is more of a survey of “major Civilizations” vs. a true World History. That may be okay since it is impossible to cover every society in World History but notably missing is Southeast Asia which made major contributions to World History (Angkor Wat for one) and is one of the most populated areas on earth. Also missing is Oceania/Pacific Islands which unfortunately is left out of most World History texts. I may adopt this book but I will have to supplement these two areas with other readings which may be okay since there are only 12 chapters and I usually have time to cover 14 chapters in a semester. As far as I can tell there are no test banks or instructor resources either so that will be another consideration to adoption but the authors of this text should be commended for producing such a strong work.

Reviewed by Suresh Sethuraman, Adjunct Professor, University of Mary Washington on 5/21/18

The book covers a very wide canvas in terms of time and space (World History upto 1500) , yet, it is fairly comprehensive and incorporates all the major regions, events and socio-cultural developments. The book does not have an Index or Glossary. But this is somewhat compensated by a List of Key Terms for every Chapter provided in the first few pages of each Chapter and a summary of the contents of each Chapter towards the end of the Chapter.

The book provides an accurate account of World History. I did not find any factual error. Of course, for certain periods/aspects of World History, there are controversies regarding the dates of events and identification/location of places. In most instances, the authors have discussed such controversies in simple terms and in the process, provided the various theories/divergent opinions pertaining to a particular event/topic. For example, the controversies regarding the administration, system of writing and the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization are discussed in pages 72-73.

The year of publication of the book is not stated. The book incorporates the recent researches and developments in the subject. Even works published in 2013 and later have been cited. Each Chapter also lists the Website Links to the Primary sources pertaining to the contents of that Chapter. A book of this nature, dealing with World History--a subject taught in several Universities and colleges--will not easily become obsolete or outdated. The book is written/formatted in such a way that any new researches/studies/discoveries can be easily incorporated within any of the Chapters and in the Bibliographies provided for each Chapter.

Despite being a multi-author work dealing with different regions and cultural periods, the book ranks high in terms of clarity. The editors of the volume have ensured that all the chapters are of the same style of writing and also share the same format and sequence in which the various facts are presented. Non-English/technical terms, often unavoidable especially in the Chapters dealing with Asia, are kept to the minimum and whenever such a term is used, its meaning is clearly explained in the text. Major historical terms, personal names, dynastic names and place names have been presented in bold font that further enhances the easy readability and the clarity of the text.

As indicated earlier, despite being a fairly large multi-author work, the book is remarkable for the uniformity in style and presentation format followed in all the chapters. Each chapter leads to the other and there is consistency in terms of terminology and overall presentation.

Each chapter is divided into several sections, the number of such sections range from 9 to 31 per chapter. Most of the sections are further divided into smaller sub-sections with side-headings. Each section/sub-section reads like a self-contained independent unit and thus can, without any major modifications, be assigned for student exercises/other classroom requirements and can also, if need be, mixed/realigned with other sub-sections for classroom requirements. The entire book has been carefully structured for classroom purposes.

Despite the challenge of having to present World History from the prehistoric times down to the 15th century within the confines of a classroom textbook, the authors have succeeded in presenting the text in a logical, clear and classroom-friendly fashion. The first chapter is, not surprisingly, devoted to Prehistory in various parts of the world. Each of the subsequent chapters deal with a particular region during a specific historical time-period. Due to the complex nature of the subject and the profusion of source materials for certain regions/historical periods, certain regions and historical time-periods have been given greater coverage than others. This is unavoidable in a history textbook of this nature.

As indicated earlier, the book is well-structured and well-organized and hence, not difficult to read, comprehend, consult and use in the classroom. Many pictures/maps have been sourced from the Internet or directly from the authors/other publications, with due permission. None of the images/maps are blurred or unintelligible.

I have not traced a single grammatical/other types of language-related errors in the book. It is well-edited and well-presented.

Due to the very nature of the subject-matter (World History), the book deals with multiple cultures, races and ethnic groups. But no part of the book displays cultural insensitivity or contains any offensive/objectionable references about/against any group.

Being a book on World History from the Prehistoric times down to around the 15th century, this book will be of immense use for the students and teachers in the disciplines of History, World History, Ancient/Pre-Modern/Pre-Colonial History and Medieval History. Simultaneously, the book will also be useful and helpful to students and faculty in other interrelated disciplines including Archaeology, Prehistory, Art History, Classics, African Studies, Chinese Studies and Asian/South Asian Studies. The book presents a fairly comprehensive, cogent and integrated account of World History, methodically and neatly sub-dividing the subject region-wise and period-wise. The book consists of 12 chapters. The first Chapter deals with Prehistory, clearly outlining the theories regarding the origin of the earliest human habitations in different parts of the world. In course of time, human beings began to live in larger, permanent settlements (community living or settled life) and began to rely on agriculture instead of hunting for their food requirements. The next Chapter focusses on the Early Middle Eastern and North East African Civilizations. These include the historically famous Mesopotamian and Egyptian Civilizations that flourished on the banks of major rivers. Urbanization, social stratification, labor specialization, trade and a well-developed system of writing (language and script) are among the salient features of these civilizations. Chapter-3 focusses on Ancient and Early Medieval South Asia/India. The Chapter commences with a detailed overview of the Harappan or Indus-Valley Civilization that was almost cotemporary to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian Civilizations. The later part of this Chapter deals with the major dynasties of ancient South Asia. These include the Mauryans, the Kushans and the Guptas. Chapter-4 deals with China and East Asia (including Korea and Japan) from the Neolithic times down to the period of the Ming Dynasty that flourished from around 1368 to 1644 C.E. Chapter-5 traces the history of the Greek World from the Bronze Age to the time of the conquest of Greece by the Romans in the first century B.C.E. The next Chapter (Chapter-6) presents the history of the Roman Civilization from 753 B.C.E to 500 C.E. while Chapter-7 narrates the history of Western Europe and Byzantium (500 -1000 C.E.). These three chapters (5, 6, 7) will be most useful to students and teachers of Classical Studies. Chapter-8 narrates the rise of the religion of Islam and the history of the Middle East in the Middle Ages. The next Chapter traces the complex history of many regions of Africa during the ancient and medieval periods. Chapter-10 deals with the history of North and South America from the earliest times to around the 14th century. Chapter-11 focusses on the history of Central Asia upto the medieval times. The final Chapter, which is also the longest, deals with Western Europe and Byzantium (1000-1500 C.E.) Each of the chapters do not merely confine themselves to political/dynastic and administrative histories but include trade and economy, socio-cultural conditions, religion and philosophy, architecture, visual and performing arts, literature and learning. But the space devoted to the non-political and non-administrative aspects vary from chapter to chapter. Each chapter commences with the Dates or Chronology of the major political/dynastic periods, rulers and events described in the chapter. This is followed by a brief Introduction to the contents of the chapter, a set of questions to guide further reading and a list of key terms used in the chapter. Each chapter concludes with a good Summary or Concluding Section followed by a Bibliography including web-links to primary sources. All the chapters are supported by excellent color photographs and maps. The book is an ideal textbook as well as a reference tool.

Reviewed by William Burns, Adjunct, University of Mary Washington on 5/21/18

Comprehensiveness rating: 2 see less

As a world history textbook, this book is ludicrously Eurocentric and frankly unacceptable. Chapter 2, 5, 6, 7 and 12 are devoted to Mediterranean/European civilization while China, India and the Islamic world get one chapter apiece. (The western chapters are also longer on the average.) The Persian Empire, Achmaenid, Parthian and Sassanian seems to have completely fallen into the cracks as the Achmaenid Empire appears only as an adversary for the Greeks, which means Zoroastrianism doesn't get attention either. (Phoenecians not around much either.) This is simply not in line with how world history is taught these days, although it may suit the "West and the World" model of western civilization teaching.

I saw no major errors. There are some exaggerations—"all Greeks" did not cooperate against the Persian empire. (p. 172), but you correct that later.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 1

The work's pronounced Eurocentrism makes it instantly irrelevant, and it will only grow more so with the passage of time.

The book is well-written, not pitched as a level above that of college students. I like the way that it acknowledges scholarly controversy and the weaknesses of evidence for some periods, such as early Israel. (Unfortunately, this is not the case for the discussion of the origins of Islam, the subject of much recent scholarly controversy.)

Western civilization is covered in much more detail with much sharper periodization and a much greater emphasis on events than other civilizations.

The book is modular, but this is not always an advantage. A good world history textbook needs to make comparisons between cultures and discuss links between them. Poor awareness of the importance of cultural encounters is a weakness of the text—the Greek encounter with Judaism in the Hellenistic period, absolutely central to the development of Christianity and the Western tradition, occupies only a short paragraph on the Maccabean wars.

The book flows nicely, with strong organization. One problem that it deals with multiple civilizations encounter with Islam before introducing Islam itself.

No problems.

Did not see any grammatical errors.

The book's consistent philosophy that western developments are more important may be considered culturally offensive by some. In terms of specifically offensive statements I didn’t see any, but as a middle-aged white guy I'm not the most qualified to judge. (Kind of odd that on page 334 the text tells students not to use the terms "bushmen" and "pygmies" but doesn't tell them what terms to use instead.) Sometimes the text goes over the top in correcting for the students (assumed) prejudices, as in the statement on page 370 that "our task is to admire" Pre-Columbian history. It isn't—our task is to understand.

I would never consider this book for a world history course due to its extreme, old-fashioned Eurocentrism. Liked the use of Wikimedia Commons, though.

Reviewed by Frederic Krome, Professor of History, University of Cincinnati Clermont College on 3/27/18

The book does a nice job of covering the broad meta-themes of World History--for example the Agricultural Revolution, the Origins and spread of world religions such as Christianity and Islam. As with any textbook you can have quibbles about whether some topics, such as Oceania, should receive more coverage. I would personally like a bit more detail on the impact of climate change and environmental history on world civilizations.

I did not find much to quibble about in the text, and most comments would be rather minor. For example in the section on the rise of Islam, (pp. 299-304) the authors make a comment about Muhammad reciting the Quran to convert followers. Since some scholars argue the Quran was redacted a generation after Muhammad I would clarify such material with more detail.

The only area in which I was not sure of the text being based on the most recent research was in the sections on Judaism and Christianity. In the Christianity section they point to the pioneering world of Peter Brown on Late Antiquity and St. Augustine. A great deal of work has been done on early Christianity, by Paula Frederickson, From Jesus to the Christ, which does not appear to have been consulted. Martin Goodman's Work, Rome and Jerusalem would also round out the picture. Having said that, however, the links to primary sources at the end of each chapter enable the instructor to adapt the material to changing interpretations.

The text is well written and thankfully eschews the use of jargon. No complaints here.

The structure of the book--specifically the glossary and study questions at the beginning of each chapter--are one of the books strength and are well constructed. No chapter seems to have been given predominance over another.

My university operates on a 14 week semester, and World History I covers material to circa 1500, so the structure of the text fits well with our Learning Outcomes. I personally like the use of sub-headings as it helps students think about issues, such as the transition from Roman Republic to early Empire, the Era of Good Emperors, and the Origins and Spread of Christianity. The organization is especially useful in chapters, 2, 9, and 10, where in order to cover such diverse geographic regions (and the various civilizations that developed) it is necessary to jump quickly from region to region. As with any subject it can sometimes appear as "one damn thing after another," however, this is a minor criticism.

The only major issue I would point to is that the first 8 chapters focus on Eurasia to the cusp of the age of exploration. The reader.student is not introduced to developments in Africa or the Americas until chapter 9 and 10. While these subjects can be treated in isolation from the broader chronology of the rest of the world, living as they did in actual isolation for thousands of years, it could make the student's head spin as they are then introduced to a thousand years of African history in one chapter.

I had no difficulty in utilizing the text, or the links. My only suggestion is to make the links to primary sources open automatically into a separate tab to make ease of movement between the sources and the text easier. (My grandson had to point out to me I could open links in a separate tab.

No grammatical annoyances that I could find. Copy editing was well done.

It is often difficult to deal with sensitive subjects, such as religion, without either offending people or watering the material down to blandness. The authors did a nice job of being balanced and sensitive to various belief systems.

Reviewed by Martin Johnson, Associate Professor of History, Miami University (Ohio) on 2/1/18

Overall, this text provides a brief but solid account that can be a useful foundation for a world history course. Its strengths and weaknesses are similar to any text in world history, in which choices as to structure, coverage, and emphasis are inevitable and inevitably debatable. The one area this text is most lacking in comparison to other texts is that it lacks a good deal of the supplementary materials for faculty, such as text banks, slides, and lecture notes. The pdf version of the text does provide very useful live links to bibliographies and copies of links to primary source, which does help.

Comparing this text to others suggests that it is a more basic, simplified approach that tends to focus on the largest and most enduring states and cultures. Given that World History is complex and can be confusing, this approach can be a significant advantage for providing students with a clear and easily followed structure. Moreover, the brevity of the text allows teachers to add materials, readings, primary sources, and activities without danger of over-burdening students. Of course, this approach also means that some regions, states, or cultures are either wholly neglected or only mentioned in passing, and probably every teacher will find at least a few such instances that they will want to rectify by adding material---but this is generally the case with any world history.

Previous reviews of this text have mentioned uneven coverage by both time and region. The table below listing chapters and page numbers supports this conclusion as regards a “western civilization” bias. Four of the twelve chapters cover Greece, Rome, and European history, accounting for about a third of the pages of the book. This is a serious imbalance, but instructors can of course compensate by adding readings, videos, and activities.

I found no inaccuracies.

This text has a date of 2016; the great majority of the citations to readings are from the last 15 years, so I would rate this as highly up-to-date and relevant. The longevity is also high, given its classic approach to most issues and topics---highly individual approaches can be ephemeral.

Clearly written and organized. For more, see point 1 above.

chapter Pages Author 1 Prehistory 20 Berger 2 Early Civs 40 Miller 3 India 50 Israel 4 East Asia 60 Israel 5 Greece 45 Williams 6 Rome 45 Williams 7 Europe to 1500 30 Reeves 8 Islam to 1400 40 Parkinson 9 Africa 32 Miller 10 Americas 30 Berger 11 central Asia 28 Parkinson 12 Europe to 1500 50 Reeves Total pages 480

One strength is the structural consistency and predictability across chapters. Each chapter includes in same order: ---Chronology: Mostly 8 to 15 key dates relating to the topic of the chapter. The Central Asia chronology has only 5 terms, while the Europe to 1500 chronology is over 2 pages long. This is a sign of inadequate coordination and of the uneven coverage / treatment noted by several reviewers. ---Introduction to the major developments in the chapter ---Questions: Usually 4 to 12 questions that tend to focus on the particular approach of the text. For example, “how did the Inca use local resources to build their empire?” has a clear answer in the text. Other questions are more general, for example, “explain the main ideas of Confucianism,” which can be answered from this or any other good source. These questions could be used as reading checks or as the basis for discussions or class essays. ---Key terms: lists of 20 to 40 names, terms, events, or places that are ---6 to 12 sections presenting historical content, chronologically within chapters ---Summary/conclusion ---Links to further reading ---Links to primary sources

With 12 chapters and numerous divisions within chapters, this text is highly modular. The uniformity of organization within chapters also is a plus in this regard, see "consistency," above.

The organization of chapters by major regions presents an image of world history as somewhat fragmented or disconnected. Within chapters there are sections dealing with trade and exchange, but overall there is little discussion of relationships among the major regional states and cultures, nor are cross-cultural patterns much in evidence. Similarly, we gain a strong sense of evolutions over time within cultures, but on a world / global scale these transformations are relatively unconnected. Instructors can fill the need for pointing out patterns and larger developments, of course, and might want to make that a focus of lectures and activities in order to balance the episodic vision of particular regional changes.

Instructors will probably also want to provide a good deal of “big picture” guidance, because the text lacks a general introduction. Teachers may want to especially emphasize connections and bridges between chapters. The conclusion of one chapter and the introduction to the next generally display no continuities. Essentially, these chapters are distinct and stand alone. Nor is there an overall vision presented of themes, patterns, organizing principles, or connections across regions and time periods. While some texts provide orientation to using sources, reading critically, understanding maps, etc, there is none here. There is no printed index. While the PDF version is searchable, a good index can alert students to connections in a way that word searches cannot.

Finally, it would be helpful for the authors or for instructors to divide the large pdf download into more manageable units or chapters. At present, the entire book, about 75 megs, needs to be downloaded, and this might be troublesome for the less digitally privileged. I plan to adopt this text for my courses and thank authors and organizers of this initiative for their service to students and education more generally.

No major issues noted.

A somewhat "western-centric" approach (see point 1, above), but no obviously offensive content.

Illustrations are helpful but tend to be more decorative than essential. They generally come from standard and accessible websites such as wikipedia. In the printed version, maps and illustrations sometimes do not reproduce clearly due to size / resolution, but the pdf versions are clear and bright.

I plan to adopt this text for my World to 1500 course.

Reviewed by J.M. Bates, Assistant Professor , Winona State University on 2/1/18

This is reasonably comprehensive in covering ideas of the subject. However, as it stands, the book provides an uneven coverage of the materials associated with World History. Europe and the Middle East is given centrality in this book with extensive coverage of the Nations of Israel, the Roman Empire, the Byzantines and later Western Europe. Almost half the text is related to these areas and they frequently show up in other sections. As a result, the discussion of those areas is very comprehensive. However, the history of East Asia and the Americas is squished into a much smaller sections – While we learn about the goods traded in French markets, North America as a whole has five pages! The result is that those areas will require significant additional coverage from instructors.

The text does an excellent job in terms of balancing cultural, social and political history! I found that aspect particularly enjoyable. The authors also put a considerably emphasis on exploring the experiences of both men and women. Although, the message that women’s roles in society were restricted seems to repeated without clear terms of the differences between different societies. Moreover, when important individuals highlighted in the text are almost exclusively men.

The text also does a great job of introducing students to the skills associated with history. The authors repeated point out the texts that historians use to garner information about the past. They also point out when historians are still working with hypothesis or when there is considerable debate regarding a topic.

The book has a detailed table of content, but lacks an index or glossary. The lack of glossary might be particularly frustrating for students as some of the chapters are particularly long and include a laundry list of key terms that may be new to students.

For the most part the text has no explicit bias and is relatively error free. (Although there are some pointed confusions in the conflation of the Mexica and the“Aztecs” I hope someone soon fixes this as there is no little information provided here, it seems it should not be too hard to include a more up to date understanding.

Yet, the uneven coverage does present something of a bias. In putting the large emphasis on European, Mediterranean and Israeli the book shows a bias in who is important in World History. Cutting those sections to give more attention to the Americas Africa and East Asia would be important in ridding the text and our students’ visions of who- or where - is important in our history and our contemporary world.

In those areas where the text provides extensive coverage, it is up to date. Necessary updates – as long as they stay within this geographic framework – will be easy to incorporate.

Overall, the writing is clear and engaging. There are two areas where this falls short. First, at times the text jumps around in terms of referencing later chapters in early chapters. – For example the prophet Muhammad is referenced in chapter three but not fully explained until chapters later. This becomes particularly challenging since there is not a glossary or an index where students could quickly look this up. Also, the authors sometimes drop in “big names” that make sense to professional historians, but mean very little to our students. Faculty would know “Hobbes and Marx,” for example, but throwing them into the middle of a paragraph without explanation would frustrate and confuse students.

That said, I really appreciated the ways that the authors take the time to clarify and discuss the multiple meanings of particularly problematic or confusing terms ie discussion of the term “civilization.”

Moreover, by providing framing questions at the beginning of each chapter as well as a brief summary at the end of each chapter, the authors highlight the important take away for each chapter.

The positives and negatives in terms of consistency mirror those through the rest of the categories. On one hand, through most chapters, the authors do a wonderful job of creating parallel structures that discuss geography, political development, social developments, cultural practices, gender norms and those sources that provided a good deal of information about the materials. I really enjoyed this structure in the majority of chapters. Yet, in other areas where the authors give less attention – most notably The Americas, this consistency falls apart. There is no discussion of geography, and the section on how people arrived in the Americas seems particularly jumbled.

Text is divided into reasonable chapters with subheadings. It is not overly referential. Each chapter could be presented at different times during the course as they each stand alone without too much overlapping.

Within the chapters, however the modularity breaks down. In terms of revisions, I think breaking down the list of key terms, central questions and primary sources to match up with the subheadings – rather than the chapter introduction- would greatly improve the modularity of this text. By the time students have gotten through 60 pages of text, do they remember the “guiding questions” at the beginning?

Within each chapter, I found the structure and flow excellent. My only recommendation for improvement in terms of structure mirrors my comments in terms of modularity. Breaking up key terms and guiding questions would help organization and structure.

In terms of the auxiliary materials included in each chapter, the flow might be improved by including primary sources before additional readings. It stands to reason that instructors would be using and assigning the primary sources for discussion far more frequently than they would talk through the additional materials.

I found no problems with the interface. My only concern is about the primary sources being links rather than in the text themselves. It seems that some students will use their textbooks while they are “off line.” It would be nice to have these embedded in the text itself.

The text is free from grammatical errors.

Within each chapter, the text is not culturally insensitive. Yet, the structure of the book and attention given to different geographic regions can be culturally insensitive. In our increasingly global world, we cannot keep teaching “world history” as a “Europe and the rest” framework. I would have really liked to see a textbook that gives less attention to the history of Europe and Israel and provides far more attention to East Asia and the Americas.

Reviewed by Kara Barr, Instructor, Bowling Green State University on 2/1/18

This text covers an impressive amount of ground in relatively short chapters, something which is always a struggle in any survey text of global history. Some events and geographies garner more coverage and attention than others, which is understandable, but the criteria by which the authors determined the amount of coverage is a bit unclear. For instance, the Crisis of the Third Century is covered extensively, but the end of the Roman Empire—an equally important topic—gets only a brief mention in the context of Augustine’s City of God. An introduction to the text which introduced some overarching themes could have provided some rationale for these decisions and helped pull everything together.

No errors in accuracy or strong biases were noted

The straightforward approach to the material means that it is unlikely to become obsolete in the near future. It is also structured in such a way that updates would be relatively easy to make, if necessary. However, the reluctance of the authors to make any contact with major historiographical debates and updates is a noticeable gap, and makes the text feel less relevant than it otherwise might.

The writing in this text is clear, if not exactly inviting or entertaining. At no time did the authors employ historical jargon or terminology without context and a clear definition.

This text is remarkably consistent in structure given the breadth of subjects it covers and the number of authors involved. As noted above, some cultures, states, and societies seem to receive more in-depth coverage than others, but that is all but unavoidable in a text of this scope and could be easily remedied in the classroom by a capable instructor.

The small subunits for each topic—each of which is helpfully listed in the table of contents-- should make it fairly easy for instructors to assign specific modules to suit their course structure. An inability to easily navigate between these subunits or between the text and the table of contents might hinder this quite a bit, however.

While the writing of this text is clear and to the point, the organization of topics and events could be quite difficult to follow at times. For instance, in the chapter “Western Europe and Byzantium, 500-1000 CE”, the flow of the discussion of Byzantium is broken up by a somewhat distracting detour to the British Isles, which makes sense in terms of chronological coverage but tampers with the narrative quite a bit. This would be easily remedied by assigning modules rather than chapters, but even between paragraphs the content can vary quite a bit without clear transitions between topics. For instance when a two paragraph discussion of the Byzantine military reorganization abruptly halts and turns to a discussion of religious crises in the Empire, without any transition between the two.

No significant navigation problems were noted, other than the inability to easily return to the table of contents other than by scrolling, which could prove frustrating for students assigned to read modules rather than chapters.

Few grammatical errors were noted.

No cultural insensitivity or offensive content was noted.

Reviewed by Robert Moore, Adjunct, Chemeketa Community College on 6/20/17

Global history is a very difficult topic to tackle in a textbook without becoming far too long to be useful to most students or too brief to provide any narrative at all. This book provides adequate coverage. Some chapters provide more depth than others. Some extremely significant events have little coverage in the text or are split oddly across chapters; the Crusades appear in very briefly in Chapter 8 and in some more depth in Chapter 12, for example. Reading the two sections side by side gives the reader a reasonable level of comprehension, but it may not be intuitive. Coverage on Asia is also somewhat lacking in comparison to events in Europe.

There were no obvious errors and, aside from a tendency to focus on European events, the text does not display any strong biases.

It is impossible to predict when we will uncover evidence that reveals new data on ancient events. It seems like our timeline for early villages changes every year as new archaeology comes in. That said, most of the content of this book is unlikely to change significantly and those updates should be easy to implement, thanks to the clear section divisions within each chapter.

I found the text more readable than most commercially available textbooks. I would have liked to see a glossary or short definitions included in the Key Terms section (or a section reference directing the reader to the location of that key term), though that's much less of an issue in a electronic text.

The framework throughout the text is consistent and very helpful in locating the information you want to find.

The text is broken down into small sections that can easily be referenced and assigned individually or in various combinations.

Overall, I found the organization very helpful. Personally, I dislike organizing long sequences of events by geography, rather than emphasizing the connectivity of events. To return to my example of the Crusades from earlier: Chapter 8 focuses on Islam and the role Saladin played in the Crusades, while Chapter 12 focuses on the European motivations for the Crusades. That organization seems less helpful to me than a single chapter about the Crusades that incorporates both perspectives. If I were using this text in my class, I would probably cut the text up into a more chronologically consistent narrative.

I encountered no noticeable issues with the interface.

The text was well-written; I noticed no errors in grammar.

I did not find any of the text culturally insensitive or offensive in any way. Diversity is at the core of this textbook, as it attempts to address the varied experiences of ancient cultures.

Reviewed by Katie Kirakosian, Assistant Professor, Northern Virginia Community College on 6/20/17

Overall, the book covers much of the expected content for a course focused on world history. In some areas, like chapter 1 I was looking for a decontextualization of the concept of "prehistory" versus "history", as this is considered a very loaded term in some contemporary communities and circles. Also, in Chapter 10, there were many culture areas that were not even introduced here. Even if briefly, I believe it was necessary to introduce students to the culture areas and give an overview of the diversity of Native groups within each. To cover all of North American in roughly 4 pages is problematic and expansion is necessary here.

While I would not say the book had inaccuracies per se, given the breadth of the book, some of the complexities were overlooked. For example, there was no discussion of "Pre-Clovis" when discussing the peopling of the New World. This section simplified what is a very real and ongoing debate within archaeology and beyond.

While most of the references cited were post 2000, I had hoped to see more references from research from 2010 to the present, as some very important discoveries have been made in this time.

The book was a very clear and concise read, which was as free of jargon as possible. The definitions also provided the necessary context for the reader.

The book was quite consistent throughout, as was evidenced through the same layout and structure between chapters and authors. I particularly liked the questions at the onset and the links to primary sources at the end. Some chapters were less robust then others, with some chapters ranging only 30 pages, while others were 50 pages in length. If not prefaced, this might impact students sense of the richness of some regions and time periods over others.

I believe this textbook could easily be modularized with little issue.

The organization of the book made logical sense in most instances. I was unsure of the placement of Chapter 11 on Central Asia right after the Americas however.

I experienced no interface issues and found t quite intuitive.

I found few grammatical errors throughout.

I did not find the textbook to be culturally insensitive.

Reviewed by James Frusetta, Associate Professor, Hampden-Sydney College on 6/20/17

The book provides an overview of key regional empires across the world. Such an approach, however, inevitably favors larger states and societies at the expense of smaller ones — understandable, given the breadth of material, and something I find in most world history textbooks. The book’s weight on classical Greece and Rome (2 chapters out of 12) will serve most classes, but contributes to the fact that 4 out of 12 chapters focus on Europe — while sub-Saharan Africa, India and the Americas receive only a chapter each. More significant for many, I suspect, will be that the approach — focusing each chapter on a distinct region — means the textbook’s ability to draw connections across different regions is hampered. This criticisms noted, writing world history is difficult and the textbook will likely serve well for courses where specific content coverage is mandated by department or college policy.

An index isn’t provided, but text searches are easy in a digital file and students will likely plan to use those in place of an index in any case. A collected glossary is not provided, but key terms are noted at the start of each chapter.

Material covered in the book is accurate and consistent; instructors should not be concerned at undue bias or error.

Content coverage is broad enough that new findings or approaches will not render the text obsolete — and occasional changes for nuance can easily be incorporated. The lists of further reading are the areas most likely to need revisions, and this can be done easily (and likely should be for the links to online primary sources, given how quickly web content can shift). The one area of concern in terms of relevance would be to note the ongoing debate about how to frame this kind of class — whether to cover multiple regions of the world, or to emphasize events that span across regions. I note this not in idle critique, but to note that your position on this (or your department’s position) will impact the relevancy of the book.

The text is clearly and carefully aimed at an undergraduate audience; terms are not just carefully defined, but defined in such a way to make them accessible to students.

The structure of the different chapters is broadly consistent: a chronology, introduction, guiding questions and key terms, followed by the text, then recommended secondary texts and primary documents. The length of these varies from chapter to chapter — Greece has a page of site and individual primary document links, while the last chapter links to two sites only. I found the history sections, however, were consistent in approach and wouldn't expect that students would be confused advancing through the text. Visual material was similarly consistent in terms of layout and quality.

The 12 chapters are largely self-contained, allowing an instructor to teach them in a different order — or to pick and choose which chapters to use — with the caveat that some are of course linear (e.g., the chapter on Rome logically builds on the chapter on Greece.) One could fairly easily use a single chapter, or several chapters, without using the remainder of the book.

For those teaching world history as a discrete series of introductions to regions of the world, the organization of the book will suit well. Each chapter is effectively a self-contained unit, with a specific story developed over the course of the chapter. This is perhaps stronger in chapters that treat shorter historical moments (e.g., the Ancient Greek world) rather than the wider survey chapters (e.g., Africa to 1500). This is a good text for asking students to learn about unfamiliar regions and histories; however, for those teaching world history/global history as in terms of comparisons, connections or (world) change, the organization and flow of the text is problematic.

I found the .pdf easy to use, and quick to respond, both when reading within a browser, in Adobe Reader, and using other applications to read through it. The textbook looked excellent both within the browser and when read within applications. The only caveat would be loading time, which I found to be uneven and slower on some browsers — those using the text might wish to consider local hosting to distribute it to their students. The use of maps and images (drawing extensively on Wikimedia, but also including a fair number of high-quality originals) is impressive.

The odd typographic error is present, but the proofing and writing is as good as what I see from most professional presses. The occasional awkward phrase is, in my eyes, made up for with simple unassuming prose for the most part — I believe students will find this to be more accessible than much of what I assign them.

The book is careful to avoid obvious pitfalls in terms of cultural insensitivity, and is careful to approach different cultures carefully. However, the nature of the project — encompassing world cultures to 1500 — means inevitably that it is incomplete, and some cultures are left out. The approach here, which emphasizes key regional powers/cultures, is a logical way to structure the book (and a course) but can’t be universally inclusive by its very nature

The textbook should be relevant for many teaching the first half of the introductory world history survey to 1500. The particular modular approach may be tricky for others — I’ve variously been asked (at different institutions) to teach it to/from 1650, to 1300, and to 1500. For instructors looking for OER resources, the text is lucid, provides a relevant introduction and has an excellent look-and-feel. It will not suit all instructors, given its pedagogical approach (different chapters for different regions), but if you share that approach it will do quite well. Expanded primary document links in some sections would be useful.

Reviewed by Pamela Crawley, History Instructor, Tidewater Community College on 6/20/17

For a survey course, the text masterfully delves into early African history and brilliantly reviews the Classical World, Early Islam and Europe. However, instructors may want to supplement the text with additional readings for topics concerning... read more

The content is accurate and balanced, if unequally distributed.

The text is up to date and I have no doubt that the creators will continue to update as necessary. I would prefer, however, to have an “open” option – such as a WORD document, that can be edited by instructors who choose to adopt this text.

The sections are similarly organized with a good mix of graphs, maps and illustrations. More, it is easy to digest and presents History as a topic of interest, rather than a dry list of figures. My larger concern is the lack of an index. No worries as a .pdf, but this becomes an issue for the student who chooses to print the text.

It is clear that a chapter “skeleton” was used by each contributor. The result is a text that flows smoothly from one content area to the next. Students are clear in what they can expect from each chapter, in terms of questions, key terms and so on. Some chapters get better treatment with these extras than others.

Each region is presented in a manner and layout common to any instructor of World History. I do like that they’ve narrowed in on subsections to allow for targeted reading.

There are two schools of thought with survey texts: The People of X in Time Y or What’s Happening in Regards to A During Time B. There are merits to both methods. This text takes the former route, allowing the instructor/learner to skip from one area to the next, drawing connections on their own.

I would think a web versions and a .docx/.rtf version to be in order. As for the .pdf, I am amazingly grateful for high and low res options. Great layout, typesetting and design.

I have yet to read a book without error. Could this use another pass from an editor? Sure, but so can every other book - fiction or nonfiction – that I’ve ever purchased.

I am pleased with the range of places and peoples touched on. I would have liked more on South America and Southeast Asia, but those can be supplemented by teachers, per their interest.

This book is great for those wanting to adopt a free textbook. I am, however, reluctant to label this true OER, as the text is only available as a PDF. Sure, there are programs available to jailbreak a PDF, but since the license allows remixing, the file should also be available as a .rtf, .doc. or .docx.

Reviewed by Leigh Ann Craig, Associate Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University on 2/8/17

The test provides relatively even, if brief, coverage of western and central Eurasia, and somewhat more brief coverage of east Asia and the Americas. There is no glossary, nor any index. In a PDF, the glossary would seem extraneous, but the... read more

I noticed no counterfactual information in my own areas of specialty; the text seems quite accurate throughout. In such cramped quarters, there's little room for bias to creep in, and the author seems quite dispassionate in any case.

The content is all accurate, but here I do not feel entirely certain that the approaches reflect trends in world systems theory. it would be easy to add some note about the movement of ideas, technology, etc. thorugh regional systems (perhaps in the brief 'world context' segments,), but to really incorporate this larger field of view into the text would require a deep reorganization.

The author is careful to define terms throughout, and to indicate them in bold face. The prose skews toward some awkward usages and clause structures, but not toward overlong sentences or needlessly ornate vocabulary.

The text is fully internally consistent in its organizational schema, foci, and incorporation of learning tools like maps, boldface terminology, etc.

The book is highly modular -- indeed, for my own part, a bit *too* modular, in that carryover between chapters and regions is limited. Subheadings are frequent and accurate, and while they could indeed be reorganized, to do so would not change the fundamental approaches or flavor of the text.

The book is well-organized, but I would not say the flow -- in the sense of connecting one segment to the next -- is as strong as it might be. The goal of world history, from the world systems perspective, is to examine connection and movement, rather than division and insular locality. This text is somewhat bare of that perspective, and one fo the benefits of that perspective is that it helps the reader to explain why they might jump from western Europe to China in a single page-turn.

The .pdf took quite a long time to open in a web browser even with an otherwise quick internet connection, and it took some time for me, an early tech adopter, to locate the pathways which would allow me to download it to my own machine. I do not know if in-browser reading would be a good interface to expect students to use, but if one were to download it and make it available through a platform like Blackboard, that would seem reasonable. No distortion of images or text was discernable; once downloaded, the document was quite attractive. It was hyperlinked from the table of contents to preclude the need to scroll though the entire document to find a given subsection.

There are no grammar errors here. However, the usage is occasionally clumsy. The authors frequently place modifier phrases in awkward locations in sentences, use needless passives, or structure sentences without a strong subject up-front. I get the impression that the text could use a good editorial pass with an eye for enhancing the elegance of the prose.

Given the topic, this is a text which is automatically culturally inclusive. Cultural content is handled here with reasonable sensitivity and with a kind of egalitarian eye for the complexities of human interaction.

While it does not do as much work as I would prefer, for a college-level text, in discussing world systems rather than discrete segments of the globe, the localized information here is well-presented and easy to find, making the text a very fine reference source for introductory level information.

Reviewed by Chris Thomas, Associate Professor and Program Head, Reynolds Community College on 2/8/17

The text adequately covers all the materials that would be required in a survey World History course. While each chapter had a different author and thus in some areas more attention is given, overall the book provides the basic content and supplements it adequately with images, maps, and links to additional primary and secondary readings. It is lacking both an index and glossary, but the digital nature of the text can compensate for that in part.

Some chapters need to really rework the key terms. Establish a ceiling and a floor, and make sure that if it's on the list then it's essential for a survey course. The Prehistory chapter doesn't have "Agricultural Revolution" as a key term (which it really ought to), but has "homo erectus," "homo habilis," and "homo sapiens." Do freshmen need to know all the names of all the ancestors of modern humans, but not the event that began civilization?

The content is accurate and reflects a concerted effort to include recent scholarship. There are places where biases creep in, but such is the nature of such collaborative works that have to cover such vast amounts of detail, yet be written by scholars with their own research interests and specialties.

There is a nice mix of recent publications (some only a year or two old) with older publications. Often the "Further Reading" sections include web links that can be a potential source of problems over time with dead and broken links, however they are frequently from organizations and institutions that plan to be around for a while. Additionally, web sources are sufficiently balanced with print sources. Best of all, because the book is primarily a digital text, updates can be published and made available immediately without older editions floating around.

Each chapter includes a list of key terms at the outset (though the number of key terms varies dramatically from chapter to chapter), and while these key terms do not appear in a glossary or index they are in bold in the text, creating a nice mix of help to the student, but not too much. The words are easily found, but the student must still read to find the definition. Overall the prose of the text is on par with survey texts currently available from big publishers and other OERs.

In terms of framework each chapter follows a consistent model: chronology, introduction, questions for guiding students through the chapter, and key terms. There is a bit of inconsistency in length of these individual section for each chapter. The introduction to chapter 8 is about half page, while that of chapter . The timeline provided with chapter 12 (Renaissance) is almost three full pages, while chapter 11 (Central Asia) has only 5 entries. Chapter 2 has eighteen "Questions to Guide Your Reading" while chapter 7 has eight.

There are a few places where the key term has issues. Some chapters have a word in the key terms list that doesn't appear in the text, or doesn't appear the same as it did in the list.

The text was very well organized in this way. Each chapter is broken in sections, sub-sections, and sometimes even further than that. This will be tremendously helpful for faculty who wish to use the text in pieces rather than assign the book in its entirety. There are portions where 4-5 pages passes by without any kind of sectional break, but often this is due to large maps and images having been inserted into the text and thus stretching the section out to several pages. Overall the structure of the book was one of the first things that caught my attention.

History benefits from the fact that the narrative is the subject and thus a nice structure and flow is built in. Each chapter does a nice job of taking the reader from point to point and having each new section or sub-section link with the one that came before. The one area that could be pointed to as a weakness is how the chapter topics are organized. One of the goals of World Civ is to study the earth and it's people as a whole, rather than looking at just one region as is done in Western Civ, African Civ, etc. Other textbooks in world history achieve this by organizing chapters by topic and trying to use the chapter to compare say, Rome and the Han dynasty, or look at developments in Africa at the same time as South America. Instead the text runs the risk of organizing world history as a collection of political and cultural entities that occasionally bump into each other. It would be the equivalent of having a Western Civ course that forgoes looking at all the revolutions of the mid 19th century as part of a larger movement in Europe and instead looking at individual countries as isolated bodies.

This isn't saying the book doesn't cover the material, but it does reinforce the idea that world history courses are supposed to break down. Look at the some of the chapters:

-Prehistory -Early Middle East and North African Civ -Ancient and Medieval India -China and East Asia -The Greek World from Bronze Age to Rome -The Roman World -Western Europe and Byzantium -Islam to the Mamluks -Africa to 1500 (really? one chapter will cover the entire continent for the entire period covered by the text?

Some chapters cross cutlural boundaries, like Islam to the Mamluks, but looking at the others I don't see a "world history" text as much as "histories all over the world."

The text is clean and effective in this regard. There aren't lots of bells and whistles, but that's not always a problem.

There were a few errors that naturally will creep in with a text of this size. Page 5 is missing the 'n" in Neanderthal for example. The book is by no means ruined by errors. I find errors in books by big publishers, so given that they have more money to throw at editing and production, having the same number of errors is pretty good.

You aren't going to be able to talk about every culture and people on the planet for the last several millennia and not offend either by omission or commission. There are no clear, obvious, or overt attempts at poking one particular culture in the ribs, but history is controversial, and controversy by nature offends. Given that the book is world history I think you have "variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds" covered.

Our school is making a big push in the direction of OER resources and reducing student costs while maintaining academic integrity. I helped contribute to a similar project for American history, and for a while that was the only course for which we had a full OER textbook. With this volume, plus another for Western Civ that we recently found, we are getting close to being able to offer all of our core classes with OER options. It's not a perfect book, but none are.

One area where the big publishers still have a distinct advantage is in digital supplements (Connect, Inquisitive, etc.). It there any plan for creating similar supplements for this book or others? Many of my online instructors use those heavily and would be hesitant to adopt an OER book, even though it's academically sound, if it means all their assignments, quizzes, etc. are washed away and they have to design the class all over.

Reviewed by Mary Soots, Adjust Professor, Portland State University on 2/8/17

The book is comprehensive and all-encompassing in the development of states and societies throughout the world. It tends to be a bit Eurocentric, with chapters dedicated to Greek/Roman/ Byzantine/ Western Europe, while other regions of the world are assigned one chapter through various empires. Thus, one gets a more complete picture of some empires and a broad overview of others.

The content of the book aligns with my knowledge of the information.

Because this is a book that focuses on the development of states and societies through 1500, the content may never change. However, the interpretation of content through new information may be possible. The organization of the book (by geographical area) makes it easy to update if necessary.

This book is well written in language that anyone can understand. It is quite easy to understand, and relates history in an interesting manner.

The book is ideal for students of many disciplines because of its organization and content. The framework explores individual geographic regions and the influences upon and between social groups. Through research by different authors, each chapter is consistently supported by existing data, and uses the same thematic ideas in each chapter/region.

The text book is arranged chronologically and geographically as, so it is simple to start reading at any point. Instructors of history may use the entire book as a class text, while instructors of other classes may choose to assign reading for only a region or historical period without any disruption.

The organization of the book is good. It includes the chronology of each region/time frame, an introduction, questions to guide the reader, key terms, and the factors of importance to the formation of state societies/empires in each region, followed by a conclusion, references, and links to other sources.

The book had no significant interface issues that I could detect. The graphics that are used beautifully illustrate the ideas presented.

The book was well written. I found no grammatical errors.

The book was in no way offensive. On the contrary, it seeks to explain the daily life of different societies, which is a way of creating understanding between cultures.

The book presents very relevant information as a way of explaining the formation of state societies and the interactions between the societies/empires. But at the same time, it depicts the way of life and the subsistence patterns, which give a nice perspective of life in those places. I would recommend it for studies of students in many different academic disciplines.

Chapter One: Prehistory
Chapter Two: Early Middle Eastern and Northeast African Civilizations
Chapter Three: Ancient and Early Medieval India
Chapter Four: China and East Asia to the Ming Dynasty
Chapter Five: The Greek World from the Bronze Age to the Roman Conquest
Chapter Six: The Roman World from 753 BCE to 500 CE
Chapter Seven: Western Europe and Byzantium circa 5 0 0 - 10 0 0 CE
Chapter Eight: Islam to the Mamluks
Chapter Nine: African History to 1500
Chapter Ten: The Americas
Chapter Eleven: Central Asia
Chapter Twelve: Western Europe and Byzantium circa1000 - 1500 CE

Ancillary Material

Ancillary materials are available by contacting the author or publisher .

About the Book

World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500 offers a comprehensive introduction to the history of humankind from prehistory to 1500. Authored by six USG faculty members with advance degrees in History, this textbook offers up-to-date original scholarship. It covers such cultures, states, and societies as Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Israel, Dynastic Egypt, India's Classical Age, the Dynasties of China, Archaic Greece, the Roman Empire, Islam, Medieval Africa, the Americas, and the Khanates of Central Asia.It includes 350 high-quality images and maps, chronologies, and learning questions to help guide student learning. Its digital nature allows students to follow links to applicable sources and videos, expanding their educational experience beyond the textbook. It provides a new and free alternative to traditional textbooks, making World History an invaluable resource in our modern age of technology and advancement.

About the Contributors

Eugene Berger is a Professor in the History department at Georgia Gwinnett College.

George L. Israel, Ph.D., Middle Georgia Statement University

Charolette Miller, Ph.D., Middle Georgia Statement University

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How to Write a History Essay with Outline, Tips, Examples and More

Before we get into how to write a history essay, let's first understand what makes one good. Different people might have different ideas, but there are some basic rules that can help you do well in your studies. In this guide, we won't get into any fancy theories. Instead, we'll give you straightforward tips to help you with historical writing. So, if you're ready to sharpen your writing skills, let our history essay writing service explore how to craft an exceptional paper.

What is a History Essay?

A history essay is an academic assignment where we explore and analyze historical events from the past. We dig into historical stories, figures, and ideas to understand their importance and how they've shaped our world today. History essay writing involves researching, thinking critically, and presenting arguments based on evidence.

Moreover, history papers foster the development of writing proficiency and the ability to communicate complex ideas effectively. They also encourage students to engage with primary and secondary sources, enhancing their research skills and deepening their understanding of historical methodology.

History Essay Outline

The outline is there to guide you in organizing your thoughts and arguments in your essay about history. With a clear outline, you can explore and explain historical events better. Here's how to make one:

Introduction

Hook: Start with an attention-grabbing opening sentence or anecdote related to your topic.
Background Information: Provide context on the historical period, event, or theme you'll be discussing.
Thesis Statement: Present your main argument or viewpoint, outlining the scope and purpose of your history essay.

Body paragraph 1: Introduction to the Historical Context

Provide background information on the historical context of your topic.
Highlight key events, figures, or developments leading up to the main focus of your history essay.

Body paragraphs 2-4 (or more): Main Arguments and Supporting Evidence

Each paragraph should focus on a specific argument or aspect of your thesis.
Present evidence from primary and secondary sources to support each argument.
Analyze the significance of the evidence and its relevance to your history paper thesis.

Counterarguments (optional)

Address potential counterarguments or alternative perspectives on your topic.
Refute opposing viewpoints with evidence and logical reasoning.
Summary of Main Points: Recap the main arguments presented in the body paragraphs.
Restate Thesis: Reinforce your thesis statement, emphasizing its significance in light of the evidence presented.
Reflection: Reflect on the broader implications of your arguments for understanding history.
Closing Thought: End your history paper with a thought-provoking statement that leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

References/bibliography

List all sources used in your research, formatted according to the citation style required by your instructor (e.g., MLA, APA, Chicago).
Include both primary and secondary sources, arranged alphabetically by the author's last name.

Notes (if applicable)

Include footnotes or endnotes to provide additional explanations, citations, or commentary on specific points within your history essay.

History Essay Format

Adhering to a specific format is crucial for clarity, coherence, and academic integrity. Here are the key components of a typical history essay format:

Font and Size

Use a legible font such as Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri.
The recommended font size is usually 12 points. However, check your instructor's guidelines, as they may specify a different size.
Set 1-inch margins on all sides of the page.
Double-space the entire essay, including the title, headings, body paragraphs, and references.
Avoid extra spacing between paragraphs unless specified otherwise.
Align text to the left margin; avoid justifying the text or using a centered alignment.

Title Page (if required):

If your instructor requires a title page, include the essay title, your name, the course title, the instructor's name, and the date.
Center-align this information vertically and horizontally on the page.
Include a header on each page (excluding the title page if applicable) with your last name and the page number, flush right.
Some instructors may require a shortened title in the header, usually in all capital letters.
Center-align the essay title at the top of the first page (if a title page is not required).
Use standard capitalization (capitalize the first letter of each major word).
Avoid underlining, italicizing, or bolding the title unless necessary for emphasis.

Paragraph Indentation:

Indent the first line of each paragraph by 0.5 inches or use the tab key.
Do not insert extra spaces between paragraphs unless instructed otherwise.

Citations and References:

Follow the citation style specified by your instructor (e.g., MLA, APA, Chicago).
Include in-text citations whenever you use information or ideas from external sources.
Provide a bibliography or list of references at the end of your history essay, formatted according to the citation style guidelines.
Typically, history essays range from 1000 to 2500 words, but this can vary depending on the assignment.

How to Write a History Essay?

Historical writing can be an exciting journey through time, but it requires careful planning and organization. In this section, we'll break down the process into simple steps to help you craft a compelling and well-structured history paper.

Analyze the Question

Before diving headfirst into writing, take a moment to dissect the essay question. Read it carefully, and then read it again. You want to get to the core of what it's asking. Look out for keywords that indicate what aspects of the topic you need to focus on. If you're unsure about anything, don't hesitate to ask your instructor for clarification. Remember, understanding how to start a history essay is half the battle won!

Now, let's break this step down:

Read the question carefully and identify keywords or phrases.
Consider what the question is asking you to do – are you being asked to analyze, compare, contrast, or evaluate?
Pay attention to any specific instructions or requirements provided in the question.
Take note of the time period or historical events mentioned in the question – this will give you a clue about the scope of your history essay.

Develop a Strategy

With a clear understanding of the essay question, it's time to map out your approach. Here's how to develop your historical writing strategy:

Brainstorm ideas : Take a moment to jot down any initial thoughts or ideas that come to mind in response to the history paper question. This can help you generate a list of potential arguments, themes, or points you want to explore in your history essay.
Create an outline : Once you have a list of ideas, organize them into a logical structure. Start with a clear introduction that introduces your topic and presents your thesis statement – the main argument or point you'll be making in your history essay. Then, outline the key points or arguments you'll be discussing in each paragraph of the body, making sure they relate back to your thesis. Finally, plan a conclusion that summarizes your main points and reinforces your history paper thesis.
Research : Before diving into writing, gather evidence to support your arguments. Use reputable sources such as books, academic journals, and primary documents to gather historical evidence and examples. Take notes as you research, making sure to record the source of each piece of information for proper citation later on.
Consider counterarguments : Anticipate potential counterarguments to your history paper thesis and think about how you'll address them in your essay. Acknowledging opposing viewpoints and refuting them strengthens your argument and demonstrates critical thinking.
Set realistic goals : Be realistic about the scope of your history essay and the time you have available to complete it. Break down your writing process into manageable tasks, such as researching, drafting, and revising, and set deadlines for each stage to stay on track.

Start Your Research

Now that you've grasped the history essay topic and outlined your approach, it's time to dive into research. Here's how to start:

Ask questions : What do you need to know? What are the key points to explore further? Write down your inquiries to guide your research.
Explore diverse sources : Look beyond textbooks. Check academic journals, reliable websites, and primary sources like documents or artifacts.
Consider perspectives : Think about different viewpoints on your topic. How have historians analyzed it? Are there controversies or differing interpretations?
Take organized notes : Summarize key points, jot down quotes, and record your thoughts and questions. Stay organized using spreadsheets or note-taking apps.
Evaluate sources : Consider the credibility and bias of each source. Are they peer-reviewed? Do they represent a particular viewpoint?

Establish a Viewpoint

By establishing a clear viewpoint and supporting arguments, you'll lay the foundation for your compelling historical writing:

Review your research : Reflect on the information gathered. What patterns or themes emerge? Which perspectives resonate with you?
Formulate a thesis statement : Based on your research, develop a clear and concise thesis that states your argument or interpretation of the topic.
Consider counterarguments : Anticipate objections to your history paper thesis. Are there alternative viewpoints or evidence that you need to address?
Craft supporting arguments : Outline the main points that support your thesis. Use evidence from your research to strengthen your arguments.
Stay flexible : Be open to adjusting your viewpoint as you continue writing and researching. New information may challenge or refine your initial ideas.

Structure Your Essay

Now that you've delved into the depths of researching historical events and established your viewpoint, it's time to craft the skeleton of your essay: its structure. Think of your history essay outline as constructing a sturdy bridge between your ideas and your reader's understanding. How will you lead them from point A to point Z? Will you follow a chronological path through history or perhaps dissect themes that span across time periods?

And don't forget about the importance of your introduction and conclusion—are they framing your narrative effectively, enticing your audience to read your paper, and leaving them with lingering thoughts long after they've turned the final page? So, as you lay the bricks of your history essay's architecture, ask yourself: How can I best lead my audience through the maze of time and thought, leaving them enlightened and enriched on the other side?

Create an Engaging Introduction

Creating an engaging introduction is crucial for capturing your reader's interest right from the start. But how do you do it? Think about what makes your topic fascinating. Is there a surprising fact or a compelling story you can share? Maybe you could ask a thought-provoking question that gets people thinking. Consider why your topic matters—what lessons can we learn from history?

Also, remember to explain what your history essay will be about and why it's worth reading. What will grab your reader's attention and make them want to learn more? How can you make your essay relevant and intriguing right from the beginning?

Develop Coherent Paragraphs

Once you've established your introduction, the next step is to develop coherent paragraphs that effectively communicate your ideas. Each paragraph should focus on one main point or argument, supported by evidence or examples from your research. Start by introducing the main idea in a topic sentence, then provide supporting details or evidence to reinforce your point.

Make sure to use transition words and phrases to guide your reader smoothly from one idea to the next, creating a logical flow throughout your history essay. Additionally, consider the organization of your paragraphs—is there a clear progression of ideas that builds upon each other? Are your paragraphs unified around a central theme or argument?

Conclude Effectively

Concluding your history essay effectively is just as important as starting it off strong. In your conclusion, you want to wrap up your main points while leaving a lasting impression on your reader. Begin by summarizing the key points you've made throughout your history essay, reminding your reader of the main arguments and insights you've presented.

Then, consider the broader significance of your topic—what implications does it have for our understanding of history or for the world today? You might also want to reflect on any unanswered questions or areas for further exploration. Finally, end with a thought-provoking statement or a call to action that encourages your reader to continue thinking about the topic long after they've finished reading.

Reference Your Sources

Referencing your sources is essential for maintaining the integrity of your history essay and giving credit to the scholars and researchers who have contributed to your understanding of the topic. Depending on the citation style required (such as MLA, APA, or Chicago), you'll need to format your references accordingly. Start by compiling a list of all the sources you've consulted, including books, articles, websites, and any other materials used in your research.

Then, as you write your history essay, make sure to properly cite each source whenever you use information or ideas that are not your own. This includes direct quotations, paraphrases, and summaries. Remember to include all necessary information for each source, such as author names, publication dates, and page numbers, as required by your chosen citation style.

Review and Ask for Advice

As you near the completion of your history essay writing, it's crucial to take a step back and review your work with a critical eye. Reflect on the clarity and coherence of your arguments—are they logically organized and effectively supported by evidence? Consider the strength of your introduction and conclusion—do they effectively capture the reader's attention and leave a lasting impression? Take the time to carefully proofread your history essay for any grammatical errors or typos that may detract from your overall message.

Furthermore, seeking advice from peers, mentors, or instructors can provide valuable insights and help identify areas for improvement. Consider sharing your essay with someone whose feedback you trust and respect, and be open to constructive criticism. Ask specific questions about areas you're unsure about or where you feel your history essay may be lacking.

History Essay Example

In this section, we offer an example of a history essay examining the impact of the Industrial Revolution on society. This essay demonstrates how historical analysis and critical thinking are applied in academic writing. By exploring this specific event, you can observe how historical evidence is used to build a cohesive argument and draw meaningful conclusions.

FAQs about History Essay Writing

How to write a history essay introduction, how to write a conclusion for a history essay, how to write a good history essay.

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Exploring Riveting World History Before 1500 Paper Topics

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Embracing the Study of History

Studying history, specifically world history before 1500, unravels a splendid tapestry of human experience that extends beyond national boundaries or cultural divides. Studying history gives us a robust understanding of how societies evolved, how ideas propagated, and how civilizations interacted.

Intriguing world history before 1500 paper topics offer students a chance to journey through time and witness the marvels of the ancient world, the triumphs and tragedies of societies, and the intellectual and spiritual revolutions that shaped humanity.

World History Before 1500 Paper Topics

Here are categories within which an expansive array of world history before 1500 paper topics exist. By exploring these themes, students can grasp the depth and complexity of history, discover new perspectives, and contribute their voices to the ongoing historical discourse.

Ancient Civilizations

Civilizations before 1500 were more than just kingdoms and empires. They were epicenters of culture, innovation, and power, each with unique stories shaping human history.

Ancient Civilizations Topic Examples:

The Influence of the Nile on Ancient Egyptian Civilization.
The Political Structure of the Ancient Greek City-States.
The Gupta Empire and the Golden Age of India.
The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.
The Architectural Prowess of the Mayan Civilization.
The Influence of Geography on the Mesopotamian Civilization.
The Impact of the Silk Road on the Han Dynasty.
The Technological Innovations of the Persian Empire.
The Social Organization of the Inca Civilization.
The Role of Religion in the Egyptian Civilization.
The Legal System of the Babylonian Empire.
The Expansion and Impact of the Mongol Empire.
The Development of Democracy in Ancient Athens.
The Spread and Influence of the Roman Empire.
The Cultural Contributions of the Gupta Empire.
The Impact of Agriculture on the Sumerian Civilization.
The Societal Structure and Culture of the Aztec Empire.
The Role of the Phoenicians in the Spread of the Alphabet.
The Mathematical Advancements of the Mayan Civilization.
The Influence of the Indus Valley Civilization on Modern India.
The Role of the Silk Road in Cultural Exchange during the Han Dynasty.
The Contributions of the Egyptian Civilization to Art and Architecture.
The Religious Beliefs and Practices of the Ancient Celtic Civilization.

Critical Wars and Battles

Wars and battles have significantly influenced the trajectory of history. They have led to empires’ rise and fall, power dynamics shifts, and technological advancements.

Critical Wars and Battles Topic Examples:

The Causes and Consequences of the Persian Wars.
The Military Strategies Used in the Punic Wars.
The Influence of the Battle of Marathon on the Greco-Persian Wars.
The Role of Alexander the Great in the Battle of Issus.
The Military Tactics Used in the Battle of Thermopylae.
The Causes and Outcomes of the Peloponnesian War.
The Impact of the Mongol Invasions on Eurasia.
The Fall of the Western Roman Empire.
The Military Strategies of Hannibal during the Second Punic War.
The Influence of the Crusades on Christian-Muslim Relations.
The Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest of England.
The Hundred Years’ War: Causes and Consequences.
The Mongol Conquests: Impact on the Silk Road.
The Viking Invasions: Causes, Effects, and Legacy.
The Arab-Muslim Conquests and the Spread of Islam.
The Conquests of Charlemagne and the Carolingian Empire.
The Battle of Tours: Charles Martel and the Defense of Christendom.
The Siege of Constantinople and the End of the Byzantine Empire.
The Reconquista: Christian Reconquest of Spain.
The Samurai Warfare in Feudal Japan.
The Naval Innovations and Strategies of the Viking Age.
The Impact of the Crusades on European Trade.
The Role of the Roman Legions in the Expansion of the Roman Empire.

Technological and Cultural Milestones

Technological and cultural milestones encompass achievements in the arts, sciences, technology, and social structures that have significantly shaped human societies.

Technological and Cultural Milestones Topic Examples:

The Invention of the Wheel and Its Impact on Ancient Societies.
The Development of Writing Systems in Ancient Civilizations.
The Construction Techniques of the Pyramids of Egypt.
The Development of the Ancient Greek Theater.
The Advancements in Mathematics during the Islamic Golden Age.
The Construction of the Roman Aqueducts.
The Invention and Impact of Paper in Ancient China.
The Significance of the Code of Hammurabi in Ancient Law.
The Development and Influence of Sanskrit Literature in Ancient India.
The Technological Advancements of the Indus Valley Civilization.
The Architectural Styles and Techniques of Ancient Greece.
The Development and Impact of the Astrolabe in the Islamic Golden Age.
The Creation and Influence of Roman Law.
The Advancements in Astronomy by the Mayan Civilization.
The Construction and Cultural Significance of Stonehenge.
The Art and Symbolism of Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
The Invention and Impact of the Printing Press in China.
The Agricultural Advancements of the Inca Civilization.
The Philosophical Contributions of Ancient Greece.
The Sculpting Techniques and Symbolism of the Olmec Colossal Heads.
The Mummification Process and Beliefs of Ancient Egypt.
The Construction and Cultural Significance of the Great Wall of China.
The Advancements in Metallurgy during the Iron Age.

Influential Religions and Philosophies

Religions and philosophies have played crucial roles in shaping societies, influencing human behavior, and fostering cultural exchanges.

Influential Religions and Philosophies Topic Examples:

The Life and Teachings of Buddha and the Spread of Buddhism.
The Influence of Confucianism on Chinese Society and Beyond.
The Emergence of Christianity and Its Spread in the Roman Empire.
The Impact of Islamic Philosophy during the Islamic Golden Age.
The Religious Beliefs and Practices of Ancient Egyptian Civilization.
The Philosophies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and Their Impact on Western Thought.
The Role of Religion in Mayan Civilization.
The Teachings and Influence of the Hindu Scriptures.
The Development and Impact of Zoroastrianism in the Persian Empire.
The Spiritual Beliefs and Practices of the Indigenous Cultures of America.
The Role of Norse Mythology in Viking Society.
The Spread and Influence of Judaism in the Ancient World.
The Doctrine and Influence of Daoism in China.
The Religious Rituals and Gods of the Ancient Greeks.
The Advent and Influence of Sikhism.
The Principles of Jainism and Its Influence on Indian Society.
The Development and Significance of Shinto in Japan.
The Philosophies and Impact of Legalism in Ancient China.
The Spread of Christianity during the Middle Ages.
The Religious Syncretism in the Hellenistic Period.
The Cults and Religious Practices in Ancient Rome.
The Origins and Spread of Vedic Religion in Ancient India.
The Belief Systems and Rituals of the Ancient Celtic Religion.

Tips for Research Writing in History

Research writing in history involves critical analysis, storytelling, and a deep understanding of historical context and causality. Here are a few steps to ensure you are on the right track:

Craft a Strong Thesis

This statement should guide your argument and provide direction for your paper.

Source Selection

Use various primary and secondary sources to comprehensively understand your chosen topic.

Analytical Approach

Don’t just report facts. Analyze them to provide depth and nuance to your paper.

Chronological Clarity

Ensure your paper maintains a clear chronological framework to guide the reader through the events.

Revision and Proofreading

Always make time to revise your paper. This includes checking for grammatical errors, ensuring argument clarity, and ensuring all sources are correctly cited.

By following these steps, your research paper will contribute to the field of history and enhance your critical thinking and writing skills.

The Impact of Engaging with History

Engaging with world history before 1500 is about more than just understanding our past. It’s about refining our ability to think critically, argue effectively, and appreciate the complexity of human experience.

History is a conversation with the past, and as students, your role is to keep that conversation alive, stimulating, and relevant. Remember, the true power of history lies not just in knowing what happened but in understanding why it happened and how it shapes our present.

Consider visiting BBC History and Khan Academy’s History Course for additional resources on world history before 1500.

📎 Related Articles

1. Dive Deep into Western Civilization Research Paper Topics 2. Intriguing Modern History Topics for Engaging Research 3. Stirring the Pot: Controversial Topics in History for Research Paper 4. Dive into the Past with Cool History Topics 5. Dive into History: Intriguing 20th Century Research Paper Topics

439 History Argumentative Essay Topics to Get an A [Writing Tips Included]

Who hasn’t been puzzled when it comes to choosing historical argument topics?

It is hard to memorize all the information given in a class. Undoubtedly, all historical issues can be developed into excellent history essay topics. The question to resolve is how to discover your case.

You can find 300+ unique world history argumentative essay topics in our article, as well as some essay writing tips. If our topics are not enough for you, use our instant and completely free research title generator .

🚧 History Essay Challenges
📜 Top 15 Topics
✊ Revolution Topics
🗺️ Regional Topics
🤴 Key Figures Topics
🏳️‍🌈 Key Movements
📿 Topics on Traditions
👁️‍ Topics on Mysteries
📝 Historical Topics – 2024

📢 History Persuasive Essay Topics

👉 Choosing a Topic
♟️ Writing Strategies

🚧 History Essay Topics Main Challenges

History shapes our present. To study the rules of our modern world and society, we need to research historical argument topics. They can show us which conflicts led to a better future and which destroyed our civilization.

History assignments for high school students contain many pitfalls. The five most critical of them are listed below.

Avoid thinking that any event was inevitable. First, we rarely dispose of a complete picture of a historical period. Second, some events are Force-Majeure and unpredictable. However, human choices matter. Focus on what could have been changed and which lessons we could learn from the alternative result.
Listing events is pointless. It can be read in any chronicle. Instead, your purpose is to analyze them. An untrivial perspective is what makes your essay a good one.
People often change their opinions. Historical figures also did. Try not to perceive their beliefs as a consistent and invariable set of ideas. Explore how they reached their wisdom or why they made errors.
Not all events are relevant to your history essay question . Make a list of the significant events and personalities that refer to your topic. Cross out all that can be omitted. Then add minor events related to those that left. It is what you should write about.
Avoid vague words. Great, prominent, positive, or negative are obscure words that make your writing limited and unilateral. Most personalities and events were multifaceted. Work in this direction.

List of do's and don'ts of history essay.

📜 Top 15 History Argumentative Essay Topics

History is full of mystery, riddles, and conflicting points. Writing a history paper will undoubtedly be fun if you choose an exciting history essay topic. Meet our list of the most provocative history questions.

How could The 1896 Anglo-Zanzibar last only 38 minutes?
Did Arab people invent the Arab numerals or Hindus?
Hitler as the man of the year in 1938, according to Time magazine.
The average life expectancy of peasants In the Middle Ages was about 25 years.
Why were Roman soldiers using baths as rehabilitation centers?
What was the importance of the Battle of Stalingrad?
The wars with the most considerable losses took place in China.
In 400 BC, Sparta had only 25,000 inhabitants but over 500,000 slaves.
Out of the last 3500 years, how many years were peaceful?
How important is tea time for British people?
In the middle of the 20th century, the whole British royal court got sick because of improperly cooked potatoes.
Compare the number of Soviet soldiers who died in World War II and the number of American ones.
Has any part of the Roman Empire existed 1000 years after the Fall of Rome?
Were the Egyptian pyramids actually constructed using slaves’ labor?
Did Leonardo Da Vinci have dyslexia?

⚔️ History Essay Topics on War

“There never was a good war or a bad peace,” — wrote Benjamin Franklin in one of his letters. Did we learn what peace is, after all? Discussion and analysis of armed conflicts that humanity has faced throughout its existence are still massive jobs researchers do. Below, you can find excellent topics on war and peace.

Detailed categorization to help you write a good essay about war!

How did the Second World War change family traditions? It lasted for six years, and families learned how to survive without a father. What were the psychological implications for mothers, children, and returning soldiers?
Food packages for long-term storage quickly developed during both World Wars . Explore which products changed the most. How did their modified form affect the cuisine and rations?
WWII spurred the creation of new professions . Find out which jobs appeared during this period. How were they linked to warfare? Did they change after the termination of the war?
Many scientific advances came to our understanding through dubious ways. The research and experiments of Nazi Germany on humans led to a breakthrough in medicine, anthropology, genetics, psychology, etc. Is it moral to use their findings for peaceful purposes?
Soldiers spread the Spanish Flu during WWI. It killed more people than died in military actions. Did it influence the outcome of the war? Analyze how the pandemic might have unfolded if it had happened in a time of peace.

1918 influenza pandemic killed 3% to 6% of the global population.

Explain how trench warfare slowed the military actions in WWI. What were the common diseases in trenches, and how did they affect the conflict? The Germans dug trenches not to lose any more ground.
American Women in History of World War II .
To which extent was Hitler not responsible for the Second World War? He was obviously the one to blame for the many atrocities of the Nazis. Still, which circumstances were out of his control and led to the war?
Japanese American Life During and after the World War II.
Compare the economic conditions in which Britain entered WWI and WWII.
The Treaty of Versailles in World War II History .
What was the military potential of Russia in WWI?
World War II People in “Hitler’s Army.”
Is it correct to say that the results of WWI caused WWII?
Minority Civil Rights in the US after the WWII .
Was Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria so influential that his death caused the outbreak of WWI?
What Was the Second World War Impact on the USSR?
The Russian population scarcely supported the Bolsheviks. What helped them to seize power during the October Revolution? The provisional government was occupied by the war. The Red Army followed the same interests, and Vladimir Lenin led the entire group.
Francisco Franco was the dictator of Spain from 1939 till 1975, when he died. How did the Spanish Civil War bring him to power? Why did Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy help him?
The monarchy in Uganda was abolished in 1967. Several years later, from 1971 to 1986, the country was torn apart by the Civil War . What were the causes of this dark period, and how did it end? Is Uganda peaceful now?
Describe the role of climate in the collision between the North and South in the US . Did long agricultural seasons make the South depend on fieldwork? Was the traditional use of slavery a way to get rich?
The polarized opinions of the left and right political forces caused the Greek Civil War. Based on the history of this conflict and the thematic in-country clashes of other countries, analyze the eternal and unending struggle between the left and right ideologies.
The American Civil War Outbreak and the Role of the Federal Government.
The English Civil War (1642 – 1651) was about ruling England, Scotland, and Ireland. What were the variants, and which one do you support?
Short- and Long-term Causes of the Civil War .
Describe the differences between the free Northern States and the slave Southern states during the American Civil War.
The Economics of the Civil War .
How did the Second Civil War in Sudan entail the creation of South Sudan through the referendum of 2011 ?
The Motives of Individual Soldiers Who Fought in the Civil War .
Why was Pugachev’s Rebellion (1773 – 1775) in Russia defeated?
Post-Civil War Political, Economic, Social Changes .
Austrian Civil War: The shortest possible conflict (12-16 February 1934).
Petersburg in the Civil War: History Issues .

Intercountry Wars

The image depicts the main reasons of international conflicts.

Analyze the possible reasons for an international conflict and how they can be regulated through warfare. List the ideas that motivated people to get into a war. This essay will illustrate the debatable history of wars.
Describe the relationship between the emergence of nuclear weapons and the Cold War. Why was America afraid of the Soviet Union and communism?
Why was the Spanish-American War one of the cheapest conflicts in history? It lasted for only several months and did not take many lives, as other military actions did. What secured its swift completion?
What Were the Major Diplomacy Steps of J.F. Kennedy in Cuba During the Cold War?
Why did Canada play a peacekeeper role at the beginning of the Cold War?
The Seven Years War and its Impact on the First British Empire .
How did the history of the Palestinians impact the Arab-Israeli conflict ?
Outline the reasons for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
The Vietnam War’s Impact on the United States .
Describe the collaboration between the American and Australian troops in the Vietnam War.
United States Role in the Korean War: History Analysis .
How did the Soviet Union and US intervention cause Afghanistan’s War on Terror ?

Religious Wars

Why did the Huguenots fail in the French Religious Wars (1562 – 1598)? They could not rely on settlements that supported them. Thus, they were less autonomous than the Catholics.
How did the Thirty Years’ War change the geopolitical image of Europe? Why was it transformed into a group of independent states with equal rights? The most important consequence of the war was the creation of the modern notion of national borders.
Describe the relationship between the Second Great Awakening and the abolishment of slavery in the US. It also entailed several philanthropic reforms and women’s emancipation. Why did the movement inspire a new vision on slavery and encourage questioning the British monarchy control?
Quackers: The religion of pacifism and non-violence . Did their peaceful worldview prevent their faith from popularization? Which controversy with other confessions did they face?
How did the English Civil War (1642 – 1651) lay the modern parliamentary monarchy’s foundation in the UK?
Islam and War: True Meaning of Jihad .
How did the Second Great Awakening participants expect to bring America to a Golden Age through religion?
Comparison of Jewish and Muslim Experiences .
Which role did religion play in the American Revolutionary War (1775 – 1783)?
Christian Europeans vs. Islamic Arabs: Why did the fight for Jerusalem affect the Jews who lived in Europe?
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam .
Why did the Catholics fight with Protestants during the Thirty Years’ War?
Religious Beliefs and Political Decisions .
How did the Protestant Reformation lead to the European Wars of Religion?

✊ History Essay Topics on Revolution

Pick a revolution, any famous and well-documented one, and be sure to find a bunch of yet unresolved questions. Numerous mysteries held by revolutionary events give us a lot of topics to debate. Now, here are themes to study about the world and local revolutions.

Political Revolutions

The European Revolutions (1848) affected almost 50 countries. Battles and executions took tens of thousands of lives. How did nationalism incentivize the political and economic struggle?
How did the French invasion of Spain (1807) entail the Spanish-American Wars? The Spanish side aimed for political independence from America. What was their motivation?
Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban President, was an elected president. He gradually seized power and became a dictator. Why did the US politically support him before Fidel Castro ousted and replaced him?
The Shah’s regime brought economic shortages and inflation. Some people thought he was the puppet of the non-Muslim West (i.e., the US). How did Shah’s oil policy lead to the Iranian Revolution ?
During the Storming of the Bastille , there were only seven political prisoners. Why did the revolutionaries attack this building and not the Versailles or some other royal building? Why was Bastille the symbol of monarchy and its abuse of power?
Various Propaganda Tools Shaped People’s Vision of the State and Themselves during the Cultural Revolution in China .

"When dictatorship is a fact, revolutions becomes a right" - Victor Hugo

The Events That Led to the American Revolution .
Describe and analyze the conflict between the Three Estates that led to the French Revolution .
Who won in the Spanish American War of Independence and why?
The Proclamation and the Stamp Act: Discriminatory laws that led to the American Revolution.
Economic Factors Contributing to the Cause of the American Revolution.
A political revolution does not change the property relations inside the country. Give examples of such events.
Cold War Role in the Iranian Revolution .
Haitian Revolution (1791–1804): The only successful revolt of self-liberated slaves.
The Effects of Social Media on Egyptian Revolution of 2011 .

Social Revolutions

Boston Tea Party (1773) was a protest of merchants against the British tax on tea. Why is it considered as the precursor of the American Revolution? How does it symbolize the birth of American patriotism?
The French nobility was not concerned with the problems of ordinary people. They dedicated themselves to leisure and intrigues. Do you agree with this statement? How does it fit with the idea that France had authoritarianism ?
What is the difference between a political and a socio-economic revolution? Which event takes more time and has more dramatic consequences? Give several examples of the experience in different countries.
The Neolithic Revolution was the first social revolution in the history of humanity. Describe the shift from nomadic life to permanent settlements. How did the transformation change people’s lives and their sources of food?
Could we consider the Enlightenment as a social revolution? Was this transformation a peaceful one? What were its causes, and what did people strive for?
Syrian Arab Spring: Why Was it Late? Conflict Evolution and Solutions.
How did the burning of Cinema Rex theatre trigger the Iranian Revolution?
The American Revolution as a Social Revolution .
How did hope and idealism fuel the French Revolution?
The Revolution of Women in Society .
What was achieved by the Civil War in the USA (1861-1865)?
Child Labor During Industrial Revolution .
Analyze the existing theories of what does and does not constitute a revolution.
Karl Marx’s Ideas on Society Alienation and Conflict Theory.
What were the precursors of the Age of Revolution in Europe and America?
The Revolution of Transportation Systems .

🗺️ World History Argumentative Essay Topics

Time to examine history from a local perspective! Below you can find multiple excellent topics on regional history. The US history, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and more. Make sure to look at all of them precisely – this will require some effort.

US History Essay Topics

American history before 1877: The New World before Christopher Columbus. Which sources of knowledge about the first settlements do historians draw from? Which civilizations existed there before the invasion of the Europeans?
Explore the role of women in Colonial America . What rights did they have? What was their standard daily routine? Why was their work sometimes more complicated than that of their male relatives?
How did slavery appear in British America? What were the circumstances that led to forced labor? Why was the trans-Atlantic slave trade so prosperous?
How did the Founding Fathers treat Indian history and tribes? Were their actions legitimate? Did these deeds favor the establishment of the New World? Can such or any other “ethnic cleansing” ever be justified?

8 Founding Fathers of the United States.

Were Jim Craw Laws necessary for a smooth transition from slavery to democracy? Or were they a big mistake that provided freedom to African-Americans without giving them any rights?
The Roles Played by Different Presidents on American Civil Rights Movement.
Comment on the inflow of immigrants pursuing the American Dream after the Civil war.
The Enslaved Blacks and Free Blacks During the American Civil War .
How did Prohibition in the US cause the proliferation of the Italian-American Mafia?
American Revolution: The “History” and “Memory”.
Franklin Roosevelt led the US into the Second World War as the biggest debtor but exited it as the most significant creditor.
In Search of the American Dream throughout the History.
Describe the main problems the first British settlements faced in America.
The Right to Vote in the USA Throughout the History .
What were the psychological consequences of the Great Depression on ordinary American citizens?

Latin America History Essay Topics

How did smallpox influence the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire ? How did the disease contribute to other advantages of the Spanish forces? Why did Cortez wish to defeat the Aztecs?
The Panama Canal made Panama the second-fastest growing economy in Latin America after Chile. It brings about $2 billion in yearly revenue. However, more than five thousand people died during its construction. Was it possible to avoid the deaths by postponing the construction?
How the history of Peru would be different if Francisco Pizarro did not initiate the homicide of the Aztecs. Would modern Peru benefit from its pre-colonial natives? Which historical monuments would have been preserved?
Gold or silver was never found in Uruguay. How did this fact influence the present-day prosperity and stability in the country? Why did it present almost no interest for the colonial conquest?
In 1848, General Santa Anna sold a big part of Mexico to the United States. Why did he do so? What would Latin America look like now had he not sold the land to feed the army?
Nationalism and Development in the Countries of Latin America .
Why did Latin America wish to declare independence from Spain (1810)?
Haitian Migration History, and the Role of Jamaica in This Process .
Explore the benefits of the Chilean victory in the War of the Pacific (1879 – 1883).
Brazil and the European Union: The Relations .
Why did America win the Mexican-American War?
Criminal Justice Systems of the US and Colombia .
Describe how the borders of modern Brazil were decided back in 1494 .
Which consequences of Gen Alfredo Stroessner’s dictatorship in Paraguay can you name?
Mexico’s Globalization and Democratization .

European History Essay Topics

Why did ordinary people believe in Fascist propaganda ? Analyze the psychological factors and the cultural precursors that made people susceptible to Nazism. Did the fear of being killed influence their willingness to obey the ruling party?
Find out the difference between the perception of gods in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Did both nations truly believe in gods? Was the Pantheon a cultural phenomenon? Why did they use the same gods with different names ?
Would Roman Empire have become so influential if it had never used slavery? Why was slavery an essential part of the economy of many countries? What changed then? Was the abolishment of slavery dictated only by humanism?
How did the relationships between lords and their vassals transform into modern government standards? Which positive and negative features were preserved throughout the ages? Compare the ancient tradition and the present-day government using historical and contemporary figures.
What is the difference between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment ?
Why Capitalism Started in Europe and Dominated the World ?
Analyze the evolution of peace-maintaining methods inside the country and around its borders throughout European history.
Building a Communist Society in East Germany .
What does the classical and vulgar language distinction in Ancient Rome tell us about the structure of its society?
Austria and France: Impacts and Causes of World War I and World War II .
Compare and contrast the role of Russia in WWI and the Napoleonic Wars .
Trace the development of European liberalism .
Germany at the End of the World War I .
List the six ancient civilizations and compare the causes that led to their fall .

Asian History Essay topics

What made the Mongol Empire the second-largest kingdom in human history? How did the empire use technology and production to ensure its prosperity? What helped Genghis Khan unite the nomadic tribes?
The Black Death is traditionally associated with Europe since it killed one-third of its population. Still, the bubonic plague started in Asia. Explore its outburst in 1330 – 1340 and its origins (presumably, in China).
Explore the consequences of numerous conflicts between nomads and settled people in Asia. How did this rivalry shape the history of the continent? Analyze the contribution of trading between nomads and towns.
A crossbow was invented in Asia. It revolutionized warfare. How did the weapon make archery a more democratic art? Which benefits did crossbow offer the army? Describe the history of the arm.

The word Aryan comes from Iran and India. It meant “a noble person.” How did it turn into the most abused words of anti-Semitism?
The Causes and Effects of Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976).
What are the social effects of female infanticide in China, India, South Korea, and Nepal?
China’s New Silk Road for Trade and IGo to demoessays.commplications .
Compare and contrast the Indian castes and Feudal Japanese classes.
The Development of Tension Between South and North Korea.
How did the Battle of Gaugamela (331 BC) open Asia to be invaded by Alexander the Great?
Japan’s Withdrawing From the International Whaling Commission .
Describe the weapons of Ancient Asian civilizations as the mirror of their culture.
How did some Asian countries (Japan, China, and Siam) escape European colonization ?
Nationalism in East Asia, Japan and China .

Russian History Essay Topics

Which tribes created modern Russia? Were they Slavic or Finno-Ugric? Why does this history argumentative essay topic cause debates among historians? What are the implications of either variant for the Russian national identity?
How did the Tsardom of Moscow transform into the Russian Empire in 1721? What did Peter I do for this reformation? How did it change Russian society’s standard of living?
Why did Boris Godunov come to power breaking the Rurik family dynasty? Before his ascension to the throne, he was a Tatar nobleman and served as an advisor to Tsar Fyodor I. Why did his rule start at the Time of Troubles (1598 – 1613)?
Is it appropriate to call Moscow the “Third Rome” ? Sophia Palaiologina, the daughter of the last emperor of Constantinople, married Ivan III. Analyze the reasons for the statement that Moscow is the successor of the Roman Empire
What were the causes and consequences of the existence of the four “False Dmitrys”? Explore the under-the-carpet battle that led to the killing of the dynasty’s successors. How did the four imposters entail the decay of the institution of Tsardom?
Long-Term Strategies to Address Threats to the US’ Interest From Russia .
Which personal traits helped Ivan the Terrible establish the Tsardom of Russia and make it a powerful state?
Why Is There a Strong Russian Influence in Syrian Crisis?
Debate the phenomenon of Peter the Great : Was he the result of the epoch or the random person who changed Russian history?
Crisis on European Borders and Russia’s Threats .
What were the merits and drawbacks of Catherine the Great ?
Communist Nations Divisions During the Cold War .
How did other countries react to the Russian version of communism?
The Cold War Between the U.S. and the Soviet Union .
Did the communist regime make Russia stronger, or did it throw it back in time?
The Collapse of the Soviet Union .

African History Essay Topics

Why did the imperial historiography propagate that Africa had no history? They wanted to create the image of Africa as the “dark continent.” How did the historians justify these statements and relate them to the absence of writing?
The Kingdom of Kush : The most powerful African kingdom. Describe the period of its existence and outline the possible reasons for its decay. Which historical monuments have been found of that era?
Do you support the idea that humanity originated in Africa? Why does this statement insult the Western World? Is there enough evidence that proves the idea?
We know about African history from the perspective of Western scholars. Even the locally educated people who study history have adopted the Western way of looking at the past. What can be done about that?
Before European colonization , there were about 10,000 states in Africa. Describe their ethnic similarities and shared customs that we know nowadays.
What do we know about prehistoric Africa, i.e., the one that existed before the Ancient Egypt civilization?
China in Africa: Aspects of Sino-African Relations.
Why is slavery often mentioned as the initial reference point in African history?
African Americans Fight for the Rights.
Which problems arose in some African societies as a result of decolonization ?
The History of African American Women’s Fights for Suffrage.
Describe how decolonized Africa tried to decolonize its history.
Colonialism, Ideology, Ethnicity, Religion, Social Class, and Legitimacy in Africa’s Politics .

Australian History Essay Topics

James Cook was not the first one to discover Australia. Who were his predecessors? Why didn’t they gain as much fame as Cook did?

Who came to Australia before Captain James Cook?

King O’Malley : The founder of the Australian capital. How did he favor the creation of the Commonwealth Bank? How did Prime Minister Fisher ensure trust in the bank among the population?
Why did the Ballarat Rebellion finish just in 30 minutes? What did the rebels struggle for? How did the event lead to the signing of the Electoral Act of 1856?
The first colonizers of Australia were prisoners. How does this fact impact the contemporary image of the country? What were the historical implications of such a demographical situation?
Why do Australians consider the battle of 25 April 1915 (during WWI) as “the birth of the nation?” Describe the reasons that made Australian Imperial Forces participate in the war and attack the Turkish coast?
Why were Afghan cameleers important in Australia, and what caused their disappearance?
Aboriginal and Chinese Australians: Cultural Diversity.
What were the causes of the Rum rebellion of 1808, and which role did William Bligh play in it?
How Have Australian Attitudes Towards ‘Asia’ Changed Since the 1890 ?
Describe the role of Merino sheep in the Australian economy since they were first brought there by Captain John Macarthur in 1797.
Is Australian Foreign Policy Now Independent?
Ned Kelly : A ruthless killer or a symbol of resistance to the colonial power?
Multiculturalism in Australian Society .
Describe the Brisbane Line and its role in the Japanese invasion.
China’s and Australia’s Management of International Disputes .

🤴 History Essay Topics on Key Figures

The significance of historical figures is something challenging to measure and compare. And there is indeed no need to do that; everyone has their place, time, and role. With these topics below, we offer you to dive into biographies of some fascinating people. Take a deep breath; we are almost there!

Central Figures of Ancient History

Plato vs. Aristotle : The abstract vs. the empirical. Both of them are the most influential figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle was Plato’s disciple. What made their ideas so different?
Why was Diogenes a controversial personality? How did he manage to criticize social conventions through his simple lifestyle? Is poverty a virtue, as Diogenes claimed?
Aeschylus: The father of Tragedy . What were his contributions to the image of Ancient Greek theater? Explore his influence beyond his own time.
Homer created the ancient Greek identity. Did he formulate the qualities already present in his compatriots ? Alternatively, did he idealize the past to make the Greeks aspire for more?
Cleisthenes : The father of the Athenian democracy. Explore his contribution to the governance of Athens. How different was it from the modern idea of democracy?
The Ancient City of Tikal: Mayan Cultural, Social, Astronomy and Political Influence .
Why did Mark Antony and Cleopatra trust one another so much?
Plutarch : Our window to the ancient times.
Cleopatra’s Life and Political Impact .
How did Alexander the Great and his conquest change the ancient world?
Ethical Life Issues in Works by Cicero and C.S. Lewis .
Why do we consider Hippocrates as the father of medicine ?
Aristotle and Relationships at Work .
Describe the difference between the historical and fictional accounts of the assassination of Julius Caesar.
Alaric I the Visigoth: The person responsible for the Sack of Rome in 410.
Jesus & Mohammed: Comparison and Contrast .
Why was Leonidas I encircled by a hero cult?
Moses in Christianity, Judaism and Islam .

Central Figures of Medieval Ages

Tomás de Torquemada was the first Grand Inquisitor of Spain. Why did his name become the synonym of religious fanaticism and cruelty? What made him the most notorious Inquisitor?
Charlemagne was the creator of modern Europe. He divided the Carolingian Empire between his sons. He also added more parts to Europe that had never been under Roman or Frankish control before. Explore his activity.
Avicenna (980 – 1037) was the most important polymath of the Islamic Golden Age. Analyze his contributions to modern science.
Constantine was the last Byzantine emperor . He was killed when protecting Constantinople from the Ottoman Turks. What makes him a legendary figure in Greek culture?
Thomas Aquinas was the first theologian that linked religion and science. He connected Christian principles with Aristotelian ideas. How did he influence our perception of God and faith?
Did Marco Polo travel to China, or was he a big liar?
Joan of Arc as a Military Heroine .
Why was Sir William Marshal called “the greatest knight” in human history?
St. Thomas Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument Analysis .
Describe the leadership qualities of Richard the Lionheart in his battle for Jerusalem with sultan Saladin.
Was Genghis Khan a great ruler? Analyze his leadership style.
British Culture – Tudors, Henry VIII and Anglican Church .
William the Conqueror and his Domesday Book : The most critical statistical document in European history.
Why was Peter the Hermit the critical figure in the First Crusade ?
Elizabeth I’s Leadership. English History .
What was the role of Joan of Arc in the Hundred Years’ War?
Pope Innocent III: The person who invented the Crusades.

Central Figures of Modern Period

How did Otto von Bismarck change the European map and reinforce Germany? He was the first chancellor of Germany for 20 years. This fact made him the mastermind of European affairs for two decades.
Alexander II and Nicolas II: The grandfather and the grandson. Fifty years separated prosperity from decay. The first abolished slavery, and the latter caused the collapse of the Russian Empire.
Stalin: From a collective leadership to dictatorship . He was the man that defined the epoch. Why was he the longest ruler of the USSR? How did his activity shape the international image of the Soviet Union?
Mahatma Gandhi liberated India from Britain . Yet, he invariably insisted on non-violent methods. Could the liberation have happened in more favorable conditions for India if he had used more aggressive measures?

Gandhi wrote a letter to Hitler, addressing him as "Dear Friend," and beseeched him to stop the war. Hitler never wrote back.

Churchill: The ideologist of the anti-Hitler coalition and the creator of the Entente. Why do we consider him the inspirer of the British movement against Nazi Germany? What were the main postulates of his ideology?
The Civil Rights Movement by Martin Luther King .
From the modern point of view, did Lenin fulfill his intentions by introducing communism?
Einstein and his Contribution to Science .
If we abstract from the issues of morality, was Hitler a positive figure for his country?
Hitler’s Interests: Nazi Germany and the Jews .
What was the role of Margaret Thatcher’s activity in the process of entailing deep divisions in British society?
Leadership Management: The Case of Mahatma Gandhi .
Analyze the life story of Sigmund Freud that brought him to become the father of psychoanalysis.
How did Anne Boleyn help to create the Church of England?
US Foreign Policies from Eisenhower to Kennedy .
How did Jane Austen’s stories about unremarkable situations turn into social satire?
George Washington: Life, Presidency, Challenges as a Commander .
How did El Greco transform icon painting by using ordinary people as models?

Central Figures of Contemporary History

Mao Zedong drew inspiration from the Soviet Communistic ideology. How did his principles differ from the USSR scenario? Analyze the policy of Mao Zedong from the modern Chinese point of view.
Albert Einstein changed our perception of reality through his theory of relativity . It explained how objects behave in space and time. The approach gave us a chance to predict the future.
Analyze the personality of Usama bin Ladin as the founder of Al-Qaeda and the most famous terroristic leader. Explore his ideology and motivation for killing civil citizens. Can we change this ideology through education?
Stanley N. Cohen was the first person who managed to cut DNA into pieces. But Paul Berg is considered the father of genetic engineering. Which personality did more for genetics?
Harry Truman was a Vice President only for several weeks. Truman, the 33rd US President, ordered the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why did he do so?
Queen Elizabeth’s II contributions to the UK we know now.
Truman Doctrine in the United States History .
Anne Frank: The girl whose diary united millions of human tragedies.
Barack Obama’s Political Doctrine and Its Elements .
Describe the role of Douglas MacArthur in Japan’s restoration after WWII .
Maria Curie : The woman who taught us to use X-rays.
Merkel’s Germany and Trump’s Us Stances on Migration Policies .

Both Pierre and Marie Curie had no idea of the dangers of radioactivity.

How did Grace Kelly contribute to the image of Monaco as a touristic paradise?
Why did Gorbachev win the Nobel Peace Prize?

🏳️‍🌈 Argumentative History Topics on Significant Movements

Each epoch has had some movements that perform the leading ideas and soul of the corresponding time. Political, social, religious, and other movements have left multiple traces in different spheres of life. The necessity to explore these traces is pretty obvious, right? Let’s do it together.

Political Movements

Why does extreme libertarianism reject the authority of the state?
Anarchy and Sovereignty in International Relations .
Is it correct to regard feminism as a political movement ?
Analyze the incorrect interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy by the German Nazi.
“Manifesto of the Communist Party” by Karl Marx .
How do eugenic policies entail the loss of genetic diversity?
Discussion of Capitalism and Socialism .
Why are there two major parties in US politics?
Explore the development of the Women’s Suffrage movement in your local area.
Why does any political movement require access to state power to be successful?
Islamism: Political Movement & Range of Ideologies .
Does lobbying influence the development of various political movements in power?
Democratic Regime and Liberation Movements .
Describe communism as a secular religion.
Is anti-capitalism a viable ideology?

Social Movements

What are the achievements of the animal rights movement?
White Society’s Reaction to Civil Rights Movement .
Which women’s rights movements do you know, and what are their goals?
Civil Rights and #BlackLivesMatter Social Movements .
Do you believe that some psychological problems make people participate in social movements?

What did the Black Power Movement (1960 – 1980s) achieve?
Women’s Rights Movement Impact on Education.
What are the psychological effects of volunteering in hospices?
The Strategy of the National Popular Vote Movement .
Analyze the success of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Greta Thunberg : The inspirer of the international movement against climate change.
Free Movement of Workers in the EU Single Market .
Why does the majority of the population negatively look at all sorts of social movements?
#MeToo movement and its results: The cancellation culture.

Art Movements

How did the return of the African culture to the natives after WWII give birth to a new art movement?
Why are modern art movements so numerous, and what does this fact characterize?
Futurism. Artistic and Social Movement.
Which art movement do you consider the most recognizable?
Do you think Cubism is an art or a protest against artistic tradition?
An artistic movement: Copying geniuses or drawing inspiration from them?
Andy Warhol’s Paintings .
How did the Hudson River School of Art shape American painting?
Why did art in late Medieval Europe face decay?
Art Movements in History: Baroque .
What is the difference between the Baroque and Rococo styles?
Which artistic movement initiated the use of perspective in painting, and why did it happen?

Religious and Spiritual Movements

Explore the influence of fundamentalism on evangelicalism in America.
Look for similar features between new religious movements and radical Islamic groups .
Describe the distinctive traits of new religious movements that differentiate them from older religions.
Which methods does the Religious Right movement use against the LGBT community?
Do religious movements favor or impede globalization ?
Which psychological reasons drive young people to Satanism?
Why do people create new cults , and are they detrimental to society?
Explore the difference between a spiritual and religious movement.
Relation Between God, Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit .
Is it correct to consider atheism as a religious movement?
Modern spiritual movements: business or altruism?

📿 Interesting History Essay Topics on Traditions

No matter the military history of a state or region, cultural heritage and traditions are something every society has. Now, the most exciting part is to explore these traditions and rituals. It can be a long journey!

Trace the difference between Vlad the Impaler as a historical and mythical figure.

Prince Charles of Wales, the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II, is the descendant of Vlad Dracula in the sixteenth generation.

Which events and traditions shaped the way we imagine a witch?
False and Folk Etymologies of Words .
Analyze Baba Yaga as the symbol of mother nature in Russian folklore.
How does German folklore reflect in the tales of the Brothers Grimm ?
The Thousand & One Nights: Folk Collection Overview .
Is there any scientific explanation for weather prediction by natural signs is present in many cultures’ folklore?
Witch-Hunt in Europe During the Middle Ages .
Half-human creatures of ancient times: Who were they, and which archetype did they represent?
Explore the folklore origins of the Swastika , which became the Nazi symbol.
The mythology of Achilles’ heel: What does it symbolize?
The Epic of Gilgamesh – A Classic Tale .
Describe the meaning of fireflies in Japanese culture.
“The Tale of Kieu” by Nguyen Du .
What is the link between zombies and voodoo?
Discover the origins of putting a pickle ornament on Christmas trees in Germany.
Why Saturnalia, Mithras, and Hanukkah were the precursors of modern-day Christmas?
What is the link between the Festival of Lanterns and Chinese New Year?
What are the origins of Imbolc in Celtic tradition?
Chinese Spring Festival .
Which African-American harvest celebrations were unified under the name of Kwanzaa?
What does Jewish Hannukah commemorate, and why does it last eight days?
Why does the US celebrate Veterans Day at the 11th hour on the 11th day and 11th month?
Why did the US presidents start racing Easter Eggs?
What is the relation between Daylight Savings time and WWI?
Analyze the geography and calendar of Christmas in different parts of the world.
Why are most rituals practiced in modern world religions?
Buddhism: History, Origins, and Rituals .
Describe human sacrifice rituals in Ancient Rome .
Why do civilized countries use rituals in politics, for example, during the presidential inauguration?
Crusades from a Christian Viewpoint .
Compare male and female initiation rituals in African countries.
How do funeral rituals help humans overcome the pain of loss?
Marriage rituals in Japan: History that is preserved to nowadays.
Explore pagan rituals that remained in the Christian culture.
Is Baptism a ritual of initiation?
What do the burial rituals of native Americans tell us about their culture?

👁️‍ Essay Topics on Historical Mysteries

Have you ever thought about how many things around us are still covered with layers of questions? Humanity has still not resolved some events, places, and people that took place throughout history. Let’s have a look at some breathtaking historical mysteries.

Think of the reasons for the Great Leap Forward . Why did people start painting caves and making jewelry?
During the Middle Ages, English speakers changed the way they pronounced vowels. What are the theories of the Great Vowel Shift ?
The Green Children of Woolpit: A scary folk tale or a historical event?
The Inca civilization: Highway and postal system, skull surgeries, and other signs of culture.
The Sea Peoples caused the Bronze Age Collapse. Who were they? Where did they come from?
What are the available explanations of the Phoenix Lights?
The Salem Witch Trials and Their Impact on Massachusetts .
Analyze the theories explaining the Baghdad batteries and select the most true-to-life version.
What do we know about the “ Nazi Bell. ” Why is there so little information about the secret weapon?
What do we know about the Philadelphia Experiment ? Discuss the major theories and opinions on that case.
The Tunguska event: Military experiments or a meteoroid impact?
The mystery of Yonaguni Island and its underwater structures: Who were their creators?
The Bermuda Triangle: Human error camouflaged as a mystery.
Was the uncanny nature of The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park created by Stephen King?
Delano Roosevelt’s bomb shelter : Why did the President order to construct the chamber in 1941?
What is known about the secret passageways and hiding rooms of the British Queen?
The chief designer of the “hall of records” in Mount Rushmore died before completing his work. Was it a conspiracy?
Why do the scientists believe that the secret of Stonehenge will be revealed in some decades?
Find out the facts that point to the existence of Atlantis.
The Lock Ness Lake and the monster: A non-extinct dinosaur?
Money Pit on the Oak Island : A geologic formation or a place to hide treasures?
What traits make Jack the Ripper so attractive to historians and fiction writers?
Italian Americans Portrayed as Mafia Members in Films .
Keth Arnold saw some “flying saucers” that traveled faster than jet airplanes. Was it a UFO or a flock of birds?
David Blair: The person who was guilty in the Titanic catastrophe.
Was Joan of Arc executed for heresy or for dressing in male clothes?
The mystery of Amelia Earhart: Dead or alive?
Was Grigori Rasputin really capable of predicting the future?
Did the lost Grand Duchess Anastasia die when the rest of the Romanov family was killed?
Explore the mystery of the Babushka Lady , who recorded the assassination of John F. Kennedy. What is known about her and the purposes of her filming?
The Man in the Iron Mask and his sentence in the Bastille: Who could he be?
Perseus in the Manhattan Project: How did he manage to hide from the US for so long?

📝 Historical Topics to Write About – 2024

Geopolitical consequences of the USSR collapse for the world.
The influence of Confucianism on modern society in China.
How did the formation of NATO impact the Cold War?
The significance of Napoleon Bonaparte in European history.
The development of democracy in ancient Athens.
Reagan’s tax reform and its impact on the modern economy.
What were the key consequences of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings?
The September 11th events and their impact on global security.
The Manhattan Project and the development of nuclear weapons.
The influence of slavery on African American families.
Mahatma Gandhi and his influence on the ideology of modern India.
What was the role of the first moon landing in astronomy?
The ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its value.
The true history of the Confederate flag.
How much regulation is necessary for capitalism to function?
The main causes of the Vietnam War.
Historical events should be reexamined through a contemporary ethical lens.
The debate over the role of the United States in the Middle East.
The controversy behind the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Operation “Barbarossa”: aggression or attack prevention?
The reasons for Martin Luther King’s assassination.
The efficiency of the United Nations.
Christopher Columbus: heroic explorer or the harbinger of genocide?
The disputes about the origins of Shakespeare.
Was Donald Trump an effective president?
The benefits of communism in Eastern Europe.
Is the world doing enough to prevent the destruction of historical sites?
The real motive behind the Watergate scandal.
South Korean provocations of the Korean War.
Should the United States have entered World War I?
Princess Diana’s death as the subject of a conspiracy theory.
The effect of the Cuban Missile Crisis on the Cold War.
Is the international community doing enough to commemorate the Holocaust?
The debate over the use of internment camps during WWII.
The factors contributing to the Nazi Party’s rise in Germany
Did the attack on Pearl Harbor push the USA into WWII?
The leading causes of the Roman Empire’s fall.
Mysteries of the disappearance of the Mayan civilization.
Disputes about the role of women in medieval society.
The corruption of the Catholic Church: myth or truth?
Capitalism is the best economic system.
The injustices experienced by Muslims after 9/11.
What would have happened without Hitler?

👉 History Essay Topics: How to Choose

Selecting the proper essay topic can sometimes be rather tricky. Especially after reading all these fascinating questions above😏

Jokes aside, perfect topic choice is crucial if you want to write a good essay or a research paper and get a high grade. Here are some useful tips that will help you make the right choice and write a great history essay.

♟️ Strategies for Historical Argument Topics

When it comes right to writing a historical essay, you should consider several scenarios of how to build your text. Depending on your topic and the point of view, you might need different strategies.

Now, let’s see the differences between descriptive and research argumentative essays on historical topics.

Historians debate my topic. I agree with some of them, and I’m going to prove that. I will use their arguments to show their correctness.
Historians disagree on my topic. I think they shall start their debate all over again, as they have reached a dead end.
Historians relatively agree on my topic. I have developed a better interpretation of the events in question.
Historians disregarded my topic. I will explain its topicality and list what should be researched.
Several historians have examined my topic, but their findings are inconsistent. I will present more constructive evidence to clarify things.
Many historians have studied my topic. However, I will take a fresh look at the subject matter from the perspective of new research or methodologies.

And we are done here.

Now, have a break if you’ve read all 396 topics. Though, wait, did you find something fitting you? In that case, you are free for a break 👼

In case if you are still not sure what to write about, we recommend you to read these topic compilations:

The Best Argumentative Essay Topics for 2024
Hot Problem-Solution Essay Topics
250+ Interesting Topics to Research
Cause & Effect Essay Topics for Students
Top 138 Awesome Sociology Essay Topics & Questions for 2024

We are pretty sure there’s no hopeless situation. It’s just a matter of time and effort. And everyone needs a different amount of each. So, keep calm, and let’s rock this history essay!

Good luck, friends 🍀

Research Paper Analysis: How to Analyze a Research Article + Example

Film analysis: example, format, and outline + topics & prompts.

Department of History

Historiography essay titles, note: the exam format for 2018 will change. there will be no longer a,b,c sections..

Also, remember that it is a 'seen' exame which means you will receive the exam questions a week in advance.

But you are still welcome to use the questions below for any formative/assessed essay.

Questions on Specific Text/Historian for Essays

What was the impact of the Enlightenment on History-writing in Europe?
Would James Mill have written a better history of India if he had known Indian languages?
Describe historical thinking in colonial era India.
Assess the significance of style in Ranke’s historical writing.
If Ranke ‘rejected Sir Walter Scott’, what was he rejecting?
Was Leopold von Ranke a Romantic?
Describe von Ranke’s ‘Ideal of Universal History’. Discuss its relationship to the local and the universal in the historical thinking of EITHER Karl Marx OR Max Weber.
Describe Iggers’ and Wang’s ‘history of Leopold von Ranke in the world’. Account for any deficiencies in their argument.
What did Karl Marx mean when he asserted that ‘the social revolution of the nineteenth century can only create its poetry from the future, not from the past’? (Eighteenth Brumaire , Section 1).
How was The Eighteenth Brumaire revisited on its 150th birthday?
‘Where Hegel started with philosophy, Marx started with people’s experiences’. Discuss.
‘Simplicity supplies the key to the secret of the unchangeableness of Asiatic societies’ (Marx, Capital , Vol.1, xiv, s. 4). How typical was Marx’s historiography of India?
Discuss the ‘Marxism’ of any twentieth-century historian or theorist of history [state the person clearly in the title].
Why is Walter Benjamin’s ‘On the Concept of History’ still regarded as an important text?
Can Walter Benjamin’s understanding of History be described as Marxist?
What is a 'historical fact'?
What is class consciousness for Marx?
Was Weber anti-Marx?
How did Weber approach the problem of causation in history?
What does Weber understand by rational capitalism and how does it differ from Marx's ideas?
What does Gramsci mean by hegemony? How does it work?
‘The science of men in time’ is how Marc Bloch described the practice of history. What did he mean?
‘With their examination of mentalité the Annalist historians furnished the historical profession with a new mode of reconstructing the past’. Discuss.
‘It is undeniable that a science [like the historical science] will always seem to us somehow incomplete if it cannot, sooner or later, in one way or another, aid us to live better’. (Bloch, Historian’s Craft ) Discuss Bloch’s view of the historical enterprise within society.
There are many English-language educational and media websites devoted to the work of Annales historians. Make a selection of them, and give an account of the ways in which a twentieth-century ‘historical school’ is presented to twenty-first century reading publics.
The Making of the English Working Class ‘has come to be seen as the single most influential work of English history of the post-war period’ (John Rule, DNB entry for E. P. Thompson). Why?
Drawing on the resources of advanced options and special subjects, discuss whether or not there is still ‘a Thompsonian legacy’ in historical studies.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of micro-history.
Discuss any historical case-study you have read. Is the case-study approach the same as the micro-historical approach?
What was cultural about ‘the New Cultural History’?
Is Foucault's still disturbing for readers today as it was for readers in the 1970s and 1980s?
What does Foucault mean by biopower?
Is Foucault still valuable today?
‘A challenge to the conventional Western interpretation of the non-Western world’. Is this an adequate description of the impact of Said’s work on historical scholarship?
Describe ‘the reception of Edward Said’ by historians and others.
What – if anything – was original about Subaltern Studies?
To what extent is it possible to hear the voice of the subalter.
‘It is now men (and masculinity) that are truly hidden from history’. Discuss.
Discuss the view that Judy Walkowitz’s City of Dreadful Delight is ‘about stories, not about history’.

Part B-style general questions

(note: you should answer such questions comparatively, not focusing on just one historian or thinker.)

Why study historiography?
What is a ‘historian’?
Is history a ‘science’?
History is closer to literature than to science.‟ Discuss.
Is History primarily about the past or the present?
What are the implications of E. H. Carr's claim that ‘only the future can provide the key to the interpretation of the past’?
Is total or holistic history possible or desirable?
Describe and discuss the historical enterprise of any one society, past or present, that you have studied during your degree course.
What counts as a historical source?
Is there any difference between a historical ‘fact’ and historical ‘evidence’?
‘The idea of what is considered “valid historical evidence” has changed considerably over the past two centuries.’ Discuss.
‘The science of men in time’ is how Marc Bloch characterised history. What did he mean? Introduce other historians’ conceptions of time in answering this question.
‘The writing of history tells us more about the historian than about the past.’ Do you agree?‘
“Time” has no agreed meaning for historians.’ Discuss.
‘History from below invariably romanticises popular culture.’ Discuss.
Is history, as it is written, inevitably relativistic?
Is it true, as George Orwell claimed, that those with power in the present control the past?
Has history ended, as Francis Fukuyma claimed?
Can the writing of history be politically neutral?
Does political history have a future?
How and why has cultural history become so important?
‘Modern history can only be conceived in relationship to the nation state’.’ Discuss.
‘Since the early nineteenth century, historians have been engaged in a continuing debate with the heritage of the Enlightenment.’ Discuss.
How should history be taught in schools?
Why should governments fund historical research?
What is the value of popular history? (You may answer this in terms of television history, film or drama.)
Why has family history become so popular in modern Britain?
Why was Marxist theory central to twentieth-century historical scholarship?
Has the historical writing influenced by Marx been good history?
To what extent has gender as a category of analysis changed the way historians conceptualise identity and experience?
‘History as a discipline has been and is highly Eurocentric.’ Is this true?
‘Postcolonialism forces us to re-evaluate the whole history of Britain in modern times.’ Discuss.
How important has the history of the non-Western world been to the shaping of Western historiography?
Are postmodernist views of history plausible?
Was postmodernism a serious ‘challenge to history’ in the late twentieth century?
Has the linguistic turn produced good history writing
Visucal and material culture is important to history writing. Discuss.

Neuroscience can help us to write better history. Discuss.

Did you think the material and visual turn enrich history writing?
'Historians should stick to literary sources. They are the only way to access the past objectively'. Discuss.

History Essay Examples

Top History Essay Examples To Get Inspired By

Published on: May 4, 2023

Last updated on: Jan 31, 2024

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History essays are a crucial component of many academic programs, helping students to develop their critical thinking, research, and writing skills.

However, writing a great history essay is not always easy, especially when you are struggling to find the right approach. This is where history essay examples come in handy.

By reading and examining samples of successful history essays, you can gain inspiration, learn new ways to approach your topic. Moreover, you can develop a better understanding of what makes a great history essay.

In this blog, you will find a range of history essay examples that showcase the best practices in history essay writing.

Read on to find useful examples.

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Sample History Essays

Explore our collection of excellent history paper examples about various topics. Download the pdf examples for free and read to get inspiration for your own essay.

History Essay Samples for Middle School

The Impact of Ancient Civilizations on Modern Society

The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire

The Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution

History Writing Samples for High School Students

The Impact of the Industrial Revolution on Society

Grade 10 History Essay Example: World War 1 Causes and Effects

Grade 12 History Essay Example: The Impact of Technology on World War II

Ancient History Essay Examples

The Societal and Political Structures of the Maya Civilization

The Role of Phoenicians in the Development of Ancient Mediterranean World

The Contributions of the Indus Civilization

Medieval History Essay Examples

The Crusades Motivations and Consequences

The Beginning of Islamic Golden Age

The Black Death

Modern History Essay Examples

The Suez Crisis and the End of British Dominance

The Rise of China as an Economic Powerhouse

World History Essay Examples

The Role of the Silk Road in Shaping Global Trade and Culture

The Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire

The Legacy of Ancient Greek Philosophy and Thought

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American History Essay Examples

The Civil Rights Movement and its Impact on American Society

The American Civil War and its Aftermath

The Role of Women in American Society Throughout History

African History Essay Examples

The Impact of Colonialism on African Societies

The Rise and Fall of the Mali Empire

European History Essay Examples

The Protestant Reformation and the Rise of Protestantism in Europe

The French Revolution and its Impact on European Politics and Society

The Cold War and the Division of Europe

Argumentative History Essay Examples

Was the US Civil War Primarily About Slavery or States

The Effects of British Colonization on Colonies

Art History Essay Examples

The Influence of Greek and Roman Art on Neoclassicism

The Depiction of Women in Art Throughout History

The Role of Art in the Propaganda of Fascist Regimes

How to Use History Essay Examples

History essay examples are a valuable tool for students looking for inspiration and guidance on how to approach their own essays.

By analyzing successful essays, you can learn effective writing techniques that can be expected in a high-quality history essay.

Here are some tips that will help you take full advantage of the samples above.

Tips for Effectively Using History Essay Examples

Analyze the Structure:

Pay close attention to how the essay is organized, including the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Look for how the author transitions between paragraphs and the use of evidence to support their argument.

Study the Thesis Statement:

The thesis statement is the backbone of any successful history essay. Analyze how the author crafted their thesis statement, and consider how you can apply this to your own writing.

Take Note of the Evidence:

Effective history essays rely on using strong evidence to support their arguments. Take note of the sources and types of evidence used in the essay. Consider how you can apply similar evidence to support your own arguments.

Pay Attention to the Formatting and Other Academic Formalities:

The sample essays also demonstrate how you can incorporate academic formalities and standards while keeping the essay engaging. See how these essays fulfill academic standards and try to follow them in your own writing.

Practice Writing:

While analyzing history essay examples can be helpful, it is important to also practice writing your own essays. Use the examples as inspiration, but try to craft your own unique approach to your topic.

History essays are an essential aspect of learning and understanding the past. By using history essay examples, students can gain inspiration on how to develop their history essays effectively.

Furthermore, following the tips outlined in this blog, students can effectively analyze these essay samples and learn from them.

However, writing a history essay can still be challenging.

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🏀 Men's Tournament

🎟️ Final Four set

🗣️ Each team's Final Four path

🚂 Purdue's 44-year journey back to the Final Four

👀 See bracket

Check your bracket

Michella Chester | NCAA.com | April 1, 2024

Duke re-enters Week 7 baseball Power 10 rankings

Another week of tough college baseball power 10 rankings.

1. Arkansas (Previous: 1)

Undisputed at the top is Arkansas after sweeping the reigning champs LSU. Everyone showed up. Hagen Smith with 10ks on Friday as Kendall Diggs backed it up with a three-run shot. Hudson White had a walk-off RBI double in the bottom of the 10th on Saturday and Louisiana native Peyton Stovall sealed the sweep on Sunday.

2. Clemson (3)

The Tigers move up. Clemson won the series over Miami to move to 24-3. Freshman righthander Aidan Knaak pitched 7.0 scoreless innings on Sunday.

3. Texas A&M (4)

The Aggies swept Auburn this past weekend with Ted Burton delivering with the walk-off in the bottom of the 12th to secure the sweep.

4. Tennessee (5)

After getting run-ruled by Georgia on Friday night, they won the next two by 5 and 7 runs, respectively, shutting out the Dawgs offense on Sunday. No Georgia player had more than one hit in the game, including Charlie Condon.

With a pair of 𝔾ℝ𝔸ℕ𝔻 𝕊𝕃𝔸𝕄𝕊 in Saturday’s win, we’ve already tied our single season program record with 7️⃣ this year! #GBO // #OTH pic.twitter.com/FkYfsiKbOP — Tennessee Baseball (@Vol_Baseball) April 1, 2024

5. Oregon State (2)

The Beavers drop 3 spots following a series loss to unranked USC. The third game of the series was rained out, but 2 losses nonetheless. Travis Bazzana opened the game with his fifth leadoff home run over the last six games on Saturday, but the 1-run lead was short-lived as the pitching staff gave up 17 rubs including a 10-run 5th inning.

6. Vanderbilt (7)

I could still argue the Commodores are a little lower but 6-on is a tough ordering. Vandy was swept by South Carolina two weeks ago but swept Missouri this week. The next couple of weeks will be pivitol as they play LSU, Texas AM and Florida. That's when we will really be able to tell what the Commodores are made of.

7. Florida (8)

Florida has got to have the weirdest record of anyone. They have 11 losses after another mid-week loss to FSU, but they won another weekend series over Mississippi State. Despite so many losses in the top 10 they haven't lost an SEC series yet. Jac Caglianone has been carrying them on Sundays, he even had the walk-off homer for the win this time around.

8. Duke (NR)

Duke moves back in after winning the series over Virginia to move back to the top of the ACC.

9. Dallas Baptist (10)

Ryan Johnson continues to perform for DBU.

10. Virginia (6)

Virginia just barely hangs on. A close game against Duke, a top-10 team, keeps them in the running.

Dropped out — North Carolina is my first team out, the Tar Heels swept Wake Forest over the weekend.

This week in DII sports: Pittsburg State softball's hot start and the latest DII baseball Power 10

SEC teams shuffle in Week 6 baseball Power 10 rankings

This week in DII sports: DII Men's and Women's Elite Eight, previewed

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Men's College World Series

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🏆 Programs with the most MCWS titles
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Everything you need to know about how the Men's College World Series works

Di baseball news.

College baseball rankings: Duke enters latest Power 10
College baseball rankings: Texas A&M, Tennessee enter top 5 in latest Power 10
SEC teams shuffle in Week 6 baseball Power 10
Chaos causes a major shake-up in Week five's college baseball Power 10

College baseball career home run leaders

Here are the baseball programs with the most Men's College World Series titles

The 7 longest home runs in MCWS history (that we know of)

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Texas Rangers unfurl franchise's first World Series championship banner

ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers unfurled a World Series championship banner for the first time in franchise history before their season opener on Thursday night against the Chicago Cubs.

The banner was dropped from Globe Life Field’s roof support high above right field. Shortly before, the Commissioner’s Trophy was brought to home plate by manager Bruce Bochy and pitcher Josh Sborz, who recorded the final out in the clinching Game 5 against the Arizona Diamondbacks in November.

“I want to thank you for your tremendous support,” Bochy told the fans.

Championship rings will be presented before the series’ second game on Saturday night.

“Talking to players, I told them to take this in,” said Bochy, who previously managed three World Series winners while with the San Francisco Giants. “Savor it. Not just tonight but the next game when you get the rings. Soak it in because it’s so hard to do.”

The Rangers won their first championship in their 52nd season in Texas and 63rd overall for the franchise that began play in 1961 as the second iteration of the Washington Senators.

Texas lost in its two previous World Series appearances — in 2010 to Bochy’s Giants in five games and in 2011 to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games after twice being one out from clinching the title in Game 6.

Rangers pitcher Max Scherzer was on the Washington Nationals’ championship team in 2019, but COVID-19 pandemic restrictions prevented fans from being present for the celebration in 2020. He said their ring ceremony was done by Zoom.

“I really want to enjoy it with the fans this time and soak in the moment,” Scherzer said.

Cubs manager Craig Counsell, who scored the run that gave the Florida Marlins the 1997 World Series crown, said of watching the ceremony from the opposing dugout: “You’re jealous of ’em. That’s the honesty.”

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

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COMMENTS

433 Brilliant World History Topics, Essay Prompts & Examples
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Students who don't like writing about World History tend to buy essays online written from scratch to minimize the burden of studying. Yet, if you still believe in mastering the essay DIY, this article covers the 30 most popular World History essay topics of 2020-2021 as well as tips on how to choose one for your preferences.
278 Interesting History Essay Topics and Events to Write about
Titanic is an excellent topic for an essay and a discussion. A cautionary tale about a luxurious ship that sank due to criminal negligence. Death of the Romanovs is an interesting history topic that is still being investigated. This gruesome story inspired many myths, including that of the survival of Anastasia.
World Historian Student Essay Competition
The World Historian Student Essay Competition is an international competition open to students enrolled in grades K-12 in public, private, and parochial schools, and those in home-study programs. Membership in the World History Association is not a requirement for submission. Past winners may not compete in the same category again.
PDF A Brief Guide to Writing the History Paper
the History Paper The Challenges of Writing About (a.k.a., Making) History At ﬁrst glance, writing about history can seem like an overwhelming task. History's subject matter is immense, encompassing all of human affairs in the recorded past — up until the moment, that is, that you started reading this guide.
AP World History: Modern Course
AP World History: Modern is an introductory college-level modern world history course. Students cultivate their understanding of world history from c. 1200 CE to the present through analyzing historical sources and learning to make connections and craft historical arguments as they explore concepts like humans and the environment, cultural developments and interactions, governance, economic ...
≡Essays on World History. Free Examples of Research Paper Topics, Titles
We have discussed agriculture and it's changes over the past two-hundred years. Compare the population 1900 to today for Texas, United States, And World. Today, i will tell you about comparing the population from 1900 to today In the 1900's the total population was 75,994,266.... Agriculture World History. 6.
World History Essays: Examples, Topics, & Outlines
2. Hitler's Impact on World History: A Critical Analysis. 3. Hitler's Leadership Style: Authoritarianism and Propaganda. 4. Understanding the Psychology of Adolf Hitler: Roots of Hatred and Manipulation. 5. The Holocaust and Hitler's Final Solution: Examining the Darkest Chapter of WWII. 6.
Crafting Your Argument: 99 History Argumentative Essay Topics
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Make it Shine. An A-level essay takes planning and revision, but it's achievable. Firstly, avoid procrastination and start early. Secondly, leave yourself plenty of time to brainstorm, outline, research and write. Finally, follow these five tips to make your history essay shine: Write a substantial introduction.
140 Good Research Topics for History Papers
10 Good History Research Topics that are Easy to Adapt. Conditions for Slaves During the Building of the Great Pyramid. Three Events from the First Greek Olympiad. How, Where, and When Rome was Founded. The Battle of Marathon: How the Greeks Defeated Persia.
World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500
World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500 offers a comprehensive introduction to the history of humankind from prehistory to 1500. Authored by six USG faculty members with advance degrees in History, this textbook offers up-to-date original scholarship. It covers such cultures, states, and societies as Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Israel, Dynastic Egypt, India's Classical Age ...
How to Write a History Essay: Examples, Tips & Tricks
Body paragraph 1: Introduction to the Historical Context. Provide background information on the historical context of your topic. Highlight key events, figures, or developments leading up to the main focus of your history essay. Body paragraphs 2-4 (or more): Main Arguments and Supporting Evidence.
World War I essay questions
9. Tanks are one of the most significant weapons to emerge from World War I. Investigate and discuss the development, early use and effectiveness of tanks in the war. 10. The Hague Convention outlined the 'rules of war' that were in place during World War I. Referring to specific examples, discuss where and how these 'rules of war' were ...
Delving into World History Before 1500: Exciting Paper Topics
3. Stirring the Pot: Controversial Topics in History for Research Paper. 4. Dive into the Past with Cool History Topics. 5. Dive into History: Intriguing 20th Century Research Paper Topics. Unearth engaging world history paper topics before 1500 to spark your academic curiosity and enhance your research skills.
439 History Argumentative Essay Topics: US & World History Events to
You can find 300+ unique world history argumentative essay topics in our article, as well as some essay writing tips. If our topics are not enough for you, use our instant and completely free research title generator. Contents. 🚧 History Essay Challenges; 📜 Top 15 Topics; Revolution Topics; 🗺️ Regional Topics;
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Historiography Essay Titles. Note: the exam format for 2018 will change. There will be no longer A,B,C sections. Also, remember that it is a 'seen' exame which means you will receive the exam questions a week in advance. But you are still welcome to use the questions below for any formative/assessed essay. Questions on Specific Text/Historian ...
30+ History Essay Examples to Help You Get Started
Tips for Effectively Using History Essay Examples. Analyze the Structure: Pay close attention to how the essay is organized, including the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Look for how the author transitions between paragraphs and the use of evidence to support their argument. Study the Thesis Statement:
Minnesota State wins the 2024 NCAA Division II men's basketball
Prices for viewing (first round through quarterfinals) $9.95 per game; $29.95 per championship; $49.95 for all games; Semifinals and finals viewing. Semifinals: Thursday, March 28 on CBS Sports ...
Duke re-enters Week 7 baseball Power 10 rankings
Here are the baseball programs with the most Men's College World Series titles . The 7 longest home runs in MCWS history (that we know of) Follow DI Baseball. NCAA Footer Navigation Menu.
Texas Rangers unfurl franchise's first World Series championship banner
ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers unfurled a World Series championship banner for the first time in franchise history before their season opener on Thursday night against the Chicago Cubs.

433 Brilliant World History Topics, Essay Prompts & Examples

💡 Most Interesting World History Topics to Write about

⭐ World History Essay Prompts

📋 Ultimate World History Essay Topics List

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🔗 References

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World Historian Student Essay Competition

2023 World Historian Student Essay Competition Winner: Joshua Hangartner (La Jolla Country Day School)

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Essays on World History

Consider Time Period

Focus on Geographic Region

Consider Thematic Topics

Refine Your Focus

Consider Availability of Sources

Consider Broader Significance

Flight Ticket Advantages

The Intellectual and Democratic Foundations of Athens Over Sparta

World at War

Julius Caesar – The Most Powerful Man in Rome

How to Write a History Essay?

Purpose of a History Essay

Elements for Success

Preparing to Write

Evaluating the Question

Summarizing the Argument

Outlining a History Essay Plan

Gathering Sources

Writing the Essay

Introduction Paragraph

Body Paragraphs

Conclusion Paragraph

Proofreading Your Essay

History Essay Example

Make it Shine

History Essay Sample

A life lesson in Romeo and Juliet taught by death

Ethical Research Paper Topics

Art Research Paper Topics

World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500

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How to Write a History Essay with Outline, Tips, Examples and More

What is a History Essay?

History Essay Outline

History Essay Format

How to Write a History Essay?

Analyze the Question

Develop a Strategy

Start Your Research

Establish a Viewpoint

Structure Your Essay

Create an Engaging Introduction

Develop Coherent Paragraphs

Conclude Effectively

Reference Your Sources

Review and Ask for Advice

History Essay Example