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Scheme of work – Cambridge IGCSE® History (US) 0416
Option A: 19th century, The Development of Modern Nation States, 1848–1914
1: Were the Revolutions of 1848 important?
Recommended prior knowledge
A basic knowledge of nineteenth century European history from c.1830.
Context
This unit provides an insight into the importance of the 1848 Revolutions that took place in Europe.
Outline
Why were there so many Revolutions in 1848 and how important were they?
Focus points
Suggested teaching activities
Learning resources
Why were there so many revolutions in
1848?
Students examine the reasons for so many revolutions taking place in
Europe in 1848 in the given countries. Each reason should be
recorded on a small piece of card. Students, in groups, should discuss
the relative importance of each reason OR discuss each reason in
categories including social, economic, nationalism, liberalism etc. On
the card should be recorded the reasons for the position of importance.
Farmer, A. An Introduction to
Nineteenth Century European History
1815–1914
Students construct a table which lists vertically list the revolutions that
took place in 1848 and in a separate column identify the important
aspects of each one.
Recurring comparable themes showing
similarities should be highlighted.
www.age-of-thesage.org/history/1848/revolution_of_18
48.html Covers all of the 1848
Revolutions for good comparisons and
excellent maps.
Did the revolutions have anything in
common?
Baycroft, T. Nationalism I Europe
1789-1945 Chapters 1–4
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ig4lSwJZ
UA Good introduction video.
Students draw and label a map showing where the revolutions took
place in 1848
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Cambridge IGCSE History (US) 0416
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Focus points
Suggested teaching activities
Why did most of the revolutions fail?
Students consider the reasons why the revolutions failed and could
include these in another column in their table completed above. Again
similarities should be highlighted.
Did the revolutions change anything?
Students examine the aims of the revolution, identifying if these were
achieved. A final column of the chart could indicate what aspects
stayed the same, or changed, in the countries affected by revolution
Examine a number of historical sources that deal with the Revolutions.
Use these to complete an exercise relating to the value of sources for
an investigation.
Students revise the work completed at the end of this section and
complete a past IGCSE question/paper on this topic
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Cambridge IGCSE History (US) 0416
Learning resources
www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/
hist255/la/1848.html
Contains some cartoon sources on
1848 Revolutions.
Past questions papers – can be
accessed by logging onto the
Cambridge Teacher Support website
http://teachers.cie.org.uk
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