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The Cambridge History of the American Essay

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• ISBN-10 1316512703
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• Publication date February 22, 2024
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cambridge University Press (February 22, 2024)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 850 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1316512703
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Cambridge History of English and American Literature

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Considered the most important work of literary history and criticism ever published, the Cambridge History contains over 303 chapters and 11,000 pages, with essay topics ranging from poetry, fiction, drama and essays to history, theology and political writing. The set encompasses a wide selection of writing on orators, humorists, poets, newspaper columnists, religious leaders, economists, Native Americans, song writers, and even non-English writing, such as Yiddish and Creole.

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History BA (Tripos)

Cambridge has one of the largest and best history departments in the world, which means our courses offer a huge range of options covering three millennia and circling the globe.  Viewing history through political and economic lenses as well as cultural, social and intellectual ones  gives you the opportunity to investigate practically any aspect of history which interests you.   The course has clear, tightly focused, objectives. Equipping you with a broad range of historical knowledge and understanding,  it teaches you to critically evaluate primary and secondary material. It aims to instil in you the confidence to define your own questions, and to go about answering them using the analytical and research skills you have gained. You will learn how to go about assembling, organising and presenting your ideas clearly and coherently.

What's special about the course?

Our academics - more than 90 experts in their field who teach and research.

Libraries and source materials - the Seeley Library is one of the largest history student libraries and the University Library is one of Britain's copyright libraries, offering an unrivalled book collection spanning centuries.

The Cambridge teaching system - supervision - weekly one-hour supervisions taught in Colleges are the focal point of the academic week, providing personal supervision and the opportunity to debate with and learn from senior historians.  They are usually taught one-on-one or in small groups. You will write essays or prepare other materials for these sessions, in which you will receive constructive feedback on your work and further guidance.

The Cambridge teaching system - lectures   and seminars - alongside preparing for your weekly supervision, which remains the centrepiece of the Cambridge experience, you will attend a number of lectures each week. These are designed to give you clear introductions to historical events and processes, change over time, and historians’ changing interpretations of the past. Parts of the course are also taught through seminars where group discussion, small group work and presentations are encouraged.   

Gaining breadth and depth - the structure of the course gives you broad historical understanding (in Part IA and IB) and then encourages you to delve into specialist topics (in Part II).

At a glance

The Course (from 2022)

We are delighted that students who have joined us since 2022 are studying a substantially new and significantly enhanced curriculum. This has been designed over several years, in consultation with current undergraduates, and aims to enhance students’ knowledge, skills and employability.  

The new single-honours history course is designed to facilitate your progression along three distinct tracks of historical teaching, across all three years of the degree: 

• Historical knowledge . You will acquire a breadth of area-specific historical knowledge covering different places, periods and themes, by taking a wide range of Outline , Topic and Advanced Topic papers across Year 1, 2 and 3 respectively.  
• The craft of history. You will develop skills central to historical work, from research, writing, note-taking, data collection and analysis in Skills papers, to deep engagement with historical sources in Sources papers. In subsequent years you deepen your understanding of the craft of history through the second year Research Project and the third year Special Subject .   
• Historical thinking. You will gain a deep understanding of the nature of history as a discipline, and exposure to its multiple fields and cross-disciplinary affiliations. Historical Thinking is taught through a combination of college-based reading seminars and faculty lectures. In your first year, you will take Introduction to Historical Thinking , in which you will learn how to read a single historical book as a historian would. In Years 2 and 3, you examine the development of historical fields and key concepts.  

A summary of Tripos structure:

In addition, students will have access to a varied programme of training throughout their degree course. This will cover key historical skills, including essay-writing, note-taking, and numeracy, and how to handle a range of primary materials, from archival documents to visual sources and digital databases.

To learn more about specific paper offerings, explore the sections below.

Explore Part IA (Year 1)

Part IA is designed to give you the foundations on which to develop your skills as a historian, researcher, writer and thinker, and to make the transition from A-level to University with confidence. You will also learn about areas of the world and historical periods which you'll likely never have studied in depth at school.

Outline papers (Historical Knowledge)

You will choose two among the following Outline papers.

Sources Papers (The Craft of History)

You will choose one of the following Sources papers.

Introduction to Historical Thinking

Taught entirely in your College, you will learn how to read books and understand how they have made a significant impact on a given historical field. Some choices for 2022-23 include: 

• Keith Thomas,  Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Belief in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England  (1971) 
• Helen Smith,  Masculinity, Class and Same-Sex Desire in Industrial England, 1895-1957  (2015)
• Simon Gikandi,  Slavery and the Culture of Taste  (2011)
• Gregor Benton and Hong Liu,  Dear China: Emigrant Letters and Remittances, 1820-1980  (2018)
• Camilla Townsend,  Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs  (2019)

Explore Part IB (Year 2)

More information on Part IB will be added in due course.

Topic Papers (Historical Knowledge)

Two Topic papers – these explore focused areas of historical knowledge in depth. The topics available each year may vary, but there will be a wide choice, reflecting the diverse research interests of the Faculty’s staff.

Research Project (The Craft of History)

This paper equips you to undertake your own historical research. Each project covers analytical and conceptual features of a particular area of history, and offers guidance on the methodologies and skills needed to research it.

Historical Thinking II

This introduces you to broad methodological fields of history, such as environmental history, material culture, and intellectual history.

Explore Part II (Year 3)

Special subjects.

Special subjects allow students to work on primary sources in depth, and are examined through Paper 2 (a long essay) and Paper 3 (a 'gobbets' paper that includes extracts and images from primary sources). The courses listed here are an indicative selection that have recently run, and give you a sense of the sorts of things on offer.

Advanced Topics

These courses are designed to give students an ambitious sweep through a theme or period and are oriented to the latest research. Those listed here are an indicative selection that have recently run, and give you a sense of the sorts of things on offer.

Historical Thinking III

• Part IA Year 1
• Part IB Year 2
• Part II Year 3

You take five papers:

• Two Outline papers – these typically survey a long period and broad geographical area. You choose from around ten papers, ranging over Britain and Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia.  
• Sources paper – this examines in detail a body of primary material on a particular historical theme, issue, or event. You choose from a range of options which vary each year. Typical examples include Travel and Trade in the Medieval World; Letters in Antiquity; Arab Intellectual History.  
• An Historical Thinking paper – this introduces methods and debates by examining a single work of history that has influenced the discipline.  
• An Historical Skills paper – this covers the research skills essential in History, such as the use of archives, digital sources, and oral history, as well as quantitative approaches. You will also be taught good academic practice.

You take four papers:

• Two Topic papers – these explore focused areas of historical knowledge in depth. The Topics available each year may vary, but there will be a wide choice, reflecting the diverse research interests of the Faculty's staff. Typical examples may include ‘British Worlds, 1750-1914’, ‘State formation in medieval Britain and Europe’, ‘The history of the US since World War I’, and ‘Empires and world history’.  
• A Research Project – this paper equips you to undertake your own historical research. Each project covers analytical and conceptual features of a particular area of history, and offers guidance on the methodologies and skills needed to research it.  
• Historical Thinking II – this introduces you to broad methodological fields of history, such as environmental history, material culture, and intellectual history.

You take five papers, three of which are compulsory:

• Historical Thinking III – a general methods paper building on IA and IB, encouraging you to reflect critically on major historical concepts encountered throughout your degree. These range from empire to gender, and from revolutions to race.  
• A Special Subject – which counts as two papers and provides sophisticated in-depth study of an historical period, process or problem, using primary sources. Topics on offer vary year to year, but currently include the heresy in medieval southern France, early modern memory, the 1848 revolutions, women’s experience of war in the 18th century, and Zimbabwe from 1948 onwards.

Additionally, you choose two taught options from amongst the following categories of paper:

• Advanced Topic papers – exploring a complex theme at the forefront of historical scholarship. Topics change from year to year, but currently include the supernatural, medicine, women’s work, material culture, and frontiers.  
• Political Thought papers – examining changing ideas about how societies and individuals should govern themselves and each other

Alternatively, you take one taught option and write a dissertation of 10,000 words (2024-25 onwards) , on a topic you devise. Many students find this one of the most rewarding aspects of their time at Cambridge. Recent examples of dissertation topics include Elizabeth I’s Scottish correspondence; British India from the standpoint of a nineteenth-century Bengali intellectual; community life on a twentieth-century council estate; and the Iranian revolution in twentieth-century France.

What are we looking for?

There is no such thing as an ‘identikit historian’ and so there is no simple answer to this question.  Apart from history, you do not need any particular subjects at A' level. A foreign language is certainly useful but not necessary. However, you should enjoy making analytical judgements, be able to think laterally, discriminate critically, enjoy reading, and have a burning curiosity about the past.

Applying to study History

Information on how to apply for this course can be found on the University's Undergraduate Study pages .

Options on changing course

It is possible in certain circumstances to transfer to a different Tripos after Part IA or IB, although the flexibility of the History Tripos, and the fact that some Part II options are shared with faculties such as Human, Social and Political Sciences (HSPS) and Classics, mean that very few students opt to do so.  Those seeking to transfer Tripos should discuss the options with their College Director of Studies, in the first instance. The University regulations for continuing in Part II of the History Tripos, are set out under the guidance link below.

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H-Diplo Review Essay 438- "The Cambridge History of America and the World, Volume IV, 1945 to the Present"

H- Diplo Review Essay 438

19 May 2022

David C. Engerman, Max Paul Friedman, and Melani McAlister, eds.  The Cambridge History of America and the World, Volume IV, 1945 to the Present .   Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.  ISBN:  9781108419277 (hardback, $150.00).

https://hdiplo.org/to/E438 Editor: Diane Labrosse | Commissioning Editor: Thomas Maddux | Production Editor: George Fujii

A Test of Character?

The Cambridge History of America and the World, Volume IV: 1945 to the Present testifies that “diplomatic history,” while becoming “US and the world,” has moved from the margins of the history discipline to its very center. This remarkable, 795-page volume deserves to be read as I have just read it, proceeding straight through from the first page to the last. We usually read huge reference books selectively, consulting only the articles that promise to meet our individual needs for instruction on specific topics. Not this one.

Why read it cover to cover?  Because this capacious volume enables the reader to absorb the latest scholarship on a multitude of topics within a domain that is becoming more multitudinous more swiftly and with more far reaching analytic consequences than any other subfield of American history. The newest work in this exceptionally dynamic subfield reveals how the global dimensions of modern American history impinge on one another. Reading all of it all at once will better equip anyone to carry out even the narrowest of projects more confidently, thinking of connections that one might not otherwise contemplate. The Cold War is here, and so is Afghanistan, but in relation to much else. 

Every professional scholar is bound to find a few articles that do not add to their own stock of knowledge, but rare will be anyone who feels this way about more than a handful. From the compelling essay on the monetary matrix (Vanessa Ogle’s “Global Capitalist Infrastructure and U. S. Power”) that opens the volume to the concluding, provocative piece on the earth’s physical terrain (Joshua Howe’s “America and the World in the Anthropocene”), the editors confront us with an imposing and refreshing expanse of important facts and well-considered interpretations.

Editors David Engerman, Max Paul Friedman, and Melani McAlister, working together with the general editor of the four-volume oeuvre, Mark Philip Bradley, have earned the special respect of anyone who has tried to manage even a small collection, to say nothing a cast of 31 authors. The judicious and comprehensive introduction to Volume IV (8-28) calls attention to articles that depart from diplomatic history while retaining that tradition’s sound commitment to the study of power. 

Two major contributions to the study of America and the World since 1945 appeared since this volume went into production: Daniel Immerwahr’s How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States and Louis Menand’s The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War . [1] These books show how quickly this subfield is changing, and prompt the somewhat disquieting fear that much of America and the World 1945 to the Present will soon lose its currency. Hence my advice: read it now!

But for all their commanding contributions to the study of “America and the World” subfield, I am not sure that the books by Immerwahr and Menand would have affected this volume very extensively. Immerwahr’s pointillist analysis of the character and dynamics of American power has quickly achieved wide influence, and would almost certainly have led the authors of several of the relevant articles in this book to construe “empire” somewhat more widely. None mention the seven-city Puerto Rican revolt of 1950 culminating in an assassination attempt on President Harry Truman, nor even the 1954 armed assault on the Congress of the United States by four Puerto Rican nationalists. Immerwahr uses these events to call attention to the importance of Puerto Rico and to the ferocity of anti-colonial feelings within what he calls “the greater United States.” But Immerwahr’s book would not have fundamentally challenged this volume’s main arguments. Empire is a constant theme in these pages, and the authors are careful and convincing in their treatment of it. 

The case with Menand is probably a bit different, or should be. The United States in the post-war era was almost as central to cultural productivity as it was to the world economy and to the global distribution of military power. Menand’s 857 pages call attention to how important the United States was in painting and music and in several other fine arts, and in philosophy, and in political thought, and in social theory. Menand’s extensive discussion of French-American connections following the war shows how the United States found itself, for more than just a few years, with close to a monopoly on the cultural production earlier found in Western Europe.

But the editors, while properly engaged with popular culture, display little interest in the realms of learning, theoretical argumentation, and the fine arts. “American Knowledge of the World,” by Nicholas Dirks and Nils Gilman, is one few articles that engage directly with any part of the post-war world’s intellectual history. Dirks and Gilman describe and critically assess the increase in “information” about things foreign within the federal government, corporations, and academia, and analyze the uncertain relation of this information to what can properly be called “knowledge.” In “Human Rights” Barbara Keys documents the leadership of American theorists and activists in and out of government to make human rights a major aspect of international politics. Daniel Sargent (“Neoliberalism as a Form of US Power”) analyzes the theorization as well as the implementation of neoliberalism. Here and there, among articles on a variety of topics, there are occasional mentions of American thinkers.

Yet, volume IV of The Cambridge History of America and the World makes no reference to Hannah Arendt, John Cage, Erik Erikson, Pauline Kael, Thomas Kuhn, Hans Morgenthau, Robert K. Merton, Reinhold Niebuhr, Joseph Nye, Talcott Parsons, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, John Rawls, Richard Rorty, Paul Tillich, or Andy Warhol. Since World War II the United States has been far the most productive national setting for natural science, but the word “science” does not appear in the index, and the editors do not explain why the history of science is less important to “America and the World” than many of the topics on which they commissioned articles. The formidable Frankfurt School is mentioned only in passing, amid Petra Goedde’s “US Mass Culture and Consumption in a Global Context.” Popular culture is effectively addressed in a number of other articles, too, including Penny von Eschen’s “Imperial Visions of the World,” Deepa Kumar’s “The US Construction of ‘Islam’ as Ally and Enemy on the Global Stage,” Kenneth Osgood’s “The American Construction of the Communist Threat,” and Julio Capo, Jr.’s “The Queering of US Geopolitics.”

Volume IV of The Cambridge History of America and the World does so much for us that we should not be overly concerned with what it does not do. Among the book’s signal achievements is to integrate non-state actors into a field that has long been focused on the actions of governments, and to attend carefully to causal forces outside the United States. Happily, the editors do not allow the actions of the US government to be neglected while expanding the scope of the field. But here we do find probing, illuminating articles on environmental dynamics, communications technology, security systems, the world capitalist economy, nuclear weaponry, the politics of oil, and how Native Americans understood themselves in relation to world affairs.

Demography is not named as a topic, but two articles explore salient aspects of the changing population of the United States in relation to international politics. Stephen R. Porter’s “Refugees, Statelessness, and the Disordering of Citizenship” reviews the sometimes confused and inconsistent process by which two-and-a-half million people were admitted to the United States outside of normal immigration rules and procedures. Maddalena Marinari (“Migration, War, and the Transformation of the US Population”) addresses normal immigration. Both explain how a series of wars-- around the world, including those involving the United States—propelled and directed these population transfers. For all their value, however, these two articles leave at the margins a demographic fact of world-historical significance: the United States, for all the influence of white supremacy on its policies and practices, has managed as we move into the third decade of the twenty-first century to maintain one of the most ethnoracially diverse and genetically mixed democracies in history. “The Amalgamation Narrative” is only one part of the American story, but demographics do distinguish the United States from most other nations. [2] Arguably, a more forthright exploration of demographics could stand alongside Ogle’s capitalism essay and Howe’s earth contribution to frame the volume.

Closely related to these demographic developments has been the proliferation of transnational networks of politics and culture. Several of these networks brought African Americans into sustained cooperation with decolonizing peoples abroad. Charisse Burden-Stelly and Gerald Horne’s “Third World Internationalism and the Global Color Line” calls attention to connections made by participants in the American Civil Rights and Black Power movements with anti-colonial initiatives in Cuba, Africa, and parts of Asia. Burden-Stelly and Horne have surprising little to say about India, where Nico Slate’s Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India is one of the richest monographs we have on transnational networks. [3] Burden-Stelly and Horne are also oddly unengaged with Mexico, where the story told by Ruben Flores in Backroads Pragmatists: Mexico’s Melting Pot and Civil Rights in the United States is exactly on point. [4]  

Transnational religious networks have been no less important, but Zareena Grewal’s “Christian and Muslim Transnational Networks” falls short of what this article might have achieved. She observes that Muslims now constitute only about 1.1 percent of the American population [445], yet devotes just as much time on connections between American Muslims and Muslims abroad as she does on the much larger and vastly more consequential Protestant and Catholic international networks. Moreover, the discussion of the politics of American Protestants and Catholics is not convincing. Grewal describes the National Council of Churches as “anti-Communist” [446] in an era when it was the largest American organization of any kind to lobby for the diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China and when it was under vigorous attack by evangelicals for being a dupe of the Soviets. Grewal further declares that “De-provincializing US religious history requires scholars to de-center Christianity and attend to the global flows of other American religions” (464). Fair enough, but one mus also allow for the fact that Christianity has been dominant in the United States.

Every article in this volume invites critical scrutiny, but I move quickly to the most powerful conclusion vindicated by the volume as a whole. The United States brought to the post-war world a concentration of economic, military, and cultural power unique in the modern history of the human species, but largely squandered the opportunity to use that power to advance its proclaimed aims beyond assuring the safety and prosperity of its own citizens.

Not everyone would agree with the ethical principle I invoke here: that any society in possession of a radically disproportionate quantity of the globe’s resources has a responsibility to deploy those resources not only in the immediate interests of that society’s own population, but also to serve as much of humankind as its policies and practices can reach. The editors quote George Kennan to the contrary, explaining to his State Department colleagues in 1948 that “the real task” ahead was to “devise a pattern of relationships that” would allow the US “to maintain” the current “disparity” by which it  had “50 percent of the world’s wealth but only 6.3 percent of its population.” Kennan had come, the editors crisply remark, “not to solve inequality, but to save it” (19).

But whatever one’s own ethical values, a worldly truth increasingly visible to historians of our own time invites our sustained reflection: when the US government and non-governmental American actors have tried to prevent starvation, to protect people from violence, to diminish economic inequality, and to promote the rule of law and democratic institutions, their efforts have been crippled repeatedly by myopic security calculations and by poorly informed decisions about who to try to help, and when, and how.

The most obvious of these mistakes—and the scholars given voice in this volume do not shrink from calling them that—were war-related decisions involving Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, and Korea. “From 2002 to 2017, the United States spent roughly $3 trillion countering terrorism around the world,” notes Aaron O’Connell (“The Global Wars on Terror”). “During that same period,” O’Connell continues, “the number of people killed from terrorism around the world increased five-fold; the number of terrorist fighters quadrupled, and the number of terrorist groups doubled” (729). Countless scholars in the H-Diplo orbit have analyzed in great detail the earlier, colossal sequence of unwise decisions involving Vietnam. In this volume, those decisions are dealt with the most directly by Christopher Goscha (“Decolonization and US Intervention in Asia”) but are mentioned by many other contributors. Mark Atwood Lawrence (“The Fractured World of the Cold War”) analyzes the portentous decision of President Harry Truman to carry the Korean War north of the 38th parallel, forsaking the narrow goal of defending the status to try to “roll back communism” only to end up with a Korea divided almost exactly as before (156). US efforts often ended up achieving results different from, if not opposite to what was intended, and not only in military contexts. The billions of American dollars invested in Latin American economies through the Alliance for Progress, concludes Corinna R. Unger (“American Development Aid, Decolonization, and the Cold War”), “rather than promoting liberal democracy… helped to anchor authoritarian governments in countries like Guatemala, Bolivia, and Brazil, and in some cases triggered civil wars” (208).       

This critical take-away on the role of the United States in global history during the last 75 years—instantiated in many articles I do not cite here —can be overdrawn. It is not the whole story. After all, one can argue that the Marshall Plan in Europe and the reconstruction of Japan achieved the avowed American aims reasonably well. Moreover, as Daniel Sargent has reminded us, the scale and frequency of warfare during the decades of Pax Americana could have been much more horrendous, given the context of nuclear weapons and the magnitude and volatility of the decolonizing process. [5] In terms of demographic composition and the protection of civil rights, the United States today is a decidedly more effective exemplar than it was in 1945 of the anti-racist ideals it claimed to be defending against the Axis Powers. And even the most wisely designed and executed policies can have unanticipated and deeply unwanted consequences.

Yet, given the prodigious resources at America’s command in 1945, the record detailed with great honesty and skill by the contributors to this volume should sober any observer capable of a remotely generous view of what Americans might achieve on behalf of their fellow human beings. While praising Lincoln for his responsible use of power, Robert Ingersoll remarked, “Any man can stand adversity, but if you want to discover someone’s true character, give him power.” [6] So it may be with nations.

David A. Hollinger is Preston Hotchkis Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former President of the Organization of American Historians. His account of his own career was posted as "Between Samuel Flagg Bemis and Perry Miller," H-Diplo , February 7, 2020 ( https://issforum.org/essays/PDF/E189.pdf ). His most recent book is Christianity’s American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular (Princeton University Press, 2022), to be released in September.

Table of Contents:

General Introduction: What is America and the World? Mark Philip Bradley

Introduction to Volume IV David C. Engerman, Max Paul Friedman and Melani McAlister

Part I. Ordering a World of States:

1. Global Capitalist Infrastructure and US Power Vanessa Ogle 2. Overseas Bases and the Expansion of US Military Presence Gretchen Heefner 3. The Consolidation of the Nuclear Age Michael D. Gordin 4. American Knowledge of the World Nick Dirks and Nils Gilman 5. The American Construction of the Communist Threat Kenneth Osgood 6. The Fractured World of the Cold War Mark Atwood Lawrence 7. The US and the United Nations System David Bosco 8. American Development Aid, Decolonization, and the Cold War Corinna Unger 9. Decolonization and US Intervention in Asia Christopher Goscha

Part II. Challenging a World of States:

10. US Foreign Policy and the End of Development Brad Simpson 11. Oil and the Resource Curse Chris Dietrich 12. US Mass Culture and Consumption in Global Context Petra Goedde 13. Imperial Visions of the World Penny Von Eschen 14. Human Rights Barbara Keys 15. Compassion and Humanitarianism in International Relations Michael Barnett 16. Third World Internationalism and the Global Color Line Charisse Burden-Stelly and Gerald Horne 17. Empire of Sex: The Queering of US Geopolitics Julio Capó, Jr. 18. Migration, War, and the Transformation of the US Population Maddalena Marinari 19. Christian and Muslim Transnational Networks Zareena Grewal 20. Native Americans, Indigenity, and US Foreign Policy Paul Rosier 21. Environment, Climate, and Global Disorder Stephen Macekura 22. Reconfiguration of Superpower Relations Jussi M. Hanhimäki

Part III. New World Disorder?:

23. Soviet Collapse and Its Global Impact Fritz Bartel 24. Neoliberalism as a Form of US Power Daniel Sargent 25. The US Construction of ‘Islam’ as Ally and Enemy on the Global Stage Deepa Kumar 26. Technology and Networks of Communication Stephanie Schulte 27. Humanitarian Intervention and US Power Rajan Menon 28. Refugees, Statelessness, and the Disordering of Citizenship Stephen R. Porter 29. Liberty, Security, and America’s War on Terror Karen J. Greenberg 30. The Global Wars on Terror Aaron O’Connell 31. America and the World in the Anthropocene Joshua Howe

[1] Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2019); Louis Menand, The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2021).

[2] I have developed this theme in “Amalgamation and Hypodescent: The Question of Ethnoracial Mixture in the History of the United States,” American Historical Review CVIII (2003), 1363-1389,

[3] Nico Slate, Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,, 2012). See also Nico Slate, The Prism of Race: W. E.B. Dubois, Langston Hughes, Paul Robson, and Colored World of Cedric Dover (New York: Pantheon, 2014).

[4] Ruben Flores, Backroads Pragmatists: Mexico’s Melting Pot and Civil Rights in the United States (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014). 

[5] Daniel Sargent, “ Pax Americana : Sketches for an Undiplomatic History,” Diplomatic History XLII (2018), 357-376.

[6] This statement has often been attributed to Lincoln himself, but scholars find no indication that Lincoln ever said it, and that Ingersoll did say it in a speech about Lincoln, https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-abrahamlincoln-power/fact-check-test-a-mans-character-quote-misattributed-to-abraham-lincoln-idUSL1N2PA1V7 . I quote the traditional, gendered language, aware that we would make the point differently today.

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Part III students are required to submit four essays and a dissertation, as follows:

• Two Research Papers , each of not more than 5,000 words, on topics chosen in discussion with a supervisor and approved by the HPS Board. Each Research Paper must fall into a different one of the ten designated subject areas . Research Paper 1 is due on the Monday of Week 7 in Michaelmas Term, and Research Paper 2 is due on the Monday of Week 7 in Lent Term.
• Two Set Essays , each of not more than 2,500 words, covering topics treated in the Part III/MPhil lectures. The list of questions will be issued at the end of Week 7 of Lent Term, and the essays will be due a week later. Choose two questions from a list of 14.
• A Dissertation , of not more than 12,000 words, on a topic chosen in discussion with the supervisor and approved by the HPS Board. The Dissertation is due at the beginning of Week 5 of Easter Term.

All word counts include footnotes but exclude the bibliography and prefatory matter.

The two Research Papers must be in different subject areas . The Dissertation may be written in the same subject area as one of the Research Papers, but it must address a different question and it must show evidence of a substantial new research effort. Any use of the Research Papers or Set Essays in the Dissertation has to be appropriately referenced, just like any other primary or secondary source.

Supervision

Senior members and associates of the Department supervise work for the Research Papers and Dissertation. Supervisions are not available for the Set Essays but are offered for the seminars on which the Set Essays are based.

The Department publishes a list of members of the Department and associates who are willing to supervise Part III work, together with the topics on which they are prepared to supervise.

Dissertation and essay supervisors

If you would like to work with an external supervisor – someone who is not a member of the Department – you must obtain permission from the Part III Manager.

Your supervisors will see you on a very regular basis, but it is up to you to schedule those meetings according to your needs. As a rule of thumb, you can expect the following supervisions:

• 3 for each Research Paper;
• 4 for the topics in the Part III/MPhil lectures, in groups of 2–3, but none for the two Set Essays themselves;
• 4 for the Dissertation.

Supervisions are designed to provide you with the opportunity to set your own agenda for your studies. The supervisor's job is to support your research, not to grade your work; your submitted work will be examined by others. Your supervisor for any one piece of work is never allowed to examine it too.

You are not permitted to work with the same supervisor for more than two pieces of coursework.

Topic forms

Online topic forms for the Research Papers and Dissertation will be available on Moodle .

You should complete each form by stating the topic, selecting one of the ten subject areas , and entering the name of your supervisor.

The deadline for completeing each form is shown on key dates and deadlines .

Changing the topic

To change the topic, subject area or supervisor of a Research Paper or the Dissertation after you have submitted the topic form you must apply for permission; permission is not automatically granted. See key dates and deadlines for the last dates for changing topics.

To change the topic, subject area or supervisor, you should complete the request form . The request must be approved by the Part III Manager.

The University and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science take plagiarism very seriously. Please read our advice about what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.

Plagiarism guidelines

The Department uses the text-matching software Turnitin UK to blanket screen all student work submitted in Moodle.

Use of Turnitin UK

Referencing

For guidance about using correct and consistent referencing, see this page:

Human participants

If you are planning to collect data from human participants, or use data collected from human participants, you will need to plan well in advance to ensure that you have obtained ethical approval before starting work on your project and have given consideration to how you are going to handle the information you collect.

Working with human participants: ethical approval and data protection

Examined work should be uploaded to the 'HPS Part III Coursework' site on Moodle before 12noon on the day of the deadline. Paper copies are not required.

Please note:

• The work should have numbered pages, footnotes and a bibliography.
• You cannot upload more than one file for each submission.
• The following file formats are accepted: DOC, DOCX, PDF, RTF.

All work will be marked anonymously, so it is important that your name does not appear anywhere on it.

For the Research Papers and Dissertation, please give the following information on the first page:

• Subject area (the same as the one you selected on your topic form)

For the Set Essays, you should give the question number, title and word count.

You are advised to check your email the day after you have submitted to ensure there are no queries about your work.

Please note that the Department will retain a copy of your work and may make it available to future students unless you make a written request to the contrary to the Departmental Administrator.

The word limit is 5,000 for each Research Paper, 2,500 for each Set Essay, and 12,000 for the Dissertation.

All word limits include footnotes but exclude the bibliography and prefatory matter.

Figures may be included in the work and should contribute to the argument. They should be captioned only so as to specify the source; such captions are excluded from the word count. Formulae may be used where appropriate and are also excluded from the word count.

The word limit is strictly enforced. Each piece of work will be inspected to ensure that the word limit has been respected. If work is over the limit, a mark will be placed at the point where the word limit has been reached. Examiners reserve the right to stop reading when they get to that point.

The Department uses Microsoft Word to check word counts. If you use coding software, such as LaTeX, you should be aware that this software may give a different word count. You may find it helpful to use TeXcount , an online tool that analyses LaTeX code to provide an accurate count of words, formulae, captions and footnotes. If using software other than Microsoft Word you should submit a screenshot to demonstrate the word count from the software used.

Extension of submission dates

All requests for an extension to the submission date for coursework must have a good reason and must be supported by a College Tutor or Director of Studies, otherwise a zero mark will be awarded. Extensions for the Set Essays are not permitted.

Where an extension is granted, the deadline is 12noon on the new date.

For an extension of up to seven days the student should complete the coursework extension self-certification form .

For an extension longer than seven days the College Tutor/DoS must make a case to the Examination Access and Mitigation Committee .

Students are reminded that extensions are not cost free : they reduce the amount of time you can devote to subsequent pieces of work, limit opportunities for you to receive feedback and participate in other aspects of the course, and may delay the approval of your degree. A granted extension does not mean that your supervisor will be available beyond term time.

Policy on data, editions, translations and bibliographies

An essay or dissertation should be self-contained, including or citing all information needed for an examiner to follow its argument.

The word limit normally includes text and footnotes but not the bibliography. However, in certain cases permission may be obtained for materials relevant to the argument of the essay or dissertation to be submitted for the information of the examiners in the form of an appendix, with such materials excluded from the word count. Materials falling into this category may include primary source materials (texts and images) that are not readily accessible, transcriptions, translations, questionnaire responses, statistical tables, formal proofs, technical descriptions of objects, analytical bibliographies and other data produced by the candidate that they wish to make accessible.

Conversely, material contributing to the word count should normally consist of the candidate's own discussion and analysis of such materials. Exceptionally, when a critical edition or translation, a formal proof, an analytical bibliography, or a technical description of objects and their provenances is based on substantial original scholarship and cannot be easily separated from the argument of an essay or dissertation, permission may be obtained for it to be included within the body of the essay or dissertation, hence contributing to the word count. No more than one third of an essay or dissertation should consist of such material.

Applications for such permissions should be sought, in consultation with the supervisor, from the Senior Examiner via the Part III Manager.

Feedback to Part III students

During the course of their studies, students receive feedback in person from their supervisors, and from the Course Manager, as well as from termly online supervision reports. Research Paper 1, which is the first piece of work, is examined prior to the end of the Michaelmas Term in order to provide students with early feedback on their performance so they can gauge the level of achievement which the course requires, and so they have reliable pointers as to future applications for the PhD, whose deadlines are often early in the academic year. The Set Essays and Research Paper 2 are examined together at the end of Lent Term. At this meeting provisional marks are agreed for both Research Papers and the Set Essays, and feedback on this component of the course is available shortly afterwards.

After each Examiners' Meeting, the Part III Manager meets with students, reports the provisional agreed class and provides copies of the non-confidential parts of the examiners' reports. At these meetings the work is discussed and examiners' remarks are put in context for future work. Students may contact their supervisor after this meeting if they want to discuss the reports in more detail.

Marks are subject to moderation up until the final Board of Examiners meeting in mid/late June. At the end of the course the Department provides students with an informal transcript with details of each of their individual marks. Formal transcripts can be downloaded from CamSIS.

Feedback on the overall performance of each year is provided by Senior and External Examiners' Reports which are submitted at the end of the year. Students may find it useful to see examiners' comments on the previous year's work, particularly mark distributions and recommendations.

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Summer 2024 Admissions Open Now. Sign up for upcoming live information sessions here (featuring former and current Admission Officers at Havard and UPenn).

Discourse, debate, and analysis

Cambridge re:think essay competition 2024.

Competition Opens: 15th January, 2024

Essay Submission Deadline: 10th May, 2024 Result Announcement: 20th June, 2024 Award Ceremony and Dinner at the University of Cambridge: 30th July, 2024

We welcome talented high school students from diverse educational settings worldwide to contribute their unique perspectives to the competition.

Entry to the competition is free.

About the Competition

The spirit of the Re:think essay competition is to encourage critical thinking and exploration of a wide range of thought-provoking and often controversial topics. The competition covers a diverse array of subjects, from historical and present issues to speculative future scenarios. Participants are invited to engage deeply with these topics, critically analysing their various facets and implications. It promotes intellectual exploration and encourages participants to challenge established norms and beliefs, presenting opportunities to envision alternative futures, consider the consequences of new technologies, and reevaluate longstanding traditions. 

Ultimately, our aim is to create a platform for students and scholars to share their perspectives on pressing issues of the past and future, with the hope of broadening our collective understanding and generating innovative solutions to contemporary challenges. This year’s competition aims to underscore the importance of discourse, debate, and critical analysis in addressing complex societal issues in nine areas, including:

Religion and Politics

Political science and law, linguistics, environment, sociology and philosophy, business and investment, public health and sustainability, biotechonology.

Artificial Intelligence 

Neuroengineering

2024 essay prompts.

This year, the essay prompts are contributed by distinguished professors from Harvard, Brown, UC Berkeley, Cambridge, Oxford, and MIT.

Essay Guidelines and Judging Criteria

Review general guidelines, format guidelines, eligibility, judging criteria.

Awards and Award Ceremony

Award winners will be invited to attend the Award Ceremony and Dinner hosted at the King’s College, University of Cambridge. The Dinner is free of charge for select award recipients.

Registration and Submission

Register a participant account today and submit your essay before the deadline.

Advisory Committee and Judging Panel

The Cambridge Re:think Essay Competition is guided by an esteemed Advisory Committee comprising distinguished academics and experts from elite universities worldwide. These committee members, drawn from prestigious institutions, such as Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, and MIT, bring diverse expertise in various disciplines.

They play a pivotal role in shaping the competition, contributing their insights to curate the themes and framework. Their collective knowledge and scholarly guidance ensure the competition’s relevance, academic rigour, and intellectual depth, setting the stage for aspiring minds to engage with thought-provoking topics and ideas.

We are honoured to invite the following distinguished professors to contribute to this year’s competition.

The judging panel of the competition comprises leading researchers and professors from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Cambridge, and Oxford, engaging in a strictly double blind review process.

Keynote Speeches by 10 Nobel Laureates

We are beyond excited to announce that multiple Nobel laureates have confirmed to attend and speak at this year’s ceremony on 30th July, 2024 .

They will each be delivering a keynote speech to the attendees. Some of them distinguished speakers will speak virtually, while others will attend and present in person and attend the Reception at Cambridge.

Why has religion remained a force in a secular world? 

Professor Commentary:

Arguably, the developed world has become more secular in the last century or so. The influence of Christianity, e.g. has diminished and people’s life worlds are less shaped by faith and allegiance to Churches. Conversely, arguments have persisted that hold that we live in a post-secular world. After all, religion – be it in terms of faith, transcendence, or meaning – may be seen as an alternative to a disenchanted world ruled by entirely profane criteria such as economic rationality, progressivism, or science. Is the revival of religion a pale reminder of a by-gone past or does it provide sources of hope for the future?

‘Religion in the Public Sphere’ by Jürgen Habermas (European Journal of Philosophy, 2006)

In this paper, philosopher Jürgen Habermas discusses the limits of church-state separation, emphasizing the significant contribution of religion to public discourse when translated into publicly accessible reasons.

‘Public Religions in the Modern World’ by José Casanova (University Of Chicago Press, 1994)

Sociologist José Casanova explores the global emergence of public religion, analyzing case studies from Catholicism and Protestantism in Spain, Poland, Brazil, and the USA, challenging traditional theories of secularization.

‘The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere’ by Judith Butler, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, and Cornel West (Edited by Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, Columbia University Press, 2011)

This collection features dialogues by prominent intellectuals on the role of religion in the public sphere, examining various approaches and their impacts on cultural, social, and political debates.

‘Rethinking Secularism’ by Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen (Oxford University Press, 2011)

An interdisciplinary examination of secularism, this book challenges traditional views, highlighting the complex relationship between religion and secularism in contemporary global politics.

‘God is Back: How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World’ by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (Penguin, 2010)

Micklethwait and Wooldridge argue for the coexistence of religion and modernity, suggesting that religious beliefs can contribute to a more open, tolerant, and peaceful modern world.

‘Multiculturalism’ by Tariq Modood (Polity Press, 2013)

Sociologist Tariq Modood emphasizes the importance of multiculturalism in integrating diverse identities, particularly in post-immigration contexts, and its role in shaping democratic citizenship.

‘God’s Agents: Biblical Publicity in Contemporary England’ by Matthew Engelke (University of California Press, 2013)

In this ethnographic study, Matthew Engelke explores how a group in England seeks to expand the role of religion in the public sphere, challenging perceptions of religion in post-secular England.

Gene therapy is a medical approach that treats or prevents disease by correcting the underlying genetic problem. Is gene therapy better than traditional medicines? What are the pros and cons of using gene therapy as a medicine? Is gene therapy justifiable?

Especially after Covid-19 mRNA vaccines, gene therapy is getting more and more interesting approach to cure. That’s why that could be interesting to think about. I believe that students will enjoy and learn a lot while they are investigating this topic.

The Hall at King’s College, Cambridge

The Hall was designed by William Wilkins in the 1820s and is considered one of the most magnificent halls of its era. The first High Table dinner in the Hall was held in February 1828, and ever since then, the splendid Hall has been where members of the college eat and where formal dinners have been held for centuries.

The Award Ceremony and Dinner will be held in the Hall in the evening of  30th July, 2024.

Stretching out down to the River Cam, the Back Lawn has one of the most iconic backdrop of King’s College Chapel. 

The early evening reception will be hosted on the Back Lawn with the iconic Chapel in the background (weather permitting). 

King’s College Chapel

With construction started in 1446 by Henry VI and took over a century to build, King’s College Chapel is one of the most iconic buildings in the world, and is a splendid example of late Gothic architecture. 

Attendees are also granted complimentary access to the King’s College Chapel before and during the event. 

Confirmed Nobel Laureates

Dr Thomas R. Cech

The nobel prize in chemistry 1989 , for the discovery of catalytic properties of rna.

Thomas Robert Cech is an American chemist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman, for their discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA. Cech discovered that RNA could itself cut strands of RNA, suggesting that life might have started as RNA. He found that RNA can not only transmit instructions, but also that it can speed up the necessary reactions.

He also studied telomeres, and his lab discovered an enzyme, TERT (telomerase reverse transcriptase), which is part of the process of restoring telomeres after they are shortened during cell division.

As president of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, he promoted science education, and he teaches an undergraduate chemistry course at the University of Colorado

Sir Richard J. Roberts

The nobel prize in medicine 1993 .

F or the discovery of split genes

During 1969–1972, Sir Richard J. Roberts did postdoctoral research at Harvard University before moving to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was hired by James Dewey Watson, a co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and a fellow Nobel laureate. In this period he also visited the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology for the first time, working alongside Fred Sanger. In 1977, he published his discovery of RNA splicing. In 1992, he moved to New England Biolabs. The following year, he shared a Nobel Prize with his former colleague at Cold Spring Harbor Phillip Allen Sharp.

His discovery of the alternative splicing of genes, in particular, has had a profound impact on the study and applications of molecular biology. The realisation that individual genes could exist as separate, disconnected segments within longer strands of DNA first arose in his 1977 study of adenovirus, one of the viruses responsible for causing the common cold. Robert’s research in this field resulted in a fundamental shift in our understanding of genetics, and has led to the discovery of split genes in higher organisms, including human beings.

Dr Aaron Ciechanover

The nobel prize in chemistry 2004 .

F or the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation

Aaron Ciechanover is one of Israel’s first Nobel Laureates in science, earning his Nobel Prize in 2004 for his work in ubiquitination. He is honored for playing a central role in the history of Israel and in the history of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

Dr Ciechanover is currently a Technion Distinguished Research Professor in the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute at the Technion. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Russian Academy of Sciences and is a foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences. In 2008, he was a visiting Distinguished Chair Professor at NCKU, Taiwan. As part of Shenzhen’s 13th Five-Year Plan funding research in emerging technologies and opening “Nobel laureate research labs”, in 2018 he opened the Ciechanover Institute of Precision and Regenerative Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen campus.

Dr Robert Lefkowitz

The nobel prize in chemistry 2012 .

F or the discovery of G protein-coupled receptors

Robert Joseph Lefkowitz is an American physician (internist and cardiologist) and biochemist. He is best known for his discoveries that reveal the inner workings of an important family G protein-coupled receptors, for which he was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Brian Kobilka. He is currently an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as well as a James B. Duke Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry at Duke University.

Dr Lefkowitz made a remarkable contribution in the mid-1980s when he and his colleagues cloned the gene first for the β-adrenergic receptor, and then rapidly thereafter, for a total of 8 adrenergic receptors (receptors for adrenaline and noradrenaline). This led to the seminal discovery that all GPCRs (which include the β-adrenergic receptor) have a very similar molecular structure. The structure is defined by an amino acid sequence which weaves its way back and forth across the plasma membrane seven times. Today we know that about 1,000 receptors in the human body belong to this same family. The importance of this is that all of these receptors use the same basic mechanisms so that pharmaceutical researchers now understand how to effectively target the largest receptor family in the human body. Today, as many as 30 to 50 percent of all prescription drugs are designed to “fit” like keys into the similarly structured locks of Dr Lefkowitz’ receptors—everything from anti-histamines to ulcer drugs to beta blockers that help relieve hypertension, angina and coronary disease.

Dr Lefkowitz is among the most highly cited researchers in the fields of biology, biochemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, and clinical medicine according to Thomson-ISI.

Dr Joachim Frank

The nobel prize in chemistry 2017 .

F or developing cryo-electron microscopy

Joachim Frank is a German-American biophysicist at Columbia University and a Nobel laureate. He is regarded as the founder of single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017 with Jacques Dubochet and Richard Henderson. He also made significant contributions to structure and function of the ribosome from bacteria and eukaryotes.

In 1975, Dr Frank was offered a position of senior research scientist in the Division of Laboratories and Research (now Wadsworth Center), New York State Department of Health,where he started working on single-particle approaches in electron microscopy. In 1985 he was appointed associate and then (1986) full professor at the newly formed Department of Biomedical Sciences of the University at Albany, State University of New York. In 1987 and 1994, he went on sabbaticals in Europe, one to work with Richard Henderson, Laboratory of Molecular Biology Medical Research Council in Cambridge and the other as a Humboldt Research Award winner with Kenneth C. Holmes, Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg. In 1998, Dr Frank was appointed investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Since 2003 he was also lecturer at Columbia University, and he joined Columbia University in 2008 as professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and of biological sciences.

Dr Barry C. Barish

The nobel prize in physics 2017 .

For the decisive contributions to the detection of gravitational waves

Dr Barry Clark Barish is an American experimental physicist and Nobel Laureate. He is a Linde Professor of Physics, emeritus at California Institute of Technology and a leading expert on gravitational waves.

In 2017, Barish was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics along with Rainer Weiss and Kip Thorne “for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves”. He said, “I didn’t know if I would succeed. I was afraid I would fail, but because I tried, I had a breakthrough.”

In 2018, he joined the faculty at University of California, Riverside, becoming the university’s second Nobel Prize winner on the faculty.

In the fall of 2023, he joined Stony Brook University as the inaugural President’s Distinguished Endowed Chair in Physics.

In 2023, Dr Barish was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Biden in a White House ceremony.

Dr Harvey J. Alter

The nobel prize in medicine 2020 .

For the discovery of Hepatitis C virus

Dr Harvey J. Alter is an American medical researcher, virologist, physician and Nobel Prize laureate, who is best known for his work that led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Alter is the former chief of the infectious disease section and the associate director for research of the Department of Transfusion Medicine at the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. In the mid-1970s, Alter and his research team demonstrated that most post-transfusion hepatitis cases were not due to hepatitis A or hepatitis B viruses. Working independently, Alter and Edward Tabor, a scientist at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, proved through transmission studies in chimpanzees that a new form of hepatitis, initially called “non-A, non-B hepatitis” caused the infections, and that the causative agent was probably a virus. This work eventually led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus in 1988, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2020 along with Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice.

Dr Alter has received recognition for the research leading to the discovery of the virus that causes hepatitis C. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award conferred to civilians in United States government public health service, and the 2000 Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research.

Dr Ardem Patapoutian

The nobel prize in medicine 2021 .

For discovering how pressure is translated into nerve impulses

Dr Ardem Patapoutian is an Lebanese-American molecular biologist, neuroscientist, and Nobel Prize laureate of Armenian descent. He is known for his work in characterising the PIEZO1, PIEZO2, and TRPM8 receptors that detect pressure, menthol, and temperature. Dr Patapoutian is a neuroscience professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California. In 2021, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with David Julius.

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Programmes & Qualifications

Cambridge igcse history (0470).

• Syllabus overview

Cambridge IGCSE History looks at some of the major international issues of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and covers the history of particular regions and events in more depth.

The syllabus:

• enables learners to develop historical knowledge and the skills required for studying historical evidence
• gives flexibility for teachers to develop a course that interests and stimulates their learners
• provides a sound basis for further study and encourages a lifelong interest in the subject.

Coursework and non-coursework options are available.

The syllabus year refers to the year in which the examination will be taken.

• -->2023 Syllabus update (PDF, 156KB)
• -->2024 - 2026 Syllabus update (PDF, 143KB)

Syllabus support

• -->Support for History (PDF, 851KB)
• -->2023 - 2026 Grade descriptions (PDF, 118KB)

Syllabus updates

We have updated Cambridge IGCSE History to make sure that the content reflects the interests of our schools. Some content has been amended and introduced to improve the international focus and some content has been removed. The assessment has been refreshed to make it clearer and more accessible for both teachers and learners.

The 2023 syllabus (previously for 2023-2025) is now for examination in 2023 only. The updated syllabus is for examination from March 2024 onwards.

We communicated this to schools in March 2022.

For full details of the changes, please see the 2024-2026 syllabus above.

Visit the School Support Hub for a wide range of teaching and learning resources to support this syllabus.

To book a place on any of our face-to-face or online training courses, visit our Events and training calendar .

Endorsed resources

Rely on author Ben Walsh's bestselling approach to navigate through the syllabus content and help students acquire the skills they need.

Read more on the Hodder Education website

Encourage your students’ curiosity for the past with our new series. Includes source analysis guidance, revision tips, essay-writing support and more alongside five depth studies, including WW1 and WW2.

Read more on the Cambridge University Press website

Important notices

Please note that if you make an entry for the A*-G grading scale, it is not then possible to switch to the 9-1 grading scale once the entries deadline has passed. If you find that you have accidentally made an entry for the A*-G syllabus, you must withdraw and re-enter before the entries deadline.

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