History Textbooks

[SmileBeloved]

Hi everyone. We have a history teacher who is new to IB and is not really sure about what's going on. Unfortunately, our lovely school has failed to provide us with any text books either- and I am planning on buying some abroad when I go for break.

What text books are essential, and which books do I need to cover the topics that I need for IB?

Desperate.

[alefal]

Hey there!

There are no books you need to have, there are usually a variety of good books you may use. Also, due to the fact that different teachers structure the course differently, it is hard for us at IBS to recommend a certain book without knowing what topics you will cover. Maybe you could ask your teacher for this? If we knew this, we could make better recommendations for you.

At our school, we use books written by historians (not books explicitly written for schools). I am not quite sure what period you will cover, nor exactly what topics that you will cover, but 'Mastering Modern World History' by Norman Lowe is a book I can recommend. It is one of the books we use at my school and is very good for an overview of the different events in modern history. We also use 'A History of the Modern World' by R. R. Palmer, which is much more comprehensive than Norman Lowe, but might be a bit boring and 'complex' at times. As you might understand, we study modern history at my school, so they won't be as useful if you're studying ancient history.

We have also used a couple of topic-specific books and booklets depending on what topic we were studying.

I am not sure how good the official course companion is, as we don't use it in our classes, but it might be a book to consider.

Good luck!

Edited March 2, 2013 by alefal

[SSMFW]

Hey people have different views on what to use. Since we are the first IB cohort at our school, we have been provided with A LOT of history recourses and history books.

For SL we do the Peacemaking Option and we have the Cambridge Publisher Books which I have to say is excellent because it tells you the job quickly enough without any irrelevant bits which make it also a great revision guide too and there's a lot of sources throughout with a lot of past paper questions and a chapter how to approach the source questions too.

For SL Paper 2 we do Cold War and One-Party States (Dictators) and we have the pearson baccalaureate books AND the cambridge books again, for both. The Pearson is definately thicker and much more detailed (which can be useful if you want to do your EE or IA on a section from these books) whereas Cambridge again is straight to the point. I have seen that the Cambridge books are also laid out in the style of the IB Syllabus which is why I prefer them. The pEason book is thicker because it has more dictators in there (about six I think) whereas Cambridge has less (four - this book also has Hitler which the other hasn't)

For HL again we have the Access to History for the IB Diploma because we do IB History of the Americas and I would say they were great recourses to start off with (shame they were published so late into my second year) and we have got a lot of information from it. But then the Cambridge books again were published and printed - they're in a miniature size, smaller bind size and there is less information in there - so it's definately a buy.

Hope this helped. Just message me for more info.

[Arrowhead]

For most of the World War, paper 2 stuff, I suggest Keylor's account on Twentieth Century World History. A university-level textbooks and a very dense read, but if you can push through it, it is a guaranteed 7!

For paper 1 stuff, literally, wikipedia all your subtopics.

[Yahooo!]

It depends on what you are studying really...

For Paper 1, this book covers all the topics:

Pearson Baccalaureate: History: A Comprehensive Guide to Paper 1 for the IB Diploma or even the simple OSC revision guide would be enough for Paper 1.

For Paper 2, I have been using these books:

Pearson Baccalaureate: History: Causes, Practices and Effects of Wars for the IB Diploma

Pearson Baccalaureate: History: Cold War for the IB Diploma

For Paper 3, I am doing Russia

We were given this book : Years of Russia and the USSR, 1851-1991 by Evans and Jenkins, its amazing and goes into a lot of detail, a second hand one on Amazon is relatively cheap.

With that being said though, the Access to History books are really good for Russia too.

[susanne]

the Pearson Baccalaureate book, that's a must have.

but the other books depends on which route you're taking.

[IBKID4lyf]

Hi guys, any others you think are useful?

[mm8888]

The cambridge and pearson books are both really usefull

[Ryoika]

Pearson vs. Campbridge- which one's better?

[Yahooo!]

The Pearson ones are definitely the best ones, in my experience!

The books you mentioned for Paper 1 and 2 are excellent for revision!

I also did Russia and I used the Evans and Jenkins books. For Lenin, I would recommend the book on Lenin by Alan White- it's a short book but very good.

I received a level 7 by using all the books you mentioned and the White.