With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Niall Ferguson: UK school history lessons 'lack all cohesion'

The Harvard academic Niall Ferguson has warned that too few pupils are spending too little time studying history – and what they do study lacks a sweeping narrative.

He offers his own lesson plan to remedy what he says is a lack of cohesion, in which pupils place six "building block" events, including the Reformation and the French revolution, into the right order.

His plan aims to give pupils an overview of the years 1400 to 1914, and encourage them "to understand and offer answers to the most important question of that period: why did the west dominate the rest?"

Ferguson, who has been invited by the education secretary, Michael Gove, to play a role in overhauling the history curriculum, directs the teacher to show their class a map of the world circa 1913 "showing the extent of the western empires"....
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)