APEH Essay Practice
A selection of past AP Essay topics for you to practice your outlines on. You can find others on past examples of our APEH review sheets

Discuss the political and social consequences of the Protestant Reformation in the first half of the sixteenth century.

Describe and analyze the ways in which the development of printing altered both the culture and the religion of Europe during the period 1450-1600.

Compare and contrast the views of Machiavelli and Rousseau on human nature and the relationship between the government and the governed.

How did the disintegration of the medieval church and the coming of the
Reformation contribute to the development of nation-states between 1450 and
1648?

Discuss the economic policies and institutions that characterized mercantilist systems from 1600 to 1800.

Using examples from at least two different states, analyze the key features of the
“new monarchies” and the factors responsible for their rise in the period 1450-
1550.

Evaluate the relative importance of the religious rivalries and dynastic ambitions that shaped the course of the Thirty Years’ War.

Compare and contrast the relationship between artists and society in the Baroque era and the twentieth century. Illustrate your essay with references to at least
TWO examples for each period

Compare and contrast the motives for European overseas expansion during the
Age of Discovery (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) and during the Age of New
Imperialism (nineteenth and twentieth centuries).

Compare and contrast the ways that seventeenth-century absolute monarchs and twentieth-century dictators gained and maintained their power.

Compare and contrast two theories of government introduced in the period from
1640 to 1780.

Analyze the methods and degrees of success of Russian political and social reform from the period of Peter the Great (1689-1725) through Catherine the
Great (1762-1796).

 “Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.” Evaluate this statement with regard to the English Revolution (1640-
1660), the French Revolution (1789-1815), and the Russian Revolution (1917-
1930).

Both Jean-Baptist Colbert (1619-1683) and Adam Smith (1723-1790) sought to increase the wealth of their respective countries. How did their recommendations differ?

In what ways did Enlightenment thinkers build on or make use of the ideas of
Newton and Locke?

Analyze the ways in which Enlightenment thought addressed religious beliefs and social issues in the eighteenth century.

Account for the growth and decline of European witch hunts in the period 1500 to
1650.

How and to what extent did Enlightenment ideas about religion and society shape the policies of the French Revolution in the period 1789-1799?

Identify the social groups in France on the eve of the 1789 Revolution. Assess the extent to which their aspirations were achieved in the period from the meeting of the Estates-General (May 1789) to the end of the Terror.

Analyze the ways in which the events of the French Revolution and Napoleonic period (1789-1815) led people to challenge Enlightenment views of society, politics, and human nature.

To what extent did Napoleon fulfill the ideals of the French Revolution and to what extent did he abort them?

Napoleon I is sometimes called the greatest enlightened despot. Evaluate this assessment on terms of Napoleon I’s policies and accomplishments. Be sure to include a definition of enlightened despotism in your answer.
 Compare and contrast the French Jacobins’ use of state power to achieve revolutionary goals during the Terror (1793-1794) with Stalin’s use of state power to achieve revolutionary goals in the Soviet Union during the period from 1928-
1939.

Compare and contrast the degree of success of treaties negotiated in Vienna
(1814-1815) and Versailles (1919) in achieving European stability.

Discuss the combination of social, cultural, political and economic factors that allowed Great Britain to be the first nation to industrialize.


Analyze the problems and opportunities associated with the rapid urbanization of western Europe in the nineteenth century.

Describe and compare the differences among Utopian socialists, Karl Marx and
Revisionist socialists in their critiques of nineteenth-century European economy and society.

Analyze how economic and social developments affected women in England in the period from 1700 to 1850.

Describe the steps taken between 1832 and 1918 to extend the suffrage in
England. What groups and movements contributed to the extension of the vote?

Identify and explain the similarities and differences between socialism and liberalism in nineteenth-century Europe.

Contrast the impact of nationalism in Germany and the Austrian Empire from
1848 to 1914.

To what extent did the emancipation of Russian serfs and other reforms in the nineteenth century contribute to the modernization of Russia before the First
World War?

What policies of the Stalinist government perpetuated the essential features of the tsarist regime under Nicholas II (1894-1917)?

Compare and contrast the motives for European overseas expansion during the
Age of Discovery (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) and during the Age of New
Imperialism (nineteenth and twentieth centuries).

Discuss the impact of industrialization and urbanization on working-class families from 1750 to 1900.

Evaluate how the ideas of Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud challenged
Enlightenment assumptions about human behavior and the role of reason.
 European women’s lives changed in the course of the nineteenth century politically, economically, and socially. Identify and explain the reasons for those changes.

Describe and analyze the long-term social and economic trends in the period from
1860-1917 that prepared the ground for revolution in Russia.

Compare and contrast the political and economic policies of Joseph Stalin in the period before the Second World War and those of Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-
1991).


Analyze the impact of the First World War on European culture and society in the interwar period (1919-1939).
 “1914-1918 marks a turning point in the intellectual and cultural history of
Europe.” Defend, refute or modify this statement with reference to the generation before and the generation after the First World War.

The culture of the years between the two world wars (1918-1939) was marked by experimentation and an interest in the irrational. Select any two European works of art or literature from this period and describe their significance in terms of these characteristics.

Compare and contrast the victorious Allied powers’ treatment of Germany after the First World War with their treatment of Germany after the Second World
War. Analyze the reasons for the similarities and differences.

Compare and contrast the relationships between the great powers and Poland in the period s 1772-1815 and 1918-1939.
 Why did Germany’s experiment with parliamentary democracy between 1919 and
1933 fail?

Analyze the factors working for and against European unity from 1945 to 2001.

Analyze three reasons for the end of Soviet domination over Eastern Europe.

Considering the period 1953 to 1991, analyze the problems within the Soviet
Union that contributed to the eventual collapse of the Soviet system.